United Truck Driving School

I went there. They had a school in Longmont (i-25 and hwy 66) for about 1.5 years, same business as the wheat ridge one, but they had to close it. I don't know why, wheat ridge is still open.
The wheat ridge location has been there since long before I was 16 (20+ years ago)
Did night classes, which IMO is a better way to go (6 weeks, 5 hours a night, plus one full day saturday instead of day classes which is 3 weeks plus one full day saturday)
You do 2 weeks (40 hours) of classroom which was pretty blah.
A day in the trucks around the yard shifting, becoming not so dangerous.
Then a full day Saturday driving around industrial parks (no traffic) doing shifting and turning.
Then 2 weeks of everywhere driving including one full day of mountain driving (up to Evergreen and back to Denver, no jakes, stab braking only)
Then a week of yard work (backing, backing and backing). Every day you drove, you did a full (1/2 hour) pretrip. That's like 4 weeks worth of them, the pre-trip was easy by then. That's why nights were better, lots more pre-trips and you have to hook and unhook every night. 2x as much practice on that.

They work in pairs. 2 students, 1 instructor. Which you think initially is a rip, but really once there it works much better. You simply can't drive alertly initially as a new driver for 4+ hours. And it lets you watch the other student and you end up learning from each other as much as the instructor and their mistakes.

Lots of different styles of instructors. All older men (55+) who had been driving for 30 to 40 years. They knew how to drive, they knew how to teach you what you were doing wrong and they knew both how to drive the CDL test way and they would show you other things ('real world').

School's curriculum is approved by the state, so they have to ony teach particular things and particular ways (for example they teach double clutch because they have to, but all the instructors showed you in the truck once how to float, but they wouldn't let you do it when driving).

You got as much as you put into it. There wasn't much highway driving (because highway driving is easy), lots of in town work, lots of nasty corners, downtowns, narrow roads, lots of shifting etc I've lived in Denver metro my whole life and we went places I really had no idea where I was (commerce city, under I-70). One day my student partner didn't show up. The instructor said drive as long as you want to. I drove all 4 hours (did take a break). We drove A LOT and of course almost all of it in the dark/twilight. (which is much more "exciting"). I asked what do they do in the winter when it snows and they said "we drive, just like you'll have to". In fact my test finished in a brutal hail storm/thunderstorm.

The trucks were old but not dangerous. I don't blame them for that, they must go thru a lot of transmissions and clutches. A LOT!. Everything worked, although I had two blow up under me. (nobody else did though, story of my life) One lost high range while we were out. snuck back at 16mph (top of 5th). It happens. The other one locked up the water pump and just died right there. no way you could tell that. From driving now, I realize, stuff like that just happens.

late 90's Petes and KW's, early 2000's centurys when i was there with 500 to 750k miles on them. The freightliners turned MUCH better than the Petes/KW's. 9 speeds and 10 speeds. 48' trailers, tandems all the way at the back (even if they were sliders, you couldn't move them up), not full but they had something in them. (couple pallets of newspapers I heard, dunno, we never looked inside, they weren't completely empty though). If you can drive old, you can certainly drive new nice ones. The reverse isn't necessarily true.

The test was tough (as it should be). They didn't brook any whining. Miss a stop sign, automatic fail. hit a curb, automatic fail. miss anything on air brakes section, automatic fail. Nobody failed in my class and honestly, my partner was a 21 year old kid, he'd never driven anything bigger than a small car, and nothing with a trailer (not even a pickup, uhaul, nothing) before class and by the end he was not too bad.

I don't know anything about the recruiters I paid for my own. LOT cheaper if you pay upfront rather than financing it.

I think I got my money's worth.
Hope this helps

 

I went to the one at Midway Co. (half way between Co. Sprgs and Pueblo ) in '93. Good school, great instructors.

 

Thanks for the detail report!
After researching all the truck driving schools in my area, and because of the assistance from the members of the board I have eliminated all other truck driving schools except this one.
A message I read about training with O/O trainers being the best qualified to train both on site and OTR along with your message has help me get a real handle on training.
I will be going to the school and talking to the teachers and take a look see at their rolling stock.
For your information those who are just entering the truck driving field, I have discovered a web site, Ezine, which has many articles on trucking driving, all which are kindly like your message: That is straight forth truth without any of the propaganda of given by the trucking schools reciters
.

 

I have heard of this school, in fact in all of my searching on the internet, this school have not even found by the search engines. Can you let me know just exactly where they are located?

 

It is unfortunate that MTA closed up shop in Colorado, they used to draw students away from USTDS. Just my $.02, the people at USTDS are a bunch of liars, I have a felony record, I was told by the lead recruiter at the Wheatridge school that I should invest in a shovel and start digging ditches becuase no trucking company in America would hire me with a felony, well, that 12.5 yrs and 1.1 million miles, and 5 trucks ago. If oyu can do it, look and see if any of the community colleges in the Springs offers a program or even someone in Pueblo.

 

That's the same school he's talking about. The address on the website is Midway I think, but is considered the Colo Springs school.

I went to CDL College in Aurora. Older equipment, but awesome instructors. I had a great experience there. But Aurora is a little far from the Springs. Hope that helps...

 

I keep having to preach this in all of these newly opened threads from newbies who don't go through the threads or use the search function...

If you pay MORE than $1400 for a driving school you are getting SCREWED!
Go to the local Tech or Community College and apply for less than $1400 and believe me even less at some as much as $500! You get BETTER training and road time there that you will at a driving school mill!

The NEXT thing you guys need to do is use the search function and look at these BOTTOM FEEDER companies who will so KINDLY take over your payments so you can become an indentured servant to them! They are all listed in the Bad companies forum and actually stay on the first page!

When you pay your own school bill you can still be hired by a major company BUT you won't get as screwed as the poor fools that go through a mill! You will have a little better control of your life.

But the information is here, use it as you will!
And information from 1993 is just a bit too freaking old to have even put in here! Things change and always for the worse in trucking!

also look and read here! http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...company-training-big-scams-associated-11.html

 

Believe it or not, I could not find any community college in the greater Denver Metro area that offered a course like that. The closest was Front Range Community College which basically goes through a 3rd party CDL "Mill" and it is not only expensive, but is only offered certain times of the year.

Pretty funny because there is a communit college in Farmington, New Mexico that does offer one for like $600 and Farmington can hardly be considered a big town. Come on Denver- get it together!

 

You're kidding me? Not a single one in the whole Denver area? WOW! Well do you have a P/U with a camper? Head to Farmington!

 

He's right
No CC offers one on the front range.
it's USTD, stevens (I see their training trucks all the time), SAGE (I think that's right) and one other in the springs.