I congratulate you on your pick. I feel like you made a good choice. I am glad the weekend classes will work with your schedule. Even with the ride I think you will save yourself a lot of money. I like Howard Transportation. I hope to hear from them soon. Their recruiter seemed the most honest and realistic at recruiter day. Not a lot of B.S. As I mentioned JCC held a recruiter day. Not as many companies there as in the past, but I guess that can be expected with todays economy. They do seem to have a good relationship with several companies as the school seems well respected by them. Several recruiters even mention the high caliber of students the school turned out.

To be honest I think I will be fine. I think I have a good idea of what to expect. I will just be glad to get the first 60 -90 days over with. Feel free to ask anything. I'll do my best to answer.

Kinnakeet, when driving trucks at JCC are there any other students riding in the truck with you or are one on one with instructor.

Greetings from the I-75 exit 109 Pilot in GA.

Every day I've given thanks I went to NCTDT. I'm having a blast.

If you don't mind me jumping in, Kinnakeet...to answer Lets Roll there's typically 3 students + instructor, sometimes 2.

After soloing, 2 students, no instructor.

Spacebat, What is the road like. let me know so I can make my mind up if thats what i want to do.

I'm in training with Werner, so I'm certainly no expert but I'm happy to share what I've found so far.

1. NCTDT will prepare you well. I feel well-prepared for everything I've encountered on the road so far. You will need to learn the specifics of whatever company you will work for in terms of paperwork, terminal operations, little details on how they want you to drive, and how an account is run if you are on a dedicated account, but you will feel comfortable in the truck from Day One if you did okay at NCTDT. The only thing I'm having to learn is how to float gears, and I'm doing that at my own pace.

If anything I feel a bit more prepared than some of the other students. I have been maxing out my drive time every day (I don't get all 11, but I get as many as I can based on the account logistics...about 8-9 on average given that we make 4-5 stops a day plus a trip back to the DC). If your trainer here doesn't feel you're up to snuff you may not get as many hours as you like, so again, that's a good reflection on the NCTDT training that mine is letting me drive my butt off.

2. I think the hardest thing for me is the hometime or lack thereof, since I am facing 3-4 weeks of training before I am off for a week, then back again for another 3 weeks. We have to get 300 hours logged (line 3) before they turn us loose, and that's a bit of a challenge given the account I'm on. I know that down the road, as I gain experience, I will be able to move into driving jobs that give me more home time, but it's important for you and your family to understand that you're going to be away for a while in the beginning of your driving career unless you snag a nice job that gives you the home time you want right off the bat.

3. Second hardest thing is the long days on this particular account (Dollar General) and the unloading, but this is an account-specific thing and the DG account is somewhat legendary for being a massive PITA. I am holding up well, however. Then again, if I never saw another rolltainer again...ever...I'd be a happy camper. I have dropped one pants size in the past week alone. I'm canceling my gym membership when I get home. As I said before, though...the driving is the fun part.

4. Whether you actually like the driving is up to you. On this particular account I'm travelling through rural GA, FL, SC, and AL (so far). Except for the stretches where I'm going to the Distribution Center (DC) on superslab, I'm on a lot of back roads, so I get to see a lot of the countryside. That's a plus, IMHO, since droning along on the highway gets old. I found that after the first day I was as at home in the truck as I was in my own car. I also had no trouble adapting to living out of the sleeper.

My day runs something like this:

1. leave distribution center at some point....drive to first stop. I'm on a midnight curfew for my first two weeks or so, so I have to shut down by then.

2. At 6am someone from the store knocks on the truck door if we're not up already, and we unload at that store, usually taking anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half with both of us working.

3. drive to next store...could be 10 minutes away or two hours. Repeat...usually 4-5 stops.

At each stop we unload and also load empty totes, empty rolltainers, and rolltainers loaded with cardboard.

Since there are not many Dollar General stores with loading docks (I've seen one in the past week of deliveries) we have to get really creative sometimes with getting the truck to the back door. My first two stops were both blind side backing. This also means I have to use a lift gate. All this is account-specific stuff, so don't worry about this. Just trying to give you an idea of my day.

We don't stop and eat, just run into a fast food joint and snag a burger, then eat it while we drive....or I'll get a Slim Jim and Mountain Dew while we refuel at a truck stop. It's not that my trainer is a slave driver; we're just juggling hours so that I can get as much drive time as possible to get to my 300 (and home at the midway point). Despite all the horror stories I've heard, my experience with Werner and this trainer has been very good. No complaints.

We either shut it down for the night at a store, truck stop, or some rest areas where overnight truck parking is permitted. I usually crawl from the driver seat into the bunk around midnight and I'm dead as a doornail within minutes.

We get showers at truck stops or the DC, which works out to every day/24 hours. We don't hit the company terminals often, but there are showers and laundry facilities there. On weekends (I match my trainer's home time) I'm in a hotel and can do laundry and take luxuriously long showers.

We have paperless logs at Werner (Qualcomm system) and it's pretty easy to get the hang of things with it.

48 state van runs are quite different from this. I may do that after my week off, since I will get another trainer and could have another dedicated account or 48 state. From what I understand, "48" at Werner isn't as crazy as the DG account, so like I said, take all this with a huge grain of salt, since the DG account is...umm..."special", to be polite.

That said, even with all the unloading, I'm enjoying the driving.

I spent 20 years in broadcasting before I was laid off, so that's my background. This is a change, but I like it.

Hope I gave you a bit of info. Feel free to ask whatever you like. I'm a n00b, but I can give you the NCTDT grad perspective.

I hope you are enjoying class so far!

Spacebat, thinks for the a day in the life, that's good information. Was Werner recruiting at school to get drivers and how long will your training last. As for me, away from home driving, we do not have any kids at the house just the wife. The 3;weeks away does'nt sound to bad with a week off. Where you headed west on 64 today around 6: 40 pm I was on my home and saw Werner truck pulling a DG trailer. Talk to you later.

Roehl, Crete, and Howard recruiters visited...maybe one more that I can't remember. I used online applications and had pre-hires back from Werner and Trans-Am by the next day or so. I wanted to give Howard a go, but they didn't have any openings. I was also interested in TWT but they wouldn't hire me due to my commute time from Raleigh to Fayetteville. I really wanted tankers and still do.

I didn't want to be pushed into a lease situation at Trans-Am especially since I knew I might change my mind about the business early on, so I went with Werner. I sat on the pre-hire for about a month as I looked around, then decided I wasn't getting any younger....and got my bus ticket to Hotlanta.

There are a few roadblocks to getting your 300 hours knocked out quickly. First, you have to get a trainer after orientation, and there may be a wait. I'm a woman so I was lucky to get a non-smoking female trainer within a day after orientation. Also, if your truck has any breakdowns it will slow down your accumulation of hours. The other factor I've heard is that if you are not a sharp driver, you may not get the hours if your trainer feels you are not ready behind the wheel. You will also be on a curfew your first few weeks so that you can't drive after midnight, so you and your trainer will need to coordinate your drive time.

I have heard some students are getting about 3 hours of drive time a day since they aren't ready to drive. One student I talked to yesterday had 200 hours but had only successfully backed the truck several times, and was still mystified by double-clutching.

I had 10 hours of driving my first day and blind-side backing into a DG store along with the usual backing to drop & hook a trailer. Again, I have to give props to JCC for this--as you can imagine, if you got short-sheeted on training, it could take you longer to get to your 300 hours (or the halfway point to your week off).

I drive in SC, AL, GA, and FL so that wasn't me you saw. Wish it was...I would love to be home right now. I am working my ### off so I can get PTO as soon as humanly possible.

BTW, you will lose your trainer when you go on PTO for your week off. This may or may not be a big deal depending on how well y'all get along.

Well people I got me a job Tuesday of last week hauling sweet potatoes for a local farmer. I have made 2 trips so far and things are going ok. I was thinking of holding out for one of the larger companies, but this kind of just popped up and I took avantage of it. One of the reasons for this post is in regard to something in one of spacebat's post about NCTDT school getting you well prepared for starting out. There has been serveral times I have thought of different things that different Instructors have said during our classes or trainning during my trips. I will agree with spacebat 100% on that statement. The trainning and schoolong I recieved at NCTDT school did an outstanding job of getting me ready to start driving. I still have alot ot learn, but they did give me a good foundation to get started with.

Congrats DavidW. I was really hoping to find a local job but none were available so I figured I'd stick it out with Werner to get some OTR and dedicated training, then keep on looking for a sweet local gig. I'd love to hear how things are going for you and what your day is like.

I think it's cool that you're on a truck already and can do things the way you are taught in terms of good safety habits--I've already found that people tend to get a bit lax around here (werner) when no one is looking, and I don't want to fall into bad habits. I'm not being overly geeky, just like being careful especially since I'm such a noob driver.

Again, congrats!

Spacebat, doing it right, and careful, and safely is not being geeky. It's being responseable and doing the job the right way. My goal isn't to just to be a Truck driver, but to be a Professional Truck driver. I know I have only just started and I'm still learning, but I want to be headed in the right direction.