Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

They don’t care. As long as you’re capable of running multiple log books and can keep the wheels turning.....

 

That is way too complicated of procedure for all of the mega carrier trainer’s these days. They can teach the art of pooping in a Walmart bag or what color sandels to wear with your sweat pants but that’s about it.

 

You’ve been out here long enough to know that will never happen.

 

Something to think about - maybe 1 in 200 of my backs is blindside and outside of petros/tas that goes to 1 in 500. So even if I spend the time to let my guy hit a couple blind sides, by the time he does one by himself he will have forgotten most of what's been taught.

I also don't know if you've been training a new guy in a truck stop lately, but the abuse I get is unreal. I haven't trained much this year, but last fall I was in the back row at South Beloit, late morning working on backing. My guy was doing pretty good - he noticed he was off the ideal "glide path" and pulled back up instead of forcing it in. He did the a couple a times. A guy got out of his truck and walked up to me and said "driver, I know everyone has to learn, but if he hits my truck, I'm going to beat your ### then pull his ### out of the truck and beat it".

My guy this week took 5 minutes to back into a dock and the shipping lead told me I can't train on his property. This is the same schmuck who complains about the lack of training our drivers have.

I've been training for a decade now and it keeps getting harder. The quality of the guys is going down, the time/money spent on training is going down, the tolerance in customers and truckstops is going down, and to add insult to injury the mirror sizes are going down. With the eld, I can't even "find some time" in the day without jeopardizing the load. Its ruff.

 

If you are a trainer take your student to an empty parking lot or a closed distribution center, throw out some cones and have him practice for an hour backing and not trying to teach him in a busy truck stop. Just a thought. Might save you some grief and not piss other drivers off.

 

This is what is wrong with training today, too much reliance on finishing on the job. No disrespect to you, I know you are doing the best you can with the resources you have, being a trainer for a fleet is thankless most days. Your statement about time and money being reduced sums up the thoughts of many carriers, they don't want to spend the time and money to do it right but then expect their students to somehow magically be good drivers and do the job safely. They just want them out there making revenue miles asap.

I will also second your notion that the quality of students is not the same, not even close! I have been training drivers since 1993 and although I only do one or two classes a year now I have noticed a huge drop in attention and dedication from my students. I am on week 5 (only meet one day per week) of a private class for one of my clients, taking 4 of their current workers (2 mechanics and 2 laborers) and training them for their class A and doing an upgrade for a class B driver to his A and it has been rough. From showing up late to not doing the work while we are there it just seems only one of them is truly interested in getting a class A.

As for practicing at a truck stop or a live warehouse, I don't envy you there. I did do on the job training when we ran car haulers, taking students with their learner permit on the road with me (day cab never let them do anything unsupervised), although we would not practice backing in public space if we could help it. I know that isn't practical in your world although I would think the company shouldn't turn out a student to go on the truck for finish training until they had a mastery of the basic skills like backing in the practice range.

Keep up the good fight to try and turn out decent and safe truck drivers. We need them badly.