Way back there when you were a newbie....were newbies better drivers?

Yeah, but sometimes they're both brand new! Covenant does/did this, teaming up two inexperienced drivers. This really blows my mind.

I'm still a rather new driver, but believe me, most new drivers out there today are better than I was at first. I was the epitome of the CDL Mill graduate: I couldn't back, didn't understand logbooks, could only shift a Super 10 (so I didn't really understand normal shifting patterns), and I had a total of about 45 mins driving experience.

When my OTR trainer was done w/me, he took the Saftey Director aside and warned him that I was likely to cause an accident! "I've done all I can do!" he said. I found this out later, of course.

I discovered quickly that 95% of all drivers will help me out, whether its backing up, finding someplace, routing questions, etc. The other 5% are usually in a hurry or something. This still applies today for me. It really is all the other drivers out there that helped me make it this far.

 

Well, I just finished my 13th yr of regional/local. My first job was a for a local 7up distributor, I spent 3 weeks with a trainer, only because I had to learn the particulars of the customers. My 2nd job was with a local McD's distributor. I spent 2 8 hr days with trainers and then was thrown to the wolves 30 minutes into my 3rd day of training. My current company, I rode with two different trainers for 2 days to learn the paperwork, railroads, and container yards. Then I was on my own, my first day on my own was 13 hrs of local driving.

Overall, it hasn't changed much. Well, maybe it had changed but it's because I'm more intuned to screwups of my fellow drivers. I realize that at one time I too was a steering wheel holder and became a truck driver, but today, I see more steering wheel holders who are training to become, well steering wheel holders.

 

Easy killer, you have no idea what your getting into. Truck school taught you how to get a piece of plastic in your wallet, not how to drive a truck. How about we take you to the top of Vail pass in Colorado and say, "Show me how its done" You would crap your pants with 80,000 pounds strap to you. Go ahead and do it like the c.d.l. book says, i'll be at the bottom with the fire truck to help you out.

No, your wrong, you need some kind of training in the real world. I'am not trying to bad mouth you, but you know how to baby a empty truck around town in truck school, not how to be a truck driver. Start with company training, trust me, you will find out how much you don't know. Goodluck.

 

Scary to think now, but my first experience was driving a 379 Pete from OH to FL, the only other big thing I had driven previously were wreckers and used school buses.

Once I had the gear pattern down, it was easy.

Looking back I should've taken the initiative to drive a rig locally before setting out on 1300 mile trip.

 

No we weren't as far as driving skills go, but there is one huge difference. trucking back then was a skill trade; before the govt bureaucrats got their empty heads into it.

Nowadays we get a whole bunch of people who just look at it as a quick buck or "something to do until I get a "real job". These are the people who took this business into the toilet. Hey, what happened to the "real job" you used to have? Dumped your butt didn't they? Just maybe you ain't quite as "smart' as you think you are?

The other kind of "newbie" we have today is the "I've got a collitch degree in something totally useless an I'm gonna save the trucking industry" type. Hey goober, you think all your "great ideas" are new?? Guess what, they ain't. While you were rolling around in your pampers or still swimming your way upstream we "old guys" were working our butts off to get things to the point today where you get bunks and A/C and power steering and all that good stuff. So take your "great education", roll it and stuff it.

Personally, I figure about 1/4 of you will be around 5 years from now. But, I do encounter a budding star now and then. These are the folks who take this job serious. Think you'll be one of them?

 

I would definitely agree on the work ethic aspect. Very few kids do physical labor these days. Finding a kid that wants to mow grass or shovel snow is a rarity. Kids that grow up on a farm know what real work is, and it is a committment you stick to, which even fewer people seem capable of, and at the 1st discomfort they quit.

 

Kittyfoot do you think these "kids" today could get behind the wheel of a cabover without p/s, a/c, or all the frills they have on trucks today. I remember the first truck that I drove, it was a '76 KW with a 290 horse with a 10 sp, talk about a hill climber==not, it barely got up to 60 mph. The fun part was trying to back into a dock at a standing still trying to turn that big steering wheel. You had to get it rolling to turn the wheel & than crank it into the dock.

 

A year training would be too much and not enough.
When I started I broke down and went to a school.
I paid ALLOT for it, at the time. It was 3500 bucks, that was in 1991 or early 92...lol never can remember.

It was at a school that actually teaches you enough to be on the road though.
8 weeks of training.
2 in the classroom. Teaching map reading, trip planning, logging, etc.
2 weeks backing in the yard.
2 weeks driving days
2 weeks driving nights.

The school was not easy. It was not like the mills of today.
They expected around 1/4 of students to pass the test the first time. If more passed they would look at the testers to make sure they tested properly.
Most students went to the school for 10-12 weeks. To pass the test and be deemed ready to go to a company.
Then you would go out with a trainer for a month or so with whatever company hired you.

No cell phone, no qualcom, no GPS. No routing. You were on your own.

If the FMCSA gets off it's proverbial butt and does what it is legally bound to do, there will be a driver training rule on the books later this year. I do not see them doing it though.
They have too soon though. They are running out of time. The lawsuit that OOIDA won against them has a date, and I swore it was this year.

What they are looking at is around 400 hours of training. BEFORE YOU GET A LICENSE or go to a company.
Possibly a set time period you have to have a learners permit.
All schools will have to be accredited.

The big one is schools being accredited.
None of the CDL mills are.
If the rule goes in then all the mills will go away. All the company schools will go away.
Then training will be in real schools with certified teachers.
This is good though. Because in an accredited school you can get government student loans, pell grants, GI-Bill payments etc.

Make the training mean something. Make the license mean something.

 

good post. I hope it comes to pass, I went to a community college and got my training. I had good teachers that knew their stuff.