Training with a trainer?

If you are being trained properly then you shouldn't be running as a full blown team. To start things off at least for the first week or so your trainer should be fully awake and in the passenger seat while you drive. You should both be running the same shift with you driving and him on duty. This is the legal way. If he needs to demonstrate driving techniques then he will want to reserve some hours for himself to drive and then you will put be on duty. Even if he is comfortable with your driving abilities he should still be showing you the ropes and giving you guidance as you drive, not be in the back sleeping. I would say this is how it should be done for about two thirds of your training. Maybe for the last third of your training you can run a little more as a team and operate the truck a little more independently.

If at first when you began to train if you are running more than 4200-5000 miles than this is too much. You are being used more as a team driver. If you feel you are not being trained properly then immediately speak up, call safety and get another trainer. Keep in mind that chances are your trainer hasn't been driving a whole lot longer than you have! That is the biggest problem on the road today. I can definitely see it in the increasing number of times I get bright lights flashed at me to move over! There just isn't enough qualified trainers out there to train the increasing amount of newbies coming in. Because the turnover rate is so high you have guys training other guys who have been driving for a total of three months!

So if you feel as if you aren't being trained properly, then don't sell yourself short, talk to safety immediately! It is not uncommon to switch trainers and you will not be penalized for it. In fact they just may thank you. Sometimes its hard for a company to know what is going on out there without some kind report. A bad trainer may go on training in a bad way for a long time! Thus creating many other bad trainers!

 

I can answer this for Prime Inc. I went threw their training program. Prime wants you to complete 40,000 miles or when your trainer says you are ready to go on your own (which wont happen). The 40,000 miles is total driven from both you and your trainer. So lets calculate that... You are driving as teams from day one. So lets say you get 5,000 miles a week as a team thats 8 weeks. So lets say your trainer likes to go home once a month for a few days you training has now been extended. So lets say you get 4,000 because your trainer does not go hard or likes to take time off. Thats now 10 weeks. Sorry it seem like you will never upgrade to your own check. You take turn sleeping, however if they are driving and you arrival at a shipper the trainee must wake up from his/her 10 and do the receiver/shipper process every time.