CRST stoops to new low

"Uh, Mr. Trainer, wake up! Can you please show me which button activates the jake brakes?...please, hurry!"

 

Ya know, I go over that with my students the first day on the truck.

I am amazed at how many of them have a CDL in their pocket, but don't know what the engine brake is, what it does, how to turn it on and when to activate it.

 

Heck, there are guys that've been driving 20 years and still don't have a clue how a jake brake functions, or how brake chambers work, or many other things about how the various systems on the truck operate.

 

A few years ago I was talking to another trainer at May Trucking. He said operations asked him to pick up a guy in Phoenix who had had just solo(ed) out finished his training.

The trainer said he needed some sleep and let the guy drive. Closed the curtains and went to sleep only top be woken up by a rapid clicking sound. He jumped up, opened the curtains and witnessed the driver frantically pushing the engine brake setting button from low to high over and over again to no avail. heading down a 6% grade at over 75 mph! He grabbed the Johnson bar and to assist in slowing the fully loaded trailer down.

Turns out on his FL there is an on and off button on the steering wheel which obviously must be activated first. The guy driving didn't know that because he did his training on a 387 Pete which has a different application.

 

There are a number of threads on this subject already.

It seems that one thread stops and another gets opened to rehash everything in the first. Am I right?

 

Now it's time for FMCSA to shut down. You shouldn't even get out of school without your CDL. But they care about safety? No. Apparently you don't. They should have to go through the rigorous training me and all of those before me had to. You're already getting to train in automatics. What else could you want?

 

The "rigorous" training I received at C-1 was a joke. Just enough to to get me to pass and get my cdl. I had a good trainer thankfully but I think most people either understand mechanical things and learn quickly or they don't, and won't. I think the bigger problem is common courtesy.

 

CDL schools aren't much different than the public school system in that they teach you how to pass the test. Whether or not you actually learned anything is none of their concern, as long as you can pass the test.

 

checkout his playlist he went thru school for crst then stared with them long story short he had to re test for his cdl because the school was a scam.. back in 08.