Independent studies vs company/school training?

The DMV will probably not even test you if you show up without a licensed driver. I have experience in this because I did it in the late 90's in CA. It wasn't exactly like your case though. I learned to drive in the Marine Corps and had been driving class A vehicles for years on a military non-cdl license. I wanted to get my CDL so I took the government truck to the CA. DMV. The lady did not want to test me because she thought I was in violation. I showed her my government license and she agreed. By the way, I failed the test, didn't even get to the driving part. I failed the air brakes portion and the day ended there. That was until I got back in the truck told her I would be back next week and drove off the property by myself. I still remember her jaw dropping as I pulled off the property.

 

What you need is a publicly funded driving school like the one in Drumright Oklahoma. Its the number 1 school in the state. Been around since 1969. They have all kinds of funding for unemployed people that don't have felonies, Veterans, and more. They have 3 miles of testing roads on private property. If you do have to pay then its 3000 dollars for residents in Oklahoma. And I think 5 grand for out of state folks. They have housing food and all that. And they have good equipment. I hear that after a few days driving a clunker they assign you a truck and you stay with that one truck for the remainder of the time and test in it. And believe me you don't have a snowballs chance of passing the backing and driving test with no training. I know a lot of the truck drivers didn't attend a school as you stated. But some of them grew up in a truck or on a farm practicing from childhood. And a lot of them had a license grandfathered in before the new laws came in to effect. And most of the experience drivers on the road would fail this test you would take today. They would fail it on backing and shifting and pretrip. They would have to practice all these areas, I don't care if they been driving 40 years. The pretrip consists of walking around the truck and naming basically every part on it, and what your checking it for, example you have to know the minimum tread depths for all the tires, you have to know how to check slack adjusters and tell them what your looking for and why, and you cant just say it in our lingo you have to use their precise terminology. That test alone would fail almost all of us if we didn't have the proper literature papers and words to say. In backing you have to do all the blindside parallels and offsets, 90 degree alley dock, straightline backs, and if you touch a cone you loose points, and you can only get out and look 2 times and get 2 free pullups. On the road tests you don't change lanes in intersections, you absolutely must double clutch, when you stop behind another car in traffic you better be able to see the other cars back tires over the front of tractor. If you put a tire up on a curb you just failed, If your not going fast enough your impeding traffic, If you come to a stop with the truck in neutral it costs you points, If you change lanes and shift gears at same time it costs you points. If you shift in a turn it costs you points. If you don't look both ways 3 time before and during and after a railroad crossing you loose points. If your in eight gear and a light turns yellow and your a truck length away you stop/ because if she sees any red at all while your flying under it then you just failed. If you stall the truck you just failed, while your driving its both hands on wheel unless shifting, soon as you shift you better get hand back on wheel between every gear. Its almost easier for a person who has never driven to pass the test. They don't care how long you drove, You have to do it their way or you will NOT get a License. If you go to a school you will be taught all of this. If you try and do this on your own , well good luck! Cool thing is recruiters come to these schools because they know you have been taught. Most of these companies that came to your school will pay for your school if you hire on with them. They don't pay you all at once they spread it out and pay you so much a month, that way if you quit then they stop reimbursing you for school. I had the opportunity to practice with truckers who were experienced but had lost their license. and they struggled also. They were a little better at backing than us Newbies but most of them had never needed to parallel park. But they new the basic things important to backing so it helped. None of them passed on the first try. One of them was a OTR trucker for 18 years and he was training to be an instructor at the school, He trouble blind side parallel parking and double clutching, and with the terminology (wording) for the pre trip. THIS TEST is not easy! Go to a school! And for all Experienced Drivers Do Not loose your License or you may need a school also! Ive only had a CDL for a week and don't know Jack Sh--. But I know what it takes to pass this test lol.

 

There are pro's and con's both to public schooling and company schooling. The biggest con to public schooling is that if you go to one then you really need to have an idea as to who you plan on driving for when you graduate and you need to find out if that company will even recognize your training from the school you are going to attend. A lot of companies only have certain schools they will hire students from. With that said, there are obvious con's to company training as well with the main on being that you will be stuck with that company till you pay back the tuition in either money or loyalty time. I personally prefer the company side of things simply because I start earning a paycheck a lot sooner and my family can stay with relatives for a few weeks till I get that first paycheck and we are able to start over with a lot more money. I strongly suggest that if you go this route though that you delve deep into this and other forums and reviews and study each and every company you think you might want to start out with. I have researched tons of companies in depth and found Prime to be the top of the heap for my area. but they might be for you. Crowder college here in Neosho Missouri is a well recognized school with a ton of companies as well and they are recognized with those companies because they have a very in depth 1 month training program, not just a get you in a truck till you can pass the test type of school. You will pass hands on manuvering, skid recovery and backing as well as many other skills and you will drive on the road with them as well to get real life experience.

 

I didnt even go to the school I recommended, I learned about it after the fact, HINDSIGHT! lol, After learning about it I did some studying and there is no doubt in my mind that if my son goes to school its going to be in Drumright, and same for my brother, or anyone I care about! I would recommend going on google earth and looking at this school and its testing facility. You wont believe your eyes folks. Its freaking awesome! And they only have 2 people per truck! Its a one month almost 5 week course, and during your second week you go on a 150 mile road trip in which you drive one way and your buddy drives back. They have 3 miles of paved roads inside private property to test on, And they actually have a place where they put on some kind of slime on road and practice skid recovery. And it only cost half what I payed for my school! ( HINDSIGHT) I can only wish Id known of this school! And so I try and tell everyone! Recruiters flock to this school, werner, swift, cr england, and many others. They also came to my school and fed us lunch and explained what they wanted and practically begged us to sign on. And offered to pay for our school up to $8000. reimbursement, Im not knocking the school I went to at all, It was a great school! And I actually miss the instructors , director , and Owner, The actual owner came out and set with us and offered encouragement, They would take you to lunch if you didnt have a ride, Put you in motel, They have a shop next door to fix anything wrong with trucks, Arbuckle Driving school did me right! But I just think Drumright is a state of the art facility, with private roads/ and fewer students per truck! Both are incredible good schools.

 

Crowder college in Neosho Missouri is just like Drumright. It is on the old Fort Crowder campus so they too have miles of private roads for you to drive and they do the skid recovery as well as rapid lane changing and so on. I have heard nothing but great things about both schools and have often wondered if they are not connected in some way. Also they have a ton of recruiters there all the time too and if you check just about any trucking companies website that list the schools the accredit, Crowder and Drumright are almost always on those lists.

 

Im almost positive they are connected, Most likely they are both Government run schools. I know Drumright is. And while Im almost against all things Government , I know this is a good school. Hey thanks for posting man. Im tired of seeing these students suffer at the hands of con artist schools. Keep spreading the word folks.

 

When it comes to getting you CDL and operating a tractor trailer that 80,000 pounds and it's worth $150,000, you don't want to take any shortcuts. there's too many new drivers killing themselves or killing someone else because of lack of experience. I recomend to get your training with Maverick or TMC. NEVER take short cuts for safty training and obtaining your CDL license. Give a company a year of your service, make a good income, talk to other driver about the transportation industry and then go after your personal goals.

 

Some of the private schools will offer a pay by the day course, as opposed to the full course. I was able to learn all of the maneuvers and pre trip inspection steps in three days. Then you pay about $100 for the test. I managed to get my CDL for about $550. However I was in a unique situation because I had my employment lined up and was able to use military driving experience to satisfy the insurance company's requirements. The biggest obstacle to learning fast is limited access to the trucks. The more trucks on hand per driver, the more time you can spend actually learning. Try to find a school that has a good ratio. I trained as a hot shot driver and I was the only one there doing that, so I had my own dump truck and 26' trailer to work with which helped speed it up for me. I still got a class A which is what you need to drive anything. The school is really only going to teach you how to get a license, you will learn most of what you need to know about trucking on your first job.

That said, I would suggest you go the route of having a company school you or finance your training and the using the company for your first year of experience. It kills 2 birds with 1 stone and ends up being the cheapest and easiest in the long run. Then after fulfilling your obligation to them you are home free and have everything you need to go to work wherever you want. Keep your record clean and you will have even more opportunities to choose from.