Do you have to go to driving school?

If company trainers are honest they will tell you schools turn out people that will never be truck drivers . Some get out there until the trainer rejects them or the safety mamager has them terminated . Schools just want the money and will turn any kind of a clown loose with a CDL . Yes , a lot of good potential drivers come out of school but nobody right out of school is a driver . Two weeks with an experienced family member teaches more than 8 weeks in school .

 

I couldn't disagree more Rick. I've seen plenty of yahoo's who where taught by some relitive or friend who couldn't drive a shopping cart. I have also seen those who where pretty good at it. And you have two. My point is you should not say that the schools are bad or someone who goses though a school can't drive. I went though a school and I can drive circels around anyone on the round. Thats not bragging. Thats fact. Got awards to prove it. There are those that just should never be around a truck. I don't care where they get there training.

The schools job is not to teach you how to be a truck driver. It's to get you a CDL. It is the job of the trainer to teach you how to drive. The problem is to many companies let drivers with 6-8 mos or even a year of driving train. Rookies training rookies. Thats where the problem is. Not how they got there CDL.

 

I couldnt AGREE with you more rick!!
But, what do i know. I just got CIRCLES ran around the SHOPPING CART I was having hell maneuvering!
I wish I could get an award....

 

When there is a growing oversupply of drivers and schools take thousands of dollars from people they know are having financial problems and have little chance of getting hired ,then I can say schools are bad . A CDL with no experience is useless .

 

If you have/want to go to a school and it's not really a bad idea for many people. Don't go to your run of the mill driving school, go to a community college. The course will be a lot more thorough. It might be longer which is better and a lot more carriers will recognize it. Also, you can get college credits for it in case you wind up not driving and decide to go into something else in the industry.

 

From my own experience, I went to a company's school in January... of 1997... in Wisconsin. Two weeks there. Two weeks with a "road" trainer who happened to be on a local dedicated route. Never slept in a truck. Never scaled a load. Never even fueled the #### thing. The night guy did that. After that was sent to the operating center where I was to work out of for some testing. Aced all of them. Was able to hit the road on my own.
4 weeks after never being in a truck I was on the road. But my learning didn't come from just the school. My mom's uncle drove from the day he got home from WWII. I learned "truck driving" from him. The school taught me how to drive a truck. Common Sense (something very few drivers have) got me through my "Greenhorn" time.

But whether you learn from school, family or both, one thing has not changed for me in 12 years. I am still learning everyday. My training will be done the day I retire.

 

You learn the basics when you attend driving school. That's all. After being in the industry most of my adult life and always wanting to drive a truck(legally, that is) I enrolled at a community college.
I had driven some but not near enough to take the cdl test, so I thought this would be the way to go. I did a lot of research on schools and what I'd get out of them. I paid for it out of my own hard earned money. I was the
only one in a class of 12 who did. Everyone else was there on a grant. They were "displaced workers". So they got government money.
Classroom was really great, we had two guys who had been drivers for many years and had a lot of common sense. Very good at teaching the logs, etc.
The yard or skills course as I called it was set up to teach us four backing skills. Straight line backing, reverse lane change, alley-dock backup, and parallel park. A week of that then on the road.
I was with two guys who much younger than I, and a trainer. During this time, we learned to double clutch, go thru the gears up and down. Drive in traffic and all of the other things that we might need to know to become drivers. This in NO way qualified any of us to say that we could really drive a truck. The two young men were not defensive drivers, and drove for the spot they were in. VERY scary at times. Being old has some values like looking ahead, driving defensively, knowing or trying to anyway, what's going on all around you and ahead. Our trainer didn't teach them any of that. Actually, he was pretty busy most of the time reading text messages or texting on his cell phone.
I got what I needed from the course, some training in smart backing, a little time as a steering wheel holder and the certificate.
I forgot to mention that in addition to paying my own way, almost $5000, and that's cheap compared to other places. I drove round trip almost 200 miles a day. I made a committment to get the schooling and that's what I did. On some tiring days on the way home I wondered if it was a committment or if I should be committed for going through all of that... Would I do it again? Probably not. Would I recomend it? Yes because it does give a person an idea of the basics.
One final note: the things that we were taught and had to pass were the requirements of the state of Ohio to be able to test for a CDL. It wasn't something that the college thought up, it was the state.

 

I started driving in 1982 at that time there was no such thing as truck driver training...It was on the job training... I started driving for a household company out of Champaign, IL...In 1991 the federal government implimented the CDL before the CDL came about a driver could hold as many DL from as many states as he wanted...If he was say banned from IL

 

I Believe they calls those......."The Good Ol' Days"

 

Yea lol...But ya know, for me things have not changed that much...I book my loads, deliver them...Go to smaller truckstops...Watch my T.V book another load, deliver it...blog thats new lol...book another load... Using my cell phone thats new...LOL...I HEAR A LOT ABOUT HOW BAD FREIGHT IS...But I find loads...These bigger carriers that blew up in the 90's should have never done it...If the government wanted monopoly's they would not have deregulated in the first place...Ya know what I mean? These non union companies are more expensive than the union were with their 200% turnover rates and all...High dollar equipment...Ya know what I mean?