Starting with Dart with no experience. My tale from Interview and on going.

Dart pays for everything up front for ya. If i quit before the 9 months is up then I would owe $3000.

 

I believe they would. You would probably have to go threw there on there orientation and the on the job training. Orientation is another step of schooling and is about a week long. Then there is on the job training that can last 3 to 5 weeks before getting your own route. If you are interested, it would probably be best to contact them for the specifics.

 

Home from my first day at school. Filled out some papers and started class. There were 4 of us Dart pre hires there. Around 10 am us Dart guys were separated from the rest of the class and went off with an instructor. He went over the pre trip information and brought us out to a truck with a 53' trailer. We went threw a pre trip all together and helped let us know better on how to go threw one. We then started with backing. He showed us how to do it and then let us do it a few times each. First with straight back and then to right offset and then to left offset. I was surprised that that we pretty much went right to the truck on our first day and not much inside class. I didn't do too bad. I did have to pull forward a couple of time to straighten out the first time with an offset. We paired up and while 2 guys were backing the other two would be going threw a pre trip on another truck. We did have a 45 minute lunch in there. At the end of the day we did a some log book training. Tomorrow we go over pre trip some more and the we will be driving threw some gears.

 

Day 2 and 3. We do not have any indoor classes. It's all about learning to drive the truck. We can sit threw a log book class tomorrow if we want. I pan on it even though Dart has E Log. It would be good to know.
Yesterday we did a some laps around the lot going up and down the gears. The instructor was confident enough in us that instead of going to the other lot for more driving he took us out on the city roads. Ended up driving from Inver Grove to S. St. Paul and back, switching drivers at either end of it. Came back and practiced mo backing straight and offset. Also a few times a day when not driving we practice our pre trip.
This morning we set up backing into a 90. After a few of them and got the hang of it we would switch off between 90s and offsets. After lunch we took the truck and 53' trailer out on the city roads. We made alot of turns and of different kind of turns and intersections.
Overall I think im getting it. I have plenty of room to improve though. I've only been on the streets for a total of an hours worth of drive time between the 2 days. I still have 7 more days of class to get better before taking the drivers test.

 

Today was my last day of school. I didn't post much while going to school. It was pretty much the same thing every day. Practice our backing, shifting, pretrip and go on a drive. I am scheduled for my driving test on Tuesday next week. If i pass, I think i will, I will be heading to Texas by the following Monday for orientation.