Newbie Team Driver Wannabees - Can We Do This?

Well, I'm not an expert on this subject, by any means, but I will tell you what one of the CDL school recruiters told us in a phone conversation. She said there are many companies who will allow one member of a team to train the other member. So she told us to ask the company recruiter that question. Apparently, one of us would go to school first and then after completing CDL, orientation and company training, would train the other member of the team. It sounds good to me, but then I think it would be easier for us to just go to school together and get it over with faster and get working. I don't know, everyone's circumstances are different and we each need to do whatever is best for us.

As for you not wanting to quit your current job to attend school ... here is an idea that might work for you ... we learned that some community college CDL schools offer night and weekend classes. That might be an option for you. Google CDL training in whatever state you are living ... it will pull up a bunch of links to schools and you should be able to find info on community colleges in your area. Don't be afraid to call them, I have talked to at least a half dozen different schools and every single person that I have talked to has been extremely nice and very helpful in answering all my questions regarding CDL training.

Good luck, make those calls. You'll then be able to make a decision about going or not. They'll even give you info on your husband being able to train you. He might need recurrent training first, but like I said, I'm no expert on this subject so be sure to make a list of questions before you begin calling and ask them all the questions and write down all the answers, otherwise you'll be confused as to which school said what. I have a notebook and I keep notes in it on every single thing I've done, all the calls I've made, etc. It helps in making a final decision.


And ask them about that WIA assistance program, you'll need to go see the case worker at your local Employment Office and see if there is money left in your state ... here in KY, in our district, they ran out already.

 

So a couple days ago we decided that it might be best to go to the KY Transportation Cabinet office to get copies of our full driving records. Well, I thought it might be best ...

After hearing several stories here on the forum threads about people who waited until they got to orientation to have their records pulled and then found things on those records that they didn't know were there, I got a little freaked out! I asked my husband if this can really happen, I mean, what if we got a parking ticket and it blew off the windshield? Or what if someone thought it would be really funny to take the ticket off the windshield and throw it away and then we never knew about it, therefore never paid the fine ... and then after we paid all that money for CDL training and we're all excited about orientation at a company, then on the first day ... wham! ... we find out we never paid a ticket and we're OUT!

He glanced sideways at me with a slightly furrowed brow and said to me, "Are you serious? That would never happen to you! ... you chug 4 quarters into a 10 cent an hour parking meter just to make sure you can make it back in time while picking up the dog at the groomer which is on the other side of the sidewalk from the meter! Honey, you pay for the next 6 cars to park and pick up their pets! What are you talking about?!" My answer: 'Well, I think we need to go get our records anyway, just to be sure, so I can sleep at night.'

So, off we went.

We walked into the offices and a very nice older gentleman came up to the 2' x 3' window with the bullet proof glass, slid it to the side and asked if he could help us. My husband said, "Yes sir, we'd both like to get our driving records." He looked at me and asked, "3 years or 6 years?" I smiled and said, 'I want all of it, from the time I was 15 and took driver's training ... we're going to CDL school and I want to make sure I was a good driver and there are no surprises on my record!" He grinned, said his name was Jim and that he used to be a trucker for Averitt Express and added ... "you're gonna love it! Dedicated?" I said ... "No! OTR!", while trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about. He said, "Oh, you two are gonna live in the truck, huh?", as he looked at my husband, who nodded yes and said, "yes, sir, we are planning on doing that." Jim just grinned and looked at me, then my husband, then back at me again. He asked for our driver's licenses and as we got them out, he started telling us the coolest stories about his times on the road, about the mountain passes, the runaway truck lanes, the snow, the truck stops, backing up to docks, the chicken coop at the weigh stations; everything in his trucker memory bank just came pouring out. We had a great time listening to his stories, he was quite a character. He pulled up our driving records and as he handed them to us he said, "Good luck with your driving careers, have fun on the road. You two will have no problem at all getting a job with a good carrier! That will be 6 dollars, please."

We looked at our little pieces of paper and mine was blank. I must be really boring, nothing to report at all. A clean driving record my entire life. Well, I knew that, but they could have at least put an "atta-girl" note on there, something like "great job! You got an A++"

Hubby, on the other hand, had an "almost-perfect", driving record, an A-minus, if you will. 4 yrs ago he was rear-ended by a woman who was not paying attention to her driving and hit our truck. No damage to our truck, but her car had to be towed away and she got a free ride in an ambulance because she became hysterical afterward. She was not physically injured, btw, just hysterical. She kept crying and wailing something about the car being new and her husband was going to be really mad. The cause of the accident was not my husband. The scenario was this: 4 lane road, busy time of day, slightly heavy traffic both ways. Truck in front of our truck stops suddenly because a car coming toward him went left of center and was about to hit him head on. He stopped suddenly, my husband crammed the brakes to avoid rear-ending him (and was successful), but the woman in the car behind our truck was not paying attention, didn't see what was going on up ahead and ended up with the hood of her car crunched up behind our truck bed.

He has the accident report, which states that he is not at fault, and on the report about the woman, they typed the word "inattention". KY is a no-fault State. Oh, and the girl who WAS the cause of the accident? She swerved back to the right just before hitting the truck in front of my husband ... and kept on driving! Left the scene of the accident! Not sure if they ever got her. (shaking my head)

So hopefully, this little transgression will not be a deterrent for him getting accepted by a company. That would totally suck.

Our new friend Jim over there at the KY Transportation Cabinet office told us not to worry about that, it's not anything against my husband, it's just a matter of record keeping and that little thing will be erased from his record completely in one more year, as they do that every 5 yrs in KY.

So, I guess we're good to go as far as the driving records. And if he doesn't make it ... anyone want to team drive with me until they wipe his record in April 2013?

 

Thanks, Dagger, good advice. We plan to do that, in fact were told by a CDL school recruiter to bring it along. We're also going to get our DOT physicals before going to CDL training, have already located a few places to do that in our area.

 

We found another CDL school in KY called Truck America Training. We are probably going to attend this one. After speaking to a half dozen different schools in KY, OH and NC, we were most impressed with this school. It's a 2 hour drive from our house so if we go here, we will tow our travel trailer down there and set up at a KOA campground that is about 4 miles from the training facility. This will enable us to take our little dog along with us, she can stay in the trailer while we're at school, which will save us the expense of kenneling her. That's her over there <------. Look at that sweet face! Everyone say "awww". We also won't have to stay in a motel, we'll be able to sleep in our own bed and even cook meals rather than spend money eating out. And since classes start at 6:30am and run 'til 7pm, we can't possibly drive home each night, get good rest, and then drive back each morning. Doesn't make sense to do that.

The reason we liked this school better than the others was simply due to the woman who took our call, her name is Kathy Jo. She made us feel like they would really take care of us. She was the most thorough and gave us the best information of any schools that we had called up to that time.

After introducing myself to her and asking her for info on their CDL classes, I put her on speaker so my husband and I could both discuss the school with her and she told us that before she gave us any information she'd like to get some info from us and asked if it was OK with us if she did that. It was a pre-qualification for school admittance. We said sure!

She was very pleasant to talk to, and she began asking questions from a form she had in front of her, said she was writing the answers that we provided, so she wanted to talk about one of us at a time so she could keep it all straight. I can't remember all of the questions she asked, but she was very thorough, asked all the important things that we would have to be aware of in order to be accepted by a potential employer in the trucking industry.

She wanted to know about our driving records, asked if we had any felonies, if we had health issues, high blood pressure, if we had been in the service, where we worked in the past, if our social security cards were paper or laminated. I found out that if they are laminated, that's not a good thing ... who knew? Ours are paper.

After asking each of us all these questions and more that I cannot remember, she said that based on our answers, she did not see any problems and told us that she expected we would get offers from several companies after CDL training. This school is very diligent in placing their graduates with good companies and she said they pre-screen applicants to make sure that they are going to be able to place them with a company prior to accepting them into the CDL training program. Apparently, if they don't feel that they are good candidates for placement, then they don't accept them as students. I was impressed! We really liked that about this training facility; one of our main concerns is that we could spend money on CDL training only to find out that there was some little thing that could stand in the way of getting job offers afterward.

We asked a lot of questions about the training, trucking in general, where to stay while attending classes, what we would be trained on and more and she spent all the time we needed, answering all of our questions. I think we were on the phone with her for at least an hour. She sent us info in email and told us they start classes every two weeks. The training is 3 weeks, State Certified and the cost, $4,150 each. They have a simulator too, which my husband is pretty excited about, since that's what he's used to in the airline industry.

Here is the link to an article about them in the local newspaper, on their website: http://www.tatcdl.com/news.html This is not a community college course, this is a trucking school and they do nothing other than truck driver training.

 

Thanks Cy Ran, I will definitely go read the info on the school forum. Thanks for the tip!

LOL about the driving records and the DMV. Glad you're following the thread and thanks for the comments!

 

I am receiving a lot of private messages from wonderful people who are not comfortable commenting on this thread but who are cheering us on and thanking me for writing about this, encouraging me to keep telling our story. Thank you to all of you, I'm glad you're reading, and "you're welcome".

Several guys have told me their wives won't go OTR with them and said my husband is a lucky man. Some wives have told me I'm a brave woman, some have said I'm crazy (in a nice way). So here's what's going on in my head. Yes, he's lucky ... but so am I lucky to have him. And yes, I'm a bit crazy (in a nice way). But I'm also pretty darn scared too.

I have heard from wives who won't go OTR with their husbands and I understand how scary it is to even consider that move. I have mixed feelings about doing this myself! I'd much rather stay here in our house and let him go to work and "do his thing", just like he did with the airline. It would be so much easier on me and I'd love to keep our house. Unfortunately, that is not an option, no matter if he goes into trucking or stays in the airline industry or goes to work pretty much anywhere.

Speaking only of the trucking industry, if he drives solo, we cannot afford the house; the solo pay is less than 1/4th of the income that we need in order to keep things the way they were a few weeks ago. We need the team pay in order to (hopefully) make just 3/4 of what we need in order to keep the house and keep paying bills on time, so it looks like I am going to be one half of that team.

We're a team whether we are driving or not; I think we signed up for that in our marriage vows, didn't we? For better or worse, richer or poorer ... I cannot put the full burden of providing an income on him right now, it wouldn't be fair; he's stressed enough right now and is feeling pretty bad. It isn't his fault that we're in this predicament. I won't go into a rant about who we think is to blame and all that ... it's counterproductive and creates bad energy and Lord knows we don't need bad energy right now. We need to keep everything as upbeat and as positive as we can so we don't fall apart here.

I'm a photographer and have a makeshift portrait studio set up in our bsmt. I'll be giving up my portrait photography for trucking. I also have a little sewing business on the side, one room of my home is set up with 2 sewing machines and a serger, and will be giving that up as well. My photography and sewing kept me busy while he was away on trips for 4-5 days at a time and were more something to occupy my time while he was away on trips than for income, so it was fun and gave me some good spending money so I could buy more lenses for my cameras. I'll miss my cameras most. (I will take one camera body and one lens with us on the road though, and continue shooting stock photography for the agencies that I freelance with, though, or I'll go nuts.)

I'd love to stay home; keep things just the way they've been for the past 10 years, it's definitely my comfort zone and trucking OTR as a team is really out of my comfort zone altogether, but it's also a challenge and I love a challenge, so I'm IN.

We are going to sell our house because we would rather sell it than take a chance on ruining our excellent credit ratings if we cannot make the mtg payments during this career transition. And also, if we're only going to be home 2-4 days a month while working in this industry, why saddle ourselves with that debt? It doesn't make sense to us to pay 1600 dollar a month mtg payments, pay taxes, utilities, lawn care, maintenance, etc, etc, for a place we'll visit for half a week per month. We are planning on spending our off-days in a nice, suites hotel (in whatever city we want to), sleep in a nice king size bed, have maid service and get rides to eat dinner out or go shopping via the hotel van. Most hotels have laundry rooms and we can use those to wash our clothes. We figure the hotel expense will run from 200-400 a month, which is a lot less expensive than paying a mtg on a house or renting even a small apartment. And we won't have to worry about our home sitting empty for upwards of 3.5 weeks at a time. We'll see how that goes once we're really into this OTR thing, but at least it's a plan. And having a plan is what is keeping me from freaking out right now.

I put up a brave front, but I'm pretty scared about being "homeless", I.E. not owning a house, worrying about how we'll pack up a 3000 sq ft house, a bsmt full of photography studio equipment and a 400 sq ft garage full of hubby's tools, our bikes, our camping gear and things ... and trying to squeeze it into the 10' x 30' storage unit that we rented yesterday. We'll be selling a lot of things that won't fit in that storage space. I will be shooting pictures of furniture pieces that we can sell and putting them up on Craigslist, donating a lot of things, leaving some things here with the house because we just can't store them, such as all of our appliances. I'm not one of those people who is emotionally attached to our things, but I do have some brand new furniture that I just paid off a month ago with my photography money and I know that I can't just sell that on Craigstlist and recoup my money, so that stuff will go to storage.

We just don't know where to begin in making everything just disappear in 4 weeks so that we are free to go to CDL training and then on to company training with a carrier, and then off to work, forever on the road, living in a truck that's smaller than the food pantry in our kitchen. It makes my stomach ache when I think of all we need to do and the only thing that keeps me from sitting down and crying a river of tears is the knowledge that we have each other, that's one thing our soon-to-be former company could not destroy. And if we just keep taking forward steps and try to be positive about it all, everything will work out fine in the end. Because it always does work out fine. Getting from one side of this storm to the other isn't going to be easy, but we'll get there.