Help a trucker wannabe out!

I'm going to Northampton Community College (today is my first day) in Tobyhanna, PA.

 

So I don't have much time as you can imagine. I'll keep this as short as possible.

Today is my first day at Northampton Community College, and the requirements are not only to just get your plain CDL, but to get Hazmat, Doubles and Triples and Hazmat. So I have to take all of these tests in addition to general and airbrakes. Guess when I have to go to the DMV to pass these tests? 8:30 AM *this* Saturday morning.

I guess I'm going to have to cowboy up here and learn this stuff wicked fast because I need to pass this on the first try WITH a high score.

There were supposed to be 6 people in the class, but there's only 4. One used to be a truck driver a few years ago, another has a wife who is currently a truck driver who graduated from the school and he's going to team up with her. He's been reading the book on CDL for a few months now. The last one is basically a kid who worked at Home Depot but quit in favor of being a truck driver. He took and passed the CDL (on this third try) about 6 months ago, but since he was actively working couldn't pursue truck driving as a career like he had wanted to.

So the other three guys have had some experience with this already and then there's little ole me who has a week to get this stuff downpat. I guess the good news is I get the written crap out of the way, and I get way more experience behind the wheel then I could ever have expected.

Apparently the course is designed to give me the equivalent of 6 months worth of knowledge as if I had learned on the job. I'll also be certified to do inspections of my vehicle before I bring it out on the road. I'm not sure if that's stanard with CDL or not, but I think that's special to a certified school such as this one.

 

So here are how things work at the school. You have a GPA at the school which is from tests the school gives after covering each section. So for air brakes, I had a test this morning. The test has more questions on it then does the DMV exam because they want to play with the wording to ensure you are prepared for the DMV exam.

It's a pretty cool system because it gives you the opportunity to review the section you just covered, get prepared for the DMV, but also gives the school a basis to grade you on which means you need to take the test seriously. The companies looking to hire you *will* and always *do* ask for both the DMV written and driving test results, and the GPA you recieved from the school. They also recieve your attendance/punctuality information. If you want to get into some of the companies that tend to prefer safe drivers, you'd better have a clean driving record and also show that you took your PTDI course seriously and excelled in it.

So this morning I did the brakes section which is supposed to be one of the harder sections on the DMV test. There were 50 questions, and I got 1 wrong for a 98 percent. Then we covered the tanker section today, and with 25 questions nobody in the class got anything wrong (pretty easy section).

The rest of the class was dedicated to reviewing the Hazmat section of the DMV book, and we got a bit over half way through. Tonight I need to review what we covered in class, and I need to read the other half of the book which we'll also cover again in class tomorrow. After that we take the Hazmat test for the school which I believe (I'll confirm tomorrow) contains more then 50 questions on it.

I would really like to get a perfect score on this test (easier said then done) so I can keep my GPA up, and take some stress off me for the remainder of these written exams. Keep in mind I have a family to feed here, so I'm not doing this so much for pride as to get an edge when I choose what company I want to work for.

Based on what I can read about Scheider, they want drivers who are professional and safe, and I want to be one of their drivers. I think what really makes some of these "bad" companies so "bad" is the people who work in them more then the general parameters the company is run by. When you think about it, a company is made up of people. Sure there are some companies who have better policies and processes then others, which makes them more appealing to work for. But what mostly drives a company is culture.

Why is it that some folks who work for Werner are happy? Because they have delt with people in the organization who are competent, have a good attitude, and are generally pleasant to work with. Why are so many who are not happy with the company? Most likely because the company did not do as good of a job at hiring their *initial* staff then they should have. So they started with a lower quality of people working for them, they generally didn't perform as well as their competetion which required them to cut corners to remain competetive, and all of a sudden they are less desirable to work for and have to hire folks with more issues with their driving record, etc. When you think about it this becomes a cycle:

1) They have to pay more for insurance because they either have, or an actuary determined they are more likely to have accidents.
2) Morale is lower because the perception of the company is negative, and also likely because their are more folks within the company who are prone to be more negative, and less responsible with their work habits.
3) You tend to lose those who are good performers because they become disgruntled and get hired by a more desirable company.

I could go on, but I'm just kind of giving my two cents/thoughts on the matter. Of course, being that I'm a student and not a driver, my opinion above and $2 wouldn't get ya a cup off coffee from Starbucks.

 

I see you've been a trucker for 50 years. You work for Swift?