Community College Trucking School

I'm not happy with my results of my class. After FOUR weeks I should be able to drive a 10-speed truck and trailer. Unfortunately, I've gotten as little as only 20 minutes of road driving time during a 10-hour class, and at most 1.5 hours of road driving time out of a 10-hour class. I've spent hours and hours standing around and watching other students learn and practice. It's been the typical scenario of 3 or 4 students in a truck and taking turns at driving. There were only 4 students in my community college class; however, there were many truck company employees from a local company there for training as well, and I feel they took precedence over the 4 of us non-company-affiliated community college students. Now I have only TWO weeks to get shifting and road skills under my belt.


I complained and said I REALLY need to work on backing maneuvers. I FINALLY got about 1.5 days of training on the pad without having to rotate turns with 3 other people (I rotated with only 1 other person) only 2 days before the first scheduled DOT test and was able to pass my preinspection and backing skills DOT test, but not the road test. I've simply not had enough road driving time.

The DOT Examiner said I was excellent at my preinspection, during which the examiner RUSHED me through because he was running late and he didn't want to have to work late. He said I have excellent driving skills and very good use of my mirrors, etc., but that I simply need to practice shifting and that I will have no problem passing the road test after more time with shifting practice. I'm very concerned I won't get sufficient time for road driving and road shifting practice in these next 2 weeks.

I am not an incompetent student nor slow learner; in fact, I'm quite the contrary. I'm an A student and learn very quickly. I learned the entire pretrip inspection in about 1-2 presentations by one instructor and had to only briefly review it periodically in the past 4 weeks. I've proven I'm a quick learner with regard to driving a 10-speed tractor and 53-foot trailer by the fact that I passed the DOT backing maneuvers test after only about 4 or 5 cumulative hours of dedicated uninterrupted instruction.

I did tons of research and very carefully selected the community college; however, I deeply regret choosing to go to the community college because it has been a 4:1 and 3:1 student to instructor ratio, which essentially means nothing more than standing around waiting more than doing anything else.

I've been trying to find a place to rent a tractor (my sister is licensed class A and would assist me with regard to accompanying me the permit driver) for the sole purpose of practicing shifting for an uninterrupted day's worth of road driving, which at this point I don't believe will ever happen in my class!

I would not recommend any trucking school with a 3:1 student ratio. You just don't get enough time behind the wheel.

Any input as to how to solve this problem would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

I got more drive time, and yesterday I passed the road test with an almost perfect run. Got only 2 points. I'll receive my license in the mail next week!