Georgia Driving Academy review

After researching on here, it seems that all these CDL mills do is teach you enough to get your license, so I chose Georgia Driving Academy(GDA) because it was $2000 cheaper than the other school i was interested in (TDI in Forsyth) plus it had a simulator. I paid cash and it was $3200 total. You may need to call and see what their current rate is. The school is 3 weeks long: week1-Classroom, week2-Yard, week3-Road. You have to be there Monday-Saturday 7am-5:30pm and you get a 30 minute lunch break from 12-12:30.

Week1: Classroom
Prepare to be bored. If you have already started reading the CDL manual, prepare to be really bored. I don't know if it just happened to be that week, but our instructor we had was terrible. I don't think he normally does the classroom. He didn't teach us anything...he just sat there on his phone most of the time while we watched old, outdated videos from the 80s and 90s. He would ask if we had any questions, and if someone asked...he would make them feel stupid and told them to read the book. So eventually...nobody would ask any questions. We had to listen to an audiobook of this lady reading the cdl manual...this was the first time in my life I had ever had suicidal thoughts. So it eventually just became videos and clicker tests. We would have a question and use a clicker to select what the right answer was. The instructor did not explain anything to us, he would just move on to the next question. If you already have your permit, you still have to sit through all this...I felt like this was a waste of a week for me, some people it helps though.
The one thing I was impressed with was this notebook they gave everyone. It contained a lot of very helpful information such as important numbers and facts to know, a detailed pre trip inspection with pictures, steps for the maneuvers, shifting pattern, etc. They also give you a dvd that contains a guy going over the whole pre trip inspection and showing each part on the truck. This was very helpful.
After you obtain your permit from DDS you have to take the school's test and pass it and then you can move on to the yard training.

Week2: Yard
This is where the fun begins. The instructors I had for the yard were really helpful. They would explain what you need to do and look for and demonstrate it. Then you would practice and they would correct you if you were doing it wrong. We were split up into groups and each group had 3 people. One group would be walkthrough (where you had an instructor walking you through the steps), another group would be maneuvers(you were pretty much just practicing on your own), and another group would study pre trip in the classroom. We would rotate every hour. The amount of time you had to practice depended upon how many trucks they had available. Sometimes they breakdown. This is how it went for my group: Walkthrough would be just one truck shared between the 3 of us. So each person would get about 20 minutes of practice in that hour. When we did maneuevers, we usually had 2 trucks between the 3 of us. So we would get 40 minutes of practice during that time. When we did pre trip we basically just went inside and sat for an hour. They wouldn't let us stay outside and watch other people. You didn't really get that much time to practice so you had to catch on pretty quick.
The trucks we used in the yard were pretty crappy...The steering wheel had lots of play, the padding was coming off the wheel, the trucks were hard to get in and out of gear, seat belts missing, etc. This is kind of expected because they get abused by the students everyday, so don't expect to be practicing in nice trucks.
By the end of the week you should know how to straight line back, Left and right offset, driver side and blind side parallel, and driver side alley dock. For whatever reason, our class was never taught driver side parallel and I never attempted to do it. I guess if I can do a blind side parallel then I can do a driver side parallel. You will be tested on all these maneuvers at the end of the week and you must pass or you will be held back and have to repeat. Most of the people in our class had to repeat it. If you do have to repeat, it may be the next week, it may be the week after that, or it may be longer. They will call you and let you know. It all depends on how many people they have signed up for the class and if there's room for you.

Towards the end of the week, you are supposed to start practicing on the simulator. I can't give you any info on this because it was broken and I never got to use it. We never got an explanation on this. It was broken for the whole 3 weeks I was there. Apparently it wasn't a high priority to fix it.

week 3: Road
We started out day one driving around the horse park in Conyers learning how to shift. We had 4 students in the truck so we would do a lap and then switch. When everyone got decent at shifting we ventured out on the roads and would basically drive for about an hour and then switched. The instructor was decent but he didn't explain things well. For example, he would tell us when to turn so we didn't hit a curb, but didn't explain what to look for. I would have to keep asking him questions to fish information out of him. We had a different instructor on our last 2 days and apparently we had learned the wrong way to downshift so on the day of the test we had to do it a different way then we had been doing it all week.
As far as driving time...I guess it depends on how many people you have in the truck. I got about 2 hours everyday...sometimes more..sometimes less. My approximate total hours of ME driving came out to be about 10 hours for the whole week. When I wasn't driving, I was sitting in the back of the truck watching, napping, reading, eating, and talking. Be prepared to be bounced around because everyone will probably be rough with their shifting and braking.

Hopefully you will get some time to practice the maneuvers before you go to take your CDL exam because our class did not. It had been over a week since I had gone in reverse and I was rusty on test day. We all really struggled with our straight line backing and we all have to go retest. We also had to test with a crappy truck that none of us had ever driven before. Everyone felt like the trailer kept drifting to the right no matter what you did but I think if we had just had a little practice before we went, we would have been ok. All the other classes that were there while I was in my first two weeks, got to practice before they went to take their test at DDS. I guess our class just got screwed on that. I kept asking to practice but they wouldn't let me. Hopefully we will be able to go practice before we retest.

All in all, I think it was a decent school for the price. If you are using GI Bill money or the government is paying for your tuition, I would recommend checking out some other schools. Some of the instructors are really helpful, and some are not. It kind of depends on who you get for instructors. The office people are really helpful and they have a job placement specialist, although I don't believe it's that hard to get a job right now in the trucking industry. I pretty much received pre hires from every company I applied to. Roehl, Swift, Covenant, Werner, Maverick, Mcelroy, TMC, Schneider, Dart, PTL, Trans Am, US express, CRCT, Stevens, and more. You will learn everything you need to pass the cdl exam, and not much more.
If you don't catch on quickly you may have to redo the classroom or yard training, so it could take you more than 3 weeks. At least they let you do that and don't kick you to the curb. It is a decent school, I just wish they had better equipment and updated videos. There are better videos on youtube. However, you get what you pay for and I think the price matches the quality of the training. You will get your cdl, and that's the most important thing.

 

Sorry I was not finished when it had posted. I have updated the post and covered the job part near the end. I can pretty much go wherever I want and am about 90% certain that I am going to work for Roehl.

 

I agree that a technical school would be the better route. I just didn't want to wait lol

 

I didn't have Paul as an instructor.