whats the best truck driving school in the USA

But have it your way. Keep listening to people who have never been an instructor tell you how it really is out these and you will be following in the footsteps of students who didn't last 6 months in trucking....After all, there is a reason these predatory schools exist...money.[/QUOTE]

That is great! I hope you don't mind if I use this from time to time!

As for choosing an instructor at a school I have yet to hear of that one, not that it isn't possible. I know for sure you can choose your trainer that you ride with for the company part of your training. This I highly recommend. Talk to one of the company instructors and let them know you are serious about your career and need an experienced trainer that has been in the business awhile. That is the bad part about those mega-companies. A lot of trainers have only been driving for three months! That is the requirement as far as trainers go. Your trainer is really going to be the deciding factor in whether or not you are going to make any amount of money your first year. Well, that and who you wind up with for a dispatcher!

My first job right out of school was like that Watkins company. No trainers. Biggest mistake I had ever made! I ended up wasting my time for six months driving around aimlessly! Finally I was making any money and was talking to a driver for a floral company at a truck stop. Turned out the company was ten miles from my house back home. When I got home (after quitting my first company) I got hired on with the floral company. Since they run team only I was paired up with another driver. He had driven for 28 years and was one of the senior drivers for the company. This made night and day difference in my trucking experience! My take home for that first month was a little over $5000.00! I was 21 years old. This guy showed me every little trick to trucking and also taught me about brokerage and the business aspect of it all. I would have paid that guy $10,000 if he had a trucking school! His teaching were invaluable! I'll never forget his very first words of advice to me. We were heading to Oregon out of Miami and he began to talk about driving out west. He said "You can go down a mountain or around a curve a million times too slow, but you can only do it once too fast"! Now I know he didn't write that book but being inexperienced it was advice like this that stuck with me.

I really cannot express the point of how important it is to have a good qualified trainer. I still can't believe why they have made this a law either. Any way out of all my words to newbies this has got to be one of the top on my list.

Good info from you guys above!

 

It is a little like calling someone's bluff in poker.

 

DING DING DING HubCap hit's it square on the head again! With these stupid costs these mills charge to get a CDL you do have the option to take your money elsewhere! The school I taught at had some extremely good instructors there. This was at a time that it wasn't so much a mill but a school! Small classes and one on one time! 5 weeks and you would pass your CDL, not scrape by even though when you paid your money you paid to pass even if you took the whole 5 weeks over and yes we had several during my time that finally gave up! It just wasn't to be. And no they got no refund!

Any one out there can pass the written CDL test just by studying the book. It's the driving test you have to master and prove to the tester you can actually get the truck to moving in a safe manner and make it back with both of you alive! Too many screw ups and you get to do it again! And again until you reach the states limit then thats a fail with no refund! My 16 year old can pass the written as he's actually studied the book just for the heck of it but I won't even let him get his Class F learners permit yet because he has a "few" issues! it's that teenager mentality thing he needs to work on! What a father I turned out to be but I do love my son and want him alive!I'm not ready to turn him loose on the world with a bunch of morons already out there terrorizing 4 wheelers and big trucks! LOL!

Still, it's your money find the school that gives you the best one on one, if you can find out which instructor is tops then ask for his classes but watch the class size! That's the most important. Too many and the driving time gets cut or rushed. Don't get in the frame of mind that you're better than what's his name with the big mouth in the class room! This is not a competition with your peers but with yourself! The only one you need to impress is the instructor and it's really not impressing him but showing him how you learn!

 

Guess who the problem students get sifted through? You got it.

 

Thanks guys!! Good to see we have some honest instructors to learn from.

The origianl OP has a one up on most. Paying for the course themself, not going through a Company Paid course. So they have more than the right to pick and choose. They hold the $$$$.

Glas someone mentioned the PTDI schools. I have seen a few places that would not take you unless you had been trained at one of the PTDI schools.

What's actually Humorous!! ATDS of Elm Mott Tx is PTDI cert and their driving course is on the same filed as an outlaw drag strip I used to go to, that is still open.


Also glad to see Houston Community College is PTDI cert. My father works there so maybe? I can get a discount there. Not sure.

 

I went to diesel driving academy inc. back in 1991.
It was a great program. 8 weeks long, and you had to cover your own room and board, but that was covered by grants, loans, GI Bill.
So I really had no out of pocket cost.
Really got ALLOT of time behind the wheel, and they tought in depth on trip planning and other aspects of the job. Remember, this was before the cell phone, GPS, qualcom etc.
I believe they are still around in a few locations and are still accredited by any and every accrediting agency for schools.

 

There was a time when truck driving schools were qualified for Guaranteed Student Loans and Grants. Not anymore. And all that did was to roll the students living expense into a higher loan and make shorter courses more attractive to schools.

But to be honest, there were schools all over that were pretty well milking the student loan and grant system for all they could get out of them. Those schools not only put themselves under but took many good ones with them.

 

Let me put it this way, a school can not teach you how to be a trucker, all a school can do is get you a CDL.

The only thing that will turn you into a trucker is driving a truck.

What matters most is who you get the first job with, not where you get your licence for the most part.

The best education you can get is here on this forum talking to those who have done it, and at your local truck stop listening to the old timers who have been out there for a couple million miles. You pay attention to them they will teach you things with a truck you never thought possible.

But buyer be ware, there are just as many people out there who want to act knowledgable who are so full of it they steam when it gets cold.

 

And the moment you stop learning how to be a trucker, it is time to step away from the truck. The moment you think you know it all is the moment before you kill yourself and others.

I have told this to every student I ever taught to drive. And many of those were actually taught under a load hauling freight while they learned. Most of the a O/O today. Schools can do better than they are doing but as for building a trucker from scratch? No way! But I have seen them show up on day one knowing trucking is what they wanted to do.

 

I'd be sure to go with a PTDI school. I'd also contact the companies you want to work for and see which schools most of their new hires come from