Please Help a New Driver OUT!!

congrats. glad to see it was somthing simple. hope he does well

 

What's a bit of a puzzle to me is that it's only a short walk from the truck parking area to the terminal offices. Why did he not go in and talk to the personnel there? Roehl has their whole regional management (V.P. Operations) located right there including fleet managers and fleet operation managers (they supervise FM) and the entire training staff for both Phase 1 and 2. All very nice people in my experience. Glad to hear that the problem got solved, but I think it was unnecessarily prolonged by him not going inside and talking face to face with staff who could investigate and find the problem. I am no longer with Roehl, but did start there and never heard of anything like this happening. It is way out of the ordinary IMHO. Good luck to you!

 

Did your husband get picked up by his phase II trainer in Dothan Alabama?

 

if he is in Gary have him knock on a few doors there until he finds someone who can answer his questions. I have been with Roehl for 1.5 months and I have never had to wait for a load. Also the load board there at Gary is usually full of loads. Have him look through them and make suggestions as to which ones he can take.

 

I haven't had time to read through the entire thread, but if your husband is still waiting to hear from a fleet manager and cannot get ahold of him/her, I would suggest trying to call the recruiter he started talking to before he was hired. The recruiter should be able to get someone to call him. Good luck!

 

I am pretty sure that I am the trainer your husband had. If so, I am sorry that it did not work out as he was a very good driver. His backing skills were as good as any student I have ever had and as good as many experienced drivers.
As far as driving like a team, please allow me to clarify, for any future potential students that may be reading this.
According to my trip sheets, during the 15 days we were in the truck, we drove just under 6300 total miles (3340 one week 2960 the other) That comes out to about 420 miles per day. Obviously some days were longer and others shorter, but over the 15 days 420 miles was the daily average.
That is definitely above average, and there were definitely some days in which we would get over 10hrs of driving done between the 2 of us.
I also have my students drive the vast majority of the miles (about 80%} while I ride in the passenger seat. It is my goal to try to get them atleast 350 miles per day behind the wheel. Any less and I would not be doing my job. Usually when I am driving, it is for the student to do the trip planning/calling customers etc...
I think the only day we drove more miles than a solo driver could was on the last day where we had about 700-750 miles to go to get to Gary on Wed night so he could test out the next morning. On that day we both drove for nearly 14hrs combined.
As far as "padding my check" I cannot do that any different than a company driver trainer, as we all are governed by the same training policy and DOT hours of service.
I have had some students tell me that they thought they would only have to work/drive 6hrs a day, but that is the minimum work required to be considered a full day of training and to earn the full days training pay.
Again, I am sorry things did not work out, and I hope everything works out for yall wherever you go from here.. Your husband was definitely one of the better students I have trained.

 

I was a trainer with a local bulk hauler in central Illinois. We pulled 40' frameless dump buckets that could tip if you simply blew on them wrong. What I told my trainees is that it is not my job to impress you with my driving ability, my job is to make sure you know how to do the job when you get out on your own. A trainee is ready for his own truck when the trainer can sit in the jump seat and do nothing but be a passenger. In my case if a trainee wasn't ready and I released him, he could be in the hospital, or morgue the next week. Our training program was 2-3 weeks in a trainer's truck and then a week in your own truck shadowing your trainer in his truck. If you are a trainee and your trainer doesn't make you do most of the work while he watches, then you do not have a very good trainer.

 

Viking84 and P.M. both of your styles in training seem like more of what it should be unless the trainee has an issue such as being very fatigued which doesn't sound like that was the case. It doesn't sound like you abuse trainees with the way you described it. Seems to me if the trainees aren't exposed to what it will be like when they're on their own they'll be in for a much bigger shock than normal when that day does come.
I've been on the fence about driving for a long time but IF I do it I wouldn't expect to just ride around with the trainer I'd want to learn. That's the purpose of being there. It sounds like an unfortunate episode.
And as far a some of your trainees thinking they only would need to work/drive 6 hours a day welcome to the new America, and that's a sad state of affairs right there. Unfortunately that seems to be the new normal and it's going for all age groups too and all industries.

 

If you are an otr driver and you are only averaging 420 miles a day you aren't working very hard. I drive 56-57 mph and do 420 in about 8.5 hours of driving. Days like that I average at, or a bit under 12 hours from start to stop including all the stops during the day. In trucking that is an easy day. If you can't handle that, your trainer needs to know in training, not let the company find out after you get in your own truck. Through the years I've been around many new drivers that would complain about a tough load that was doable, but you would have to hustle to get it done. The time they were wasting complaining was the time they needed to do the job. Simple fact is that if you are on a 12 on, 12 off schedule for most of us that is a nice schedule.