Central Ref. & not being trained on a 53'

I concur with Chompi. Though I do find it odd (sorry to disagree with you rerun) that the school didnt give you ANY exposure to a 53 during your time there. I can completely understand starting you out on a shorter trailer, but not giving you ANY drivetime with one seems VERY fishy.... (especially when 53 foot is the OTR norm.

I would try and make arraignments to go to the SAME school for the refresher (at THEIR cost) And try to get Central to leverage them too. I am sure all Central has to do is say "if you wish us to continue to hire your graduates, you need to give them exposure to 53' trailers."

Good luck to you. I work for a Carrier VERY similar to Central in both type (reefer) and size. Chompi is correct about not being just a number.

 

Could be the opposite , seen a few trained on sort wheelbase short hood tractor / 53' trailer then given a 280" wheelbase W900L with a 20' container chassis

 

you or anyone else can disagree with me all you want...but IT IS NOT standard practice to put a student, even an advanced student into a truck pulling a 53' trailer. now if some schools have them fine, but the schools i worked at, and am at currently, DO NOT do this....standard practice for my employers is, 28' up to 48' as i mentioned above...

there is a "teamsters school" in my area as well. ALL THEY HAVE by the way is 28' pups........which they road test at the DMV......i want to see you guys demand the teamsters have 53' trailers.....ain't gonna happen.......

now also, one state I DEAL WITH, WILL ALLOW a bobtail tractor in place of a straight truck, for a class B license.......and this ain't no lie. i know, i deal with these things.......

 

I just finished day 4 of my training and we have been maneuvering trailers most of days 3 and 4. Straight backing and offset backing. The shortest trailer on the yard is 48'.

 

I went to school in maine and the only trailers that we pulled were 53 feet long. We did not have any tankers, 48 footers, or 28 footers. We were trained on the trailer that is primarily used over the road. If you can pull a
53 footer comfortably, you can handle anything. Obviously when backing up a shorter trailer, you have to be more careful

 

There's a 53 footer sitting in the yard at the community college I'm starting in a couple of weeks.

 

Any school using trailers shorter than the industry standard ain't a school I'm going to, period dot end of sentence. My school ran a 48' right when the 53' trailer became popular. BUT if we ran a 48' with the tandems slid to the rear, to try and simulate the overhang feeling if not the reality. The shame of it was that I was excellent at backing that 48' trailer, but took an additional two freaking years to figure out how to back a 53'. Furthermore, here in PA the only training trailers I've seen are all 48' and 53' trailers. And the local school will only use 53' in backing practice...

 

what did Jesus say to the Teamsters before he died?


dont do anything til i get back!

 

good for you and your school up thar in ME.

this does not necessarily mean they use it for the road..

good for you at that place you went to.

that's about all she wrote.

ya'll can dispute this all you want......and i will return and re-iterate.....that it IS NOT all that common a practice to have wannabe's, newbies pull 53' trailers onto the roads.......and yes, the teamsters train for the yard and road on pups.......and THAT IS accepted at the DMV test site.

so go ahead, say all you want on how you WILL NOT go to a school does DOES NOT train you on 53' footers.........it's falling on deaf ears...

IT IS NOT A COMMON PRACTICE.....but for those of you that did have school training on'em...???? ......good for you, i am so happy for ya'll.....

oh yeah......it's NO MORE a common practice for any school to train you how to chain up tires, or put together a set of doubles either.....or to operate a dump trailer, or a walking floor trailer or a tanker.......wanna continue this discussion....?????

 

it is the norm for companies who utilize trucks for over the road hauling to use 48 foot or 53 foot trailers. A lot of the bottom feeder companies (Swift, Werner,CR England...) use new drivers as personnel for their trucks. It would be doing a disservice to the new driver/student for them to have been trained only on a 28 foot trailer.

I understand that the DOT allows schools to train their students using a 28 foot trailer. All of the procedures that you must learn as a student can be learned using that size trailer. But the problem is that upon graduation from said school, the student does not have any experience pulling the trailer that is most commonly used. The student would be quite comfortable moving trailers at ups/con-way. But again, there is a problem. ups/con-way require experience. Experience means pulling big trailers....But I have only pulled 28 foot trailers....Sorry, we will hire someone else.