Roadmaster Tulsa

I'll start off by saying that before I began this step towards a new career in trucking I was incredibly nervous about joining Roadmaster because of the stuff that I had heard both online and from a few people that I knew. I was considering joining Central Tech in Drumright, OK but they did not have weekend classes or financing. So that was out of the equation, leaving only Roadmaster. After much pondering I decided to finally take the plunge starting on weekends and moving over to weekdays after 4 weekends.

Not sure where to start here so I'll start with the recruiter. The recruiter that I had was nice enough I suppose, but when he found out that I had considered Central Tech he seemed to find every opening in a conversation to make pop shots at the school (even though Central Tech was clearly better). It was annoying, but he was nice and knowledgeable.

Shortly after I enrolled I started that weekend. By the 2nd week I had three pre-hire offers from Stevens, Melton, and Werner. The instructor that lead our classroom training was incredibly knowledgeable and nice. I got my permit my first try and I think she was a huge help in accomplishing that. The e-treads that we did were incredibly boring at times, but also incredibly helpful at times.

Your day will consist of half day driving on the road and half day on the pad. On the pad you practice between several maneuvers that include sight and blind side off sets, sight and blind side parallels, and your alley dock. After you've been taught on how to do them all your free to work on whatever you feel you need to work on the most. On the pad you have Royce and Scott, both of which are incredible at the maneuvers. And man can they teach you! I can't do the alley dock. No matter how many times I've done it, I just can't get the concept down. The training director, Jon, was helpful in helping to teach me this maneuver too. I got lucky a few times in getting the truck in the box with the alley dock, but that's all it was: luck. Everything else I got quickly! Towards the end there a few instructors that were primarily on the road were on the pad a few times too.

Now for the instructors. Towards the end of my time one instructor had come back from surgery, so I had never rode with him or interacted with him. So this next section is with him in exclusion. As for the others, they were all incredibly professional, knowledgeable, and of heavenly patience (trust me, this is a rare thing even in instructors haha). The first first instructor I ever rode with was Phil. There was a girl who took forever getting the shifting and kept killing the truck. He never once got upset, just kept her going until she got it. I also rode with Rick, Nancy, and Joanne. All four were incredible and knowledgeable. Towards the end, when you are about to test, one of the instructors will put you through his own road test and grade you as though it was the real deal. Let me say this, if you can pass his road test, your good to go. These instructors put you through some incredibly difficult turns and roads. I liked it that way because that's how I learn... just getting in there and doing it. You'll practice your right and left turns, jug handles, rail road crossings, highway driving and merging, and much more.

The trucks. There are 4 trucks that they rotate between maneuvers every day. They rotate them to let everyone get used to driving a different truck, so they do not become relaxed on one truck. The trucks are kept up okay and work well enough to do the maneuvers. Except for the Volvo, haha. I'll leave it at that. You use 48' trailers for you maneuvers, 53' trailers while driving on the road, and 45' trailers when doing the test at DPS. Speaking of DPS, Roadmaster will not let you test until you've reached 160 hours. Even then they will not force you to test if you do not believe you are ready to test. You let them know when you think your ready. I really, really liked that.

I have taken the DPS test twice now (today being 2nd attempt). The first time I failed the sight side parallel because I was nervous and tried to rush screwing up everything. If I had been calm and collective I'd have passed. Today I was given the alley dock: my nemesis. Yea, I did not get that done. I'll test again one week from next Monday... so we'll see how that goes.

This school is just like anything. If you go in with an attitude and wanting to learn, you'll do great. But if you think you know everything and don't want to listen then no one will want to help and you won't make it very far. All up to you.

 

Chinatown, those are a lot of companies. Thank you for the input! But I decided to go to Werner because they have the best options for me that includes full tuition reimbursement. But I'll definitely keep that list for future placement once I have good experience!