What to expect during training

Do you have some cash reserves? Some reefer drivers are waiting 4-6 weeks for a trainer. That's what drivers are posting on here.

 

WOW, that is a long wait, especially if someone has a family depending upon that paycheck coming in.

It sounds as though that there is quite a shortage of qualified trainers to train the recruits.

It also sounds as though that the recruits are being more drawn to reefers vs. dry van, flatbeds, or tankers.

 

Why is that I wonder.Once they get qualified is waiting for loads a long wait at times?

 

Chinatown’s comment was about Maverick, not the industry as a whole

Maverick does not have Dry Van or Tankers, just Flat Bed, Specialized, Glass, and Reefer divisions and they are short of Reefer trainers as it is a fairly new division for them.

 

My son is training on reefer for MCT/Willis and he had to wait two weeks for a trainer. He's been out with the trainer for over three weeks now, will be out for about two more weeks. So that makes almost two months to get assigned to his own truck. The wait for a trainer might depend on what part of the country you're in, too. They finally found a trainer who lives in the next town over, which is nice.

 

Sounds like companies are hurting for trainers as much as they are for drivers.

 

What is so different about refer training ? Don't you just need to learn how to run the refer unit , set temp. and keep refer fuel tank with enough fuel.

I am not a driver but thought that this was about it , is there something I am missing ?

 

If you are going to pull Reefer, they send you out with a trainer who runs reefer, not with a Flat Bed or Glass trainer so that you get experience pulling the loads you will pull when going solo.

Each type of trucking (Flat Bed, Tanker, Dry Box, Reefer) has its own things to learn that are unique to the type of load they are hauling besides basic driving techniques.

Besides basic driving skills a Flat Bed or Glass trainer consecrate training on load securement to a flat bed trailer, something you do not need to know running a reefer so your time training for that would be wasted. They also do not necessarily know the anything about how to run a reefer and are not pulling reefer loads so you would end up with no reefer training at all.

There’s a lot more to learn about a reefer then just turning it on and setting a temperature. Reefer trainers will train you on how to run the reefer and what temperatures to keep each type of product at, how much time before getting a load you need to run it to cool down the box to a given temp taking into account the outside temp, when to use continuous and when to use cycled, how to washout the trailer and get the smell from a prior load out and more.

Check the thread at http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...trucking-forum/241065-reefer-for-dummies.html for more info on what reefer drivers deal with.