Roadmaster San Antonio, TX Review

Today I completed Roadmaster Truck Driving School. I thought I would give my review.

Week One: DOT Physical is Day One to include urine drug test. They told us at least one would fail if not more. They were right and one person failed. If you cannot pass or you think there is a chance that you will fail reschedule. They have a class that starts every week. After the physical you receive study guides to study for your permit and air brake test. The instructor goes over everything on the test.



Week One Day Two: You study and go over more of the CDL test information. The instructor goes over the questions that trip most people up on the test and explains what the answer is on the test.



Week One Day Three: Is DPS day where you go take your permit, combination, and air brake test. The study guides Roadmaster gives you are basically 50 to 100 questions from the actual tests. When you take the test at DPS they are the same questions but you only answer 20 to 30 of them. A lot of people failed one, two, or three tests. I am not an expert but IMO if you read up on test taking skills, I think it would help. I took many classes and training with the Army and I believe that helped me to identify want info to hold onto and what info to roll out the other. But like I said just my opinion.



Week One Day Four: You continue to study for any test you may have failed and also study General Knowledge, Pre-Trip, Double/Triples, and Tanker. In the State of Texas after you take your permit and before you take your Road test you can take your endorsements ie Doubles/Triples and Tanker are no charge. (This does NOT include Hazmat.) If you wait till after you get your CDL every endorsement is $11.00 each except for Hazmat which is around $100. Also, you cannot take Hazmat till after you complete your road test.



Week One Day Five: There is not school but you do go to DPS and take any tests you may have failed. Also, you take General Knowledge, Air Brake, and Pre-Trip. If you do not have at least your Permit, Air Brake, and Combination test passed, you will have to retake week one.




Week Two Day One: You spend the morning pretripping, coupling, and uncoupling. After lunch you drive around the lot with the Instructor practicing double clutching through low gears.



Week Two Day 2-4: Pretripping and straight backing in the yard is the morning and the afternoon you are on actual roads learning to up shift and down shift. The road is in the shape of a horse shoe, very light traffic and no pedestrians.



Week Three Day 1-4: Half your day is spent in the yard learning and practicing straight back, ally dock back, and parallel parking. Some people get bored during this time but this is the time to make mistakes and fix them. There is an instructor at every back and they look at people backing every day and can tell you what to do to improve. The other half of your day is out driving with your road instructor. You do a mix of city driving and highway driving. This part is the most important because you are driving a semi truck and trailer and learning how to get around along with shifting and down shifting. If for some reason you do not mesh with an instructor ask to be switched. You did pay to be there and some people don't mesh well and it is no ones fault, it is life.



Week Four Day1-3: Half the day is spent in the yard practicing backing and more backing. Also, during this time the school will test you on your pre-trip, coupling, uncoupling, and air brake test. Since you will be doing all those tasks every day there is no reason to fail. The other half of the day you are out driving with your instructor. You will take the route and know it. Week four is probably the easiest week but the longest because you want to get your road test over with.



Week Four Day Four: Road TEST at DPS. The schools in the area all meet at a dps location and you are assigned a time that you will be tested by dps. You will be tested by dps not an instructor that also can road test. The most common reason people fail is because they hit a curb. If you can stay off the curb and not break any traffic laws you will have no problems.



I liked the school for what it is and that is to prepare you for your cdl exam. They have Volvo 630's and 660's. Also, they have Freightliner Century's. The Volvo's are 10 speed and the Freightliners are 9 speeds. Most had 500,000 miles some had 700,000 miles. They do rent some Volvo's from Penske and they are 10 speeds and pretty much new. After your first week in the classroom it is 3-4 students to one instructor. You will have the same instructor and truck on the road. The truck you train with on the road with will be the truck you take your test in. The trucks have sleepers but the bed and cabinets are removed and replaced with 3 air ride seats. You sit in these seats when someone else is driving.



I liked having 2 or 3 other students with me on the truck because I could see their mistakes and good qualities. Most of us make the same mistakes and if you see someone else do them then you can generally improve by seeing what to do instead. Our class started with 23 people and today we road tested 9 of which 8 passed. 23 to 9 nine is a lot of people to drop but a majority of the people were recycled to the next class because they could not pass the written tests at DPS. That is why I recommend reading up on test taking skills.



Overall I enjoyed the class and made some friends I will keep in contact with. I am going to make another post to give a run down of the companies that came in to recruit while I was there. Thanks for reading let me know if you have any questions. I am leaving for orientation in a few days but I should be on here to see any questions.

 

The last four weeks some companies came to recruit students while we attended school. I did not go with any of them. I have friends/family that are drivers and being a member of TTR since I think 2006 I already had my opinion of the companies but I would listen to them mainly because the bought lunch.



US Xpress: The recruiter was okay. He did not seem to bring to much bs to the table. I did like as a military veteran at USX they start you at the 2 yr experienced pay scale vs the student pay scale. I did not like that you have to do 150 hours with a trainer and then another 4-8 weeks as dumb and dumber with another student. Some might like that but not me. The sliding pay scale, I did not like either. Also, the drop and hook rate seem pretty high 80 to 90 percent. Their benefits are really expensive $1000 a month for an 80/20 plan with family. They did not contribute or match money with 401K. They did bring the best lunch chicken.



TMC: This recruiter in my opinion was the least polished. He did play up the whole Peterbilt blah blah, also the 22 inch television in the new 579's. Another student raised their hand and said "What do you guys pay?" The recruiter said something like who wants to be paid by the mile, we have Peterbilts. It was that bad, it was funny. I understand he was trying to play up the % pay. But being in South Texas with the oil fields in our back yards people wanted to hear about money not Peterbilt's with leather seats.



Roehl: This recruiter was a little better then TMC but not much. First thing he said was I get salary not commission and I get 2x the recruits I need. He did a poor job at explaining practical vs air miles. Also, when he explained the pay raises he kept saying what are you worth. If you do this that and blah blah you can get up to a four cent raise. What are you worth. Once again we're in South Texas and oil fields in our back yard. It's not what I am worth it is what are you worth. Some may disagree but that is how I felt. Either way I would go with Roehl because they do not try to stick you with a trainer for 2 months but I did not go with them. One more thing about Roehl was supposed to be at the school the Monday after the SuperBowl and the recruiter no called no showed. Once again, what are you worth? lol



Stevens: They are funny. They sent drivers two weeks in a row to show off their trucks. But it always seemed like the recruiter did not know because the driver would come and sit in the parking lot then two days later the recruiter would show up. I would think you would want the recruiter and truck there the same day. Just my opinion. Steven's pays the least per mile and their training seemed really long. They were similar to TMC playing up the equipment. The recruiter was a true used car salesman and being I sold cars for seven years I no problem identifying a used car salesman.



Werner: What can I say? They had the best recruiter. I liked the guy and after his presentation he had a ton of people getting applications from him. He played up the Family Dollar account and was very careful not to mention the pay per mile. Although it takes all of 60 seconds to google Werner and all their student complaints I guaranteed he had the most applications.


According to the school Schneider, Maverick, and Covnenant will be at the school the next two weeks.


The thing I did not like about the companies is I believe most to all of these companies make the driver take per diem and they also charge the driver 2 cents a miles for the privilege of being paid forced per diem. I think that is bs that not one of the companies brought up per diem. Just my opinion. Anyways it was fun listening to these companies while they fed me and thought I would share.

 

I'll be in Tulsa Sunday night. I'm going with Melton. I liked their pay, apu, and the fact I can use my GI Bill. Plus, they have 3 terminals in TX I was hoping to see home a little bit between scheduled time off. The last part may be wishful thinking but that is why they call it wishful haha.

 

Thanks Chinatown. I read a lot of your posts for the newbies and they're real helpful. I believe you recommend PTL? a lot to newbies and I do see them a lot in my area too but Melton really appealed to me. I read someones post at some time or another that said if you never see the company around your neck of the woods how often can you see home. Whether or not that really matters I do not know but I see Melton a ton, more then TMC, Maverick, and Roehl. The pay, apu, benefits, and gi bill were also important.