Switch from van to flatbed hopefully!

Get used to that. Especially with guys from Gary. You are now the last line of "defense" before a guy gets his own truck. I remember when they shortened orientation from five days to three days and half of one day was for drug tests. These guys would get in the truck and have all kinds of questions that used to be covered in orientation. They were told, "Oh, your trainer will go over that." What? I guess I missed the memo and the pay increase on that one. So now I am supposed to teach him how to drive the truck, secure the load, log correctly, trip plan, Qualcomm and teach half of the orientation class? Cool.

How is the new training program supposed to work for flatbed? What did they figure out for 7/7 trainers? How are trainers getting paid now?

They have really condensed the training time and looks like they are just trying to churn out drivers. When I went through it was a four week course to get a CDL. Now it is three. Then you spent another month with a trainer, then a month with another student before you got your own truck. When you got your first truck it was a beat up piece of junk that didn't really matter if you dinged up while learning how to do this job.

 

The time in truck with a trainer is shorter than it was for me just 4 years ago. I recall being in the truck 21 working days. Now it's 8-13. They are supposed to be doing a lot more comprehensive training in the phase 1 orientation. They must be doing something there because my first student was whipping out all sorts of securement technical info out on me. He was pretty well informed. Of course he may have just studied better. I do agree about first truck issues too. That very first truck should be an older beater. When I still had my 07 Columbia I was constantly running into guys with a few months experience in brand new trucks. Started getting to me. A month with another student? They must have done away with that before I started.

 

i've had three students this year with zero securement. two others got to watch another class strap a trailer for about ten minutes.

i don't know how the classes are organized these days, but securement isn't the first priority when time is short.

 

on the other hand, i've got one now that says he spent at least part of two days on it.

 

Treefork if your first student was from NY he had to get a Endorsment from NY for Coils, which is actually all securements, so he had a big jump on it, that test is no joke, I know when I went to securement class I had fun with the intructor till he reliazed I was from NY and had the endorsement. I think Roehl is cutting corners on the training with the new programs. IMHO

 

First was from OH. This new guy is from NY though.

 

This may be a slow question but when transfering from van to flatbed, what is the pay (if any) during the securement training?

 

Don't quote me on this but I thought it was like $120.00/day. Not sure though.

 

It was $100 a day last year

 

I went through in December or so and it was $100 a day.