Western Truck School question

Commuter69 · Oct 29, 2014

ZephyrSoCal said: ↑

Are you in the class that started on Monday? If so, does anyone in your class commute from the North County area of San Diego county? Which other schools did you look at? What made you decide to go with Western?
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I am in the class in West Sacramento, and chose the school for 3 reasons:

1) The attitude of the staff I encountered while in my process and the helpfulness they provided.
2) Their experience and track record.
3) Veteran owned business.

ZephyrSoCal · Oct 29, 2014

cwr327, does the owner know about this? Did you pay for your class out of your own pocket? A non-profit for veterans said that they'll pay for mine. If I had an instructor like that teaching my class and conditions like that at the school, I would report it to the owner and to my veterans organization ASAP. I'm sorry to hear about the conditions over there. I sincerely hope that conditions are much better down here.

cwr327 said: ↑

I'm still in school at the Bakersfield campus. I finish school tomorrow (thank god). I don't know what it's like at the other [snip] major carriers would come and talk to us. Only one Werner recruiter showed up.
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cwr327 · Oct 29, 2014

Yes I paid out of pocket. I have thought about contacting headquarters in Sacramento, but if I do I'll wait until I've graduated and have my CDL. I don't want to ruffle any feathers until I get what I came for. Plenty of people have already expressed their concerns to the boss here in Bakersfield.

Best of luck to you, maybe you'll be treated better there in San Diego. If you feel like you're not getting enough practice don't be afraid to just drop in on weekends or stay for nights. That's what I did.

Commuter69 · Oct 29, 2014

cwr327 said: ↑

I'm still in school at the Bakersfield campus. I finish school tomorrow (thank god). I don't know what it's like at the other campuses but the Bakersfield campus is in total disarray. I paid the $4500 for the 4 week daytime class. There were 8 people in my class. I thought that with only 8 people I would be getting some pretty good driving time, I was wrong. They have two trucks and they told me that they could only have 4 people per truck so 8 people is the biggest class they can have. The problem is that people from other previous classes who are testing or have previously failed their test constantly show up during OUR class time and take up one of the trucks. That leaves 8 people with only one truck for half of the day. One truck to do our COLA's, In-cab inspections, and exterior pre-trip. Forget about actually getting some driving time. Sometimes, if there were multiple people testing that day, we wouldn't get any truck AT ALL. One time our instructor stuck us in some dusty old brokedown trucks to "practice" double-clutching. On top of this our a-hole of an instructor would make us get out of the truck before we had even finished practicing our skills. We already barely had any time to practice as it was so nobody got a chance to improve and this would frustrate him and he would take it out on us. He would call other students who had failed their test before "losers" and tell us not to associate with them. The reality is that he is the loser and he can't teach for ####.

A bunch of people have complained about the lack of truck time and the behavior of our instructor so they recently rented a new truck and hired a new instructor. Too little too late, we're only a few days away from graduating. The only way I know how to drive is because I busted my ### and came in on weekends and nights to get extra drive time. There are a couple of people in my class who still can't straight back a tractor trailer and they've been there for 4 weeks.

The yard is a piece of ####. The landlord (not associated with the school) is too cheap to pave it so it's all tar and gravel. Parts of the yard are all torn up and you get stuck all the time. The bathrooms are absolutely disgusting. I've been in some nasty gas station bathrooms but these bathrooms take the cake. A woman in my class tried to clean the woman's bathroom herself but an instructor told her not to because it's the landlords responsibility. Well if he won't clean them then who will? The whole place is just dirty. For $4500 per student per class you think they'd be able to get someone to take decent care of the place.

Before I registered for class I was told that they would send out a bunch of applications to trucking companies and get me pre-hired. Stupid newbie me, I thought I was getting some sort of great deal. When i went there to get pre-hired I was handed one application to Werner. I asked about other companies. I was told that Werner is the only company that requires a paper application and that they would be in contact with other companies. That was a lie. Werner was the only one they applied to. They push Werner really hard. They have some sort of deal with them. There's Werner posters all over the walls, there's a bunch of pictures of graduates who now work at Werner in the hallway. We were told that recruiters from several different major carriers would come and talk to us. Only one Werner recruiter showed up.
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I was also given applications for Werner and a couple of others. Werner denied me because I have fines to the court that have yet to be paid, although arrangements have been made. I do, however, have 5 companies that have agreed to conditionally hire me (the condition being that I come in as a CDL holder), and expect to make a decision within my final week of training.

Remember, the school's goal is to get you skilled and knowledgeable enough to pass the DMV tests. It is the responsibility of the company that ultimately hires you to fine tune the knowledge and skills, adding in the knowledge of the company and policies. All the companies I reviewed had a 280-320 hour minimum time with a company trainer/mentor before allowing a new driver to go out either solo or as a team in his/her own truck.

In my case, the class was almost delayed because the size was so small (there are 3 of us and I come in as a CDL permit holder with a valid DOT physical. All I needed was a new drug test (which I studied for real hard) and an updated H6 report, another needs to go to DMV tomorrow to test for the permit, and the third may have his process interrupted due to a financial matter above him since he received public assistance for financial aid. He only needed a refresher 40 hour course anyway). With 2 students, there should be no reason we can't pass. I was at another 'school' that was contracted to a company to run their training and their class size was 35 after about half of us were dropped for physical issues or urinalysis failures, this meant that there was a 4-1 student to teacher ratio for road driving and 8-1 for parking lot skills and we were literally fighting for time behind the wheel. This was a 2 week course and more than half of it was spent inside. Nobody got more than 8 hours behind the wheel. If I was there out of my pocket and not on a veteran's scholarship, I would have had the same impression you have of Western. It is all perspective.

Chinatown · Oct 29, 2014

cwr327 said: ↑

Yes I paid out of pocket. I have thought about contacting headquarters in Sacramento, but if I do I'll wait until I've graduated and have my CDL. I don't want to ruffle any feathers until I get what I came for. Plenty of people have already expressed their concerns to the boss here in Bakersfield.

Best of luck to you, maybe you'll be treated better there in San Diego. If you feel like you're not getting enough practice don't be afraid to just drop in on weekends or stay for nights. That's what I did.
Click to expand...

You should have started submitting applications online the first day of school. If you live near Bakersfield or in Southern California there are many good companies that will hire you. Forget what the instructor said about jobs and take care of this yourself.

Check the systemtrans website for starters for information on System Transport and TWT Refrigerated Services.

KKW Trucking
Gardner Trucking
Jim Palmer Trucking
Navajo Express
Schneider
JBS Carriers
Southern Refrigerated Transport
Sysco
Celadon
Pride Transport
Gordon Trucking
Super Service
Indian River Transport

Submit lots of applications so you can choose from the job offers before graduation and set up an orientation date to begin your new career.

ZephyrSoCal · Oct 29, 2014

cwr327 said: ↑

Yes I paid out of pocket. I have thought about contacting headquarters in Sacramento, but if I do I'll wait until I've graduated and have my CDL. I don't want to ruffle any feathers until I get what I came for. Plenty of people have already expressed their concerns to the boss here in Bakersfield.

Best of luck to you, maybe you'll be treated better there in San Diego. If you feel like you're not getting enough practice don't be afraid to just drop in on weekends or stay for nights. That's what I did.
Click to expand...

Good luck to you too, cwr327. I hope you pass on the first try. Please do call HQs and report the instructor and landowner. Hopefully things will be better for the next batch of students.

cwr327 · Oct 31, 2014

Commuter69 said: ↑

I was also given applications for Werner and a couple of others. Werner denied me because I have fines to the court that have yet to be paid, although arrangements have been made. I do, however, have 5 companies that have agreed to conditionally hire me (the condition being that I come in as a CDL holder), and expect to make a decision within my final week of training.

Remember, the school's goal is to get you skilled and knowledgeable enough to pass the DMV tests. It is the responsibility of the company that ultimately hires you to fine tune the knowledge and skills, adding in the knowledge of the company and policies. All the companies I reviewed had a 280-320 hour minimum time with a company trainer/mentor before allowing a new driver to go out either solo or as a team in his/her own truck.

In my case, the class was almost delayed because the size was so small (there are 3 of us and I come in as a CDL permit holder with a valid DOT physical. All I needed was a new drug test (which I studied for real hard) and an updated H6 report, another needs to go to DMV tomorrow to test for the permit, and the third may have his process interrupted due to a financial matter above him since he received public assistance for financial aid. He only needed a refresher 40 hour course anyway). With 2 students, there should be no reason we can't pass. I was at another 'school' that was contracted to a company to run their training and their class size was 35 after about half of us were dropped for physical issues or urinalysis failures, this meant that there was a 4-1 student to teacher ratio for road driving and 8-1 for parking lot skills and we were literally fighting for time behind the wheel. This was a 2 week course and more than half of it was spent inside. Nobody got more than 8 hours behind the wheel. If I was there out of my pocket and not on a veteran's scholarship, I would have had the same impression you have of Western. It is all perspective.
Click to expand...

Have you already started class? You shouldn't have too much trouble with only 3 people in your class. I'm curious, how many trucks do they have up there in Sacramento and what is the yard like?

I fully understood going in that they would only teach me what I needed to know to get my CDL and nothing else. I was fine with that. They haven't really made good on that promise though. I think I know enough to pass the test, but that's only because I put in extra hours to practice. Out of the 8 people in my class I can honestly say that only 3 of us are anywhere near the ability to pass the DMV test. I was told by our instructor that about 60% of students pass on their first try. Yet out of the dozen or so students I know who have tested only 2 have passed.

Best of luck.

cwr327 · Oct 31, 2014

Chinatown said: ↑

You should have started submitting applications online the first day of school. If you live near Bakersfield or in Southern California there are many good companies that will hire you. Forget what the instructor said about jobs and take care of this yourself.

Check the systemtrans website for starters for information on System Transport and TWT Refrigerated Services.

KKW Trucking
Gardner Trucking
Jim Palmer Trucking
Navajo Express
Schneider
JBS Carriers
Southern Refrigerated Transport
Sysco
Celadon
Pride Transport
Gordon Trucking
Super Service
Indian River Transport

Submit lots of applications so you can choose from the job offers before graduation and set up an orientation date to begin your new career.
Click to expand...

Thanks Chinatown. I was contacted by System Transport today. The recruiter seemed eager to get me on with their flatbed division. I've heard good things about them on this forum so I hope I can get hired there. There's just a little hiccup with my work history that needs to get sorted.

revin57 · Oct 31, 2014

I recently went through their program and everyone failed their 1st DMV tests. They will all probably fail unfortunately. This is because there is no standard in pre trips or training criteria. I got a perfect score with my pre trip and got a 76 at the DMV. Sacramento can't even go to the sac DMV because Western must have pissed somebody off and they fail a large % of the students.
You will train on day cabs and trucks that are different than the 1 and only 1 truck they use for the DMV test. I tested on DMV day with a truck I have never driven before. I had to tell the DMV tester this before I started driving but she would have soon found out when I tried to stop with the worn brakes and grinding the gears.. Luckily I did pass.
Go to a school that has all the same equipment!! Don't listen to super truckers that tell you that you have to adapt to all vehicles. Yes this is true but not for a DMV test!
Please look at their equipment, any school for that matter and get it in writing! You have been warned.. Be safe.

ZephyrSoCal · Oct 31, 2014

Did you attend the Western Truck School in Sacramento? Recently? This is really bad news...

revin57 said: ↑

I recently went through their program and everyone failed their 1st DMV tests. They will all probably fail unfortunately. [snip]
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