Question re Policy, Anyone?!?

Yep. I agree.

6 weeks with a trainer, I can understand if you were fresh out of school. That's just some ploy some POS bottomfeeder is trying to pull to pay peanuts for a driver for a month and a half. IF they really wanted a quality driver, and a guy applies with 8 years experience (sorry, experience IS experience), they would have you come in, do a veteran style road test, make sure you can pre trip and trip plan and had complete understanding of how to log and the HOS, throw you a set of keys and put you to work.

If you have experience, you don't have to go to a circus to travel and see the world.

 

Playing Devil's Advocate:

You ran oil field - how good is your knowledge of HOS?

Do you know how to plan a trip or do you know how to start your day and work until it's done?

Do you know how to back or do you just think you know how to back?


The last time oil tanked there was a guy with 2 years experience who came thru our experienced hire orientation, then got his own truck. After two week his driver manager told him he needed to ride with a trainer for a week or be fired. Dude knew how to drive, but had no understanding of the HOS ("we just made the paper log say what safety told us to make it say"), no idea how to read an atlas, couldn't get backed into a dock square and centered and had NO CLUE about axle weight/tandem sliding.

We had a new "experienced" hire a few weeks ago who high hooked his first trailer. After I got him out of that mess, I had to show him how to use an etrack strap, and then how to close the swing doors.

I had a UPS or Fed Ex (don't remember which) line haul driver who screwed up his retirement planning and had to come back to work. Since he'd been off the road for 5 years, he had to go thru the inexperienced class. Guy didn't know how to back - he pulled into the terminal and parked and went to the hotel. He came back in the morning and his rig had been fueled and hooked to his return load. His shifting sucked - grind till ya find style. The first three days it was pulling teeth to get him to listen. He finally figured out I knew what I was doing when I ran US 460 in VA with 45,000 in the box floating gears while giving a dissertation on load securement and cargo claims.

And let's not forget the "experienced" driver who , after arguing with the training group about our coupling procedure, proceeded to drop his trailer on the way out of the yard to his first pick up.

Experience has taught me the importance of "trust, but verify". So many "drivers" claim mastery over skills they barely have comprehension of that it's little wonder there are companies that have just implemented a blanket program regardless of experience.

 

I would do the same if required to do 6 weeks. One week, sure. Two weeks, maybe depending on the gig.

Most of our experienced hires do just fine with orientation and then "here's the keys". It's the outliers that are the problem, and when they cause problems they cause PROBLEMS. It's easy to understand a safety guy saying "nuts to this, everyone goes thru training" after an "experienced hire" ruins a brand new trailer in his first week.

 

tell them to shove it.

 

Out of curiosity is 6 weeks there normal training period or is this a new policy. A lot of companies are slow right now but may be wanting to still retain or add drivers for when things pick back up. But as of right now may not have a place for newbies so they keep you training longer. At any rate I wouldn't run 6 weeks out on the road with anyone else other than my dog