ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The City of Albuquerque has a new driving simulator to help train our city’s next group of truck drivers.

“We’ve been kind of testing it out and customizing it so that our employees get to get as close to the actual experience,” said Jennifer Turner, director of the city’s Municipal Development. 

That experience goes a long way as Albuquerque city employees train for their commercial driving license or CDL. It’s required to drive any city snow plow, sweeper, dump truck and other equipment. 

“I did, you know, pretty much six hours a day on it,” said Runaldo Gonzalez.

Runaldo Gonzalez is training for his license.

“I’m honestly feeling comfortable, just like they said, the simulator helped me out, figure out the shifting patterns and stuff like that,” said Gonzalez. “It’s pretty much all practice. So it got me ready for the big truck.”

Gonzalez and other employees have been using the $130,000 simulator for a couple of months.

Turner explained it’s more than just fancy tech. The city’s training specialist is able to get a bird’s eye view of what’s going on during a simulator session.

“It saves wear and tear and damage to city vehicles, and it also protects the public by having our employees learn first here before they are out on the roads,” said Turner.