First time driver who paid for their own schooling: Do you feel like you got....

I did the 170 hour course at a local truck driving school. The instructors where nice and helpful, but the bottom line is they only teach you enough to run the maneuver course and road test to get your CDL. Basically out of the 170 hours 40 were spent in the classroom and the reminding spent doing maneuvers and driving. The maneuvers and driving time was then divided by the number of students in your group. We had four students in our group. This equates out to roughly 15 hours actually doing maneuvers and less than 6 hours actually driving a truck and this included the 45 minutes for the road test. Our group had a couple of students with language barriers who took up way too much time learning the maneuvers and driving (Shifting) so in reality I had even less time behind the wheel. Unfortunately the law and trucking companies required the course. Kind of funny, but I just got turned down by Schneider because I graduated over 60 days ago.

 

I went to tdds in Ohio. It was worth it. But like others said the schools are to get your license. My instructors told us that to. When I came to roehl my first trainer told me to forget what I learned in school, he would teach me the right way.