Really now; How many people...

My husband had zero experience before he trained. Unless you count when he was a teenager and they stole a semi and had to drive it across town.

 

I traded in my motorcycle on my first truck at age 20 and bobtailed around town till I found a company that would lease me on..
Left for Jersey that night and the rest is history.

 

i had no experience with trucking or driving a car. of course i drove small van for half hour on a big parking place in the middle of Sunday but that was all.
in Europe if you do solo truck category, you get car license for free. if you want to do big rig category, you must do solo truck license before.

when i was 18 i done solo license than soon big rig category. in solo cat. i needed <20h but in big cat. i needed >20h. backing lessons were very hard.

so basically i jumped behind the biggest wheel i could find.

 

I never had anykind of expirence behind the wheel or even being in a big rig. And I did pretty good in school, and am doing very well out on the road now.

 

My hubby had actually driven one while riding with a friend. Other than that he had only driven a dump truck for a little while. He had actually rode many of times with my Daddy, his Daddy and friends.

 

Learned how to back up wagons on the farm as a kid, as a teenager got a job shunting trailers in the yard for a small trucking company, did that for five years, learned everything about driving a truck at that job, never had a trainer.

 

As a teenager, I washed trailers and fueled outbound rigs for a small trucking company. Rarely, they would send me to the scale at another company down the street. On one occasion, their engine mechanic wanted to ride a couple of blocks after a tune-up. I drove because he was too small to handle a loaded dump truck without power steering. Actually, it was more than I could handle safely.

 

I started out driving tow trucks upto a med duty at 16 and it was two years later I had my CDL A and started running the Med duty and got in to the Heavy duty a little....Changed jobs to another tow company and they had alot more trucks day cabs with flats, drop decks, straight truck flats and I started running more and more all over the state...Left when I was 26 moved to Alabama went to driving school only because Al said I had to 6 weeks and on the road.....Now 3 road jobs and 4 local I'm 38 and still driving...I did find it a lot easier at the driving school because it was all a review for me.

 

I had zero experience behind the wheel of a big rig, with the only other truck experience being a straight truck/box (two completely different animals)

I passed all tests 1st try for my cdl, and then learned on the road during my company training/orientation while my trainer slept.