Interstate distributor Co.

HI there... I just went through the school you are talking about for IDC. My husband is already driving for IDC so it made sense for me to to it.

Ok.. lol so where do I start. I think I will start at the end first! I can drive a truck! The course itself is a bit weird, but looking back on it, i guess it works. The very first day at the school we were put in the truck and drove around the range. Very effective way to get rid of that immediate nervousness. The whole thing is very skills oriented. You will learn how to drive both Automatic and Manual trannys.. in fact IDC has a yard there in Tucumcari, and the school uses 2 of their trucks for or training. You can expect to spend very little time in the classroom.. most of it will be on the range learning how to do alley docks, parallel parking, serpentine backing, 45 deg alley docking, straight back backing. You will also get some on the road driving and probably do some pickups and deliveries for the school as well as possibly an overnight delivery. It is amazing what you will learn in just 5 weeks.

The Instructors: Kenneth.. lol you will hardly see him.. he heads up the driving school.. but you wouldnt know it. His bark is much worse than his bite. Vernon... awesome range instructor and very nice guy!! Guy (Mr. Cohee) Very old guy.. LOL good at the OTR stuff... I learned tons from him!!

Tucumcari: Dullsville!! no transportation.. don't let Don Smith tell you there is a van there for you to use.. cuz thats bull! Stores w/in walking distance though and food close by. The motel.. not absolutely horrid.. but not great either. Very small! I would recommend driving your own vehicle if at all possible, so you can at least have a bit of freedom.

IDC: For us.. we have had to fight the entire time to get to school.. from school.. and now on to orientation. Don't entirely believe everything you are told by Don Smith. Since you two arent employed by them yet, you wont have to deal with all the problems of trying to get loads in the area to get you to and from the places you need to go to. They will fly you to your Terminal for Orientation. From what I understand, they treat teams better than they do solos. Oh .. and the week that I left school, there was a couple that just arrived that were training to drive as a team. They said that they were going to train as solos because it would complete their training.
Anyways.. thats about all I can think of right now. Overall, I think its a good deal.. even though the school might seem a bit rinky dink..lol. They do get the job done in the end. Good Luck!! And if you have any questions about the school.. I will keep an eye on the forum and see if its anything I can answer.

 

Hiya! I am going to be driving team with my husband. While I am doing orientation and local training for a week, he will be attending a "train the trainer" class. He will actually be my trainer which is very cool! I am supposed to be in orientation on Monday. I just finished up the school last Friday.

As far as IDC goes.. For a while the miles were good.. fantastic as a matter of fact, even just being solo. Then right about Christmas, things got whacked.. we had a new dispatcher who was absolutely horrible! We finally fired him and got a new one who is actually really good for the most part. We were actually considering looking for a new company recently because we were left sitting .. but you will get that with any company. As a solo, we typically take home anywhere between $600-$800.. but then again there are bad weeks where you only get 3-400.. and once again we have brought in over 1200... sooooo in the end it all averages out.

One thing I can say is that I have never met an IDC Team that wasn't happy with their miles. A lot of solos are left sitting, however. What hiring area are you in, if you don't mind me asking? Tacoma or Lebanon, TN?

Let me know if you decide to go with it and go to Tucumcari.. I want to share a little joke with you and take one of the instructors, Vernon, a little present hehe.

 

From what I understand, after you are put in your own truck, they will start deducting your tuition from your checks each week... then at the end of a year you supposedly get the money back.. probably in installments. Are you serious about the cost being $8000?? For me as a single it was only right around $3000! But.. that might include airfare, right? The other couple that just started my last week there saved the airfare by driving there, but they were only coming from Bakersfield. They also realized that they were being charged the price for 2 separate rooms, so they found another motel and paid for it on their own. Also... another money saver would be to not get 2 sets of books.. or for that matter not get several of them at all. They had us get a big text/workbook and all the small handbooks.. a log book calculator, and stuff from the College Bookstore that we never even opened. When I go up to Tacoma for Orientation, those are a few things I am going to question him about. I was also planning to give the other couple at the school right now a call to see how things were going.. and I will ask them what they are paying for tuition and find out what they were promised. I'll let ya know what more I find out... have a great day and catch you later.

 

Just make sure ya don't let them bully ya into more cost than what it really needs to be. On one hand its really nice to just let someone else worry about making all the arrangements, but on the other hand, I notice that they can have a tendency to take advantage. The motel that they put you up in, charges IDC just $90 / week... but IDC views a team there together in one room as 2 separate rooms and doubles the price for you. There are other motels very close that are only 19.95/night and would be likely to give a weekly discount. Just something to think about.
So are there other companies that you guys are looking at?

 

I do gotta say.. the IDC trucks are a lot nicer than most of the other ones I have seen. Teams used to get Volvos, but they found out that the teams put too many miles on them and they had to park them until the lease was up. The freightliners are nice too, though. They all come with a 1500 W inverter so that you can run electrical things. We cook nearly all our meals in the truck, so its works our great. I haven't heard much either way about Central Ref. My husband stays clear of reefer after doing it for a while. He claims that there is too much sitting .. waiting to be loaded and unloaded. A lot of times you have to wait for the produce to come in from the fields and be cooled before it can be put on your truck and sometimes you have to go from place to place picking up bits and pieces of your load. My husband just said that it took him 3 days once to get loaded because of that... then it can take 8 hours to get unloaded at the grocery warehouses. I'm sure not all places are like that all the time.... that seems extreme to me .. lol.