Where the knowledge test asks what you know, § 383.113 asks what you can do, and it divides that into three demonstrations. The first is pre-trip vehicle inspection. Applicants must possess basic pre-trip inspection skills for the vehicle class they operate or expect to operate, and for all test vehicles must be able to identify each safety-related part and explain what needs to be inspected to ensure that part is in a safe operating condition — the engine compartment among them. Note the verb: identify and EXPLAIN. This is a spoken demonstration as much as a physical one, and it is where applicants most often come unstuck.

The second is basic vehicle control skills and the third is safe on-road driving skills, each set out in its own paragraph of § 383.113 for the vehicle class concerned. The three are scored as separate segments, which matters for what happens when one goes wrong: § 383.135(b)(1) requires a passing score on EACH segment, so competence on the road does not compensate for a weak inspection.

Two further paragraphs of § 383.113 constrain how a State may run the test rather than what the applicant must show — one on the test area and one on simulation technology. They are worth knowing about only so that a candidate is not surprised by where and how a State chooses to conduct the examination. The restrictions that follow from the VEHICLE you bring to this test — air brakes, transmission, coupling — are § 4.4’s subject and are decided here without being part of the score.