How long with driver trainer in your company?

Your trainer is a bum! You should not be sleeping in the top bunk in a moving truck! Trust me, he knows that.

 

I dont know how y'all handled having to team with a "Trainer"... I couldn't, And won't, EVER share a Truck with another person.

When I first started doing OTR I had already been driving truck on and off for many years on a local/regional basis. So I already knew how to drive. When I was hired, they handed me the keys, said "There's your truck, there's your loaded trailer, follow that guy he is going the same place."

So I followed him about 1800 miles across the country, at which point we parted ways. I then had to find my own way to my next load and all the way back home. And I did it just fine with no problems. That was the farthest I had ever been from home by, oh about 1300 miles. Yeah I was a little nervous, but I figured it out. I have taught myself how to navigate, trip plan, manage a log book (both paper and Elog), ect.

And to be honest I mostly taught my self how to drive a truck years ago as well... Dad told me how to shift and showed me exactly 2 times, he also told me how to back up and showed me exactly 2 times. Then he told me "You will either figure it out or you will crash... Don't crash my truck!" And he left me alone with the truck, loaded with hay, to figure it out.... I wasnt even into my teenage years yet.

No I didn't start doing OTR in the 1970s either... It was November of 2017. At that time I had had my CDL for about 5 years, but I had been driving truck for many years prior to getting my CDL under the Ag. Exemption in Idaho. In Idaho you dont need a CDL to drive a Farm truck.

I'm now a successful Professional Long Haul Driver, with nearly half a million accident free miles OTR under my belt... I guess I figured it out.

 

Magnum I was told

Magnum I was told is 30 days with a trainers. No running as a team.

 

I was 6 weeks; non recent otr experience is 3 weeks. Insufficient experience could vary.

 

Yeah I don’t really like that either, but he’s pretty good in every other regard; I tried to sleep as soon as I went to “sleeper berth” and got in a good rest and instead of pushing on where we are now thus arriving super early we stopped at a truck stop and I got in another good 3 hours of sleep

 

Decent companies with trainers that are more safety conscious do not dispatch team loads to a training truck. If you are training, the mentor should be awake, and on duty, and ready to give directions/advice while the trainee is behind the wheel...
When I trained, my mentor mostly hung back in the sleeper once he was confident in my skills, but he was ready if I had a question, or concern.
NEVER was he sleeping while I was training. That's the way it should be with every company.

 

It’s not just a comfort issue it’s a safety issue. If your driver even so much is makes a medium hard break, you go flying right towards the windshield off the top bunk. And be tossed around like a little ragdoll. Also if you’re on any kind of even semi-bumpy road you feel those bumps and GeForce is about four times as much as you would if you’re on the bottom bunk. You’ll likely not get much sleep up there on a moving truck. Top bunk should only be used when the truck is parked

 

I’d find this a lot simpler if you just looked up which companies you may be interested in driving for and go from there, this question is pretty much answered without having a big stack of companies with their information; furthermore a lot of times if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is, especially when talking to recruiters; best of luck.