Have you ever seen or heard of an experienced driver failing a pre employment road test?

about 10 yrs ago had a guy say he had 8 yrs experience and couldn't shift or hook up a trailer.

there was no road test, never left the yard. lol

come to find out he was a part timer and drove the yard dog for his last company.

 

I failed a few.
Some didn’t think I was watching.
One reached for his phone to answer a text while we were driving.

I asked one to back into a spot at a truck stop, he couldn’t back to save his life, (place required two years otr,) I thought he lied about it somewhere, I gave him plenty of time and was out of truck at front right hand side, he wollered all over the parking lot about 10 minutes.

One I asked if he wanted auto or manual,(I asked all that if one was available) guy chose manual, couldn’t shift to save his life, stalled out.
Got moving, missed second, (not counting granny as 1st) I asked if hex ever drove a manual, he said no, I had nothing going on that day and was loading isotank on chassis’s and the AC didn’t work in loader, so I drove, showed him the shift pattern with the 1-2 count with shift, drove about 10 miles, let him drive on a feeder road with minimal traffic.

He ended up being a good driver, stayed there til they closed the terminal there a few years back.

 

Years ago, I was at Sun Coast Resources, there was driver that failed a road test. So Corporate send the guy out with a different ‘tester’ for the drive the following day. Well needless to say the guy failed again, but for a different reason. The tester put the guy thru a ‘mock unload’ of diesel fuel(at the yard). The guy struggled with lifting hoses, laying back in the tray, barely able to get up a kneeling position, etc. On the form the tester turned in, the reason for failure; “too obese to perform the job”. The company man caught all holy hell for stating that reason on the form. The guy applying for job raised all holy hell about it also, threatened to sue Sun Coast. To placate the guy, they hired him, and put in dispatch on a trail basis, lasted a month or so.

 

Yup it can happen to anyone.

 

On the other hand I have left right after the roadtest, because I thought the company had a bad attitude

 

Define “experience”.

My little sister has driven between the FedEx airport terminal and the main terminal for 12 years. She would be considered experienced on paper. I have driven all 48, Canada and the Territories all year around, OSOW and superloads, ungoverned truck with over 600HP.

“Experienced” drivers may have never been through the mountains, off-road (the farther north you go, the more off-roading you get), find a site based on map coordinates alone, driven through a blizzard/white out/ice fog, engaged the power divider or rear lockers, driven through a major metro area during rush hour or….

….have ever needed to develop patience. In a trucker, patience and a cool head are superpowers.

 

I was a bed-bugger for a year after working for a mega-carrier for about 5. Before I took that job, I actually failed a road test for driving a garbage truck; it was a Mack COE 10-wheeler, with a 10-forward, 5-reverse Maxidyne. To switch between ranges, you had to TWIST a collar under the shift knob. Never having driven a Mack before, I remembered that you had to wait FOREVER between gears, so I tried that; ground the first one, missed the second, so went to catch the next one down and practically slammed it into gear. This was the WORST P.O.S. transmission I had ever driven. The guy failed me, and said "try again in a few months". I said "no, thanks" as I left. What the hell was I THINKING????

Well, the bedbugging wasn't great, and I ended up working in roofing and siding for the spring and summer before I went back to college full time (made better money that way...)

 

I opened this thread about 20 minutes ago. I’ve been through a whole flood of thoughts.

To answer the question yes I’ve seen someone fail an experienced drivers test as I sat in a yard while waiting for a trailer. It was nerve racking to watch.

To add…
This site has a humbling nature for me when I’m confronted with the sheer level of experience some people have. I mean experience to me is what you’ve been faced with, and then added to the things you were taught and weren’t forced to learn the hard way, but were able to incorporate into your skill set.

An example would be “if you’re worried about taking a road test you’re not ready to leave where you’re at.” That’s just a simple way to intelligently tell someone to think about their actual skills.

Another would be the time I picked up a trailer that was left so low I could barely get my frame rails underneath it after I dumped my bags. Same for another driver who thought he had to wait for the yard driver to come in the following morning. I have a couple chunks of 2x4’s & 4x4’s. I then Inflated my bags got the lumber underneath and was able to hook up. I’d never done that before, but I read about here. The other driver looked at me like I created fire. Nope, read about it and wanted to get moving.

The bar for dry van seems to be set so low that’s it’s fairly easy to believe you’re an experienced driver. Taking a driver test at a new company can mean skills that you’ve never needed or mastered compared to where you’re currently at. A certain amount of humility goes a long way.

 

I had a road test for a dedicated battery account on a mega carrier. I actually liked the yard dog/road tester a lot. However after meeting the newly promoted manager woman, and the road test dude actually telling me she had a temper and liked to yell. I was like yeah I'll go do my dot physical and drug test tomorrow. That never happened.

 

I've given plenty of road tests and have only failed one guy. The truck had a 15-speed transmission and this guy tried to drive it like a 13 speed. I told him "Just relax and drive it like a 10-speed. The trlr is empty and we're on level ground so there's no need to use deep reduction." But he thought he was hot stuff and was gonna show off his super-duper shifting abilities, and his rush to shift caused him to get lost in the gears practically every time. He was also very impatient at uncontrolled intersections and almost pulled in front of a belly dump on a 55 MPH road. After that I cut the road test short and had him go back to the terminal.

When got back to the yard I told the terminal manager that he was not open to coaching and did not have the patience to wait until it was safe to pull out onto the highway. He also didn't do any kind of pre-trip at all which I didn't even bother to mention - but I would have if I had known they were going to hire him anyway.

He got himself fired less than a month after he finished training.