Endorsements...

ASAP don’t bother getting hazmat if you don’t plan on using it right away, but it does make you more valuable.

 

Ask the DMV if you can get the endorsements now. If you plan to apply with Old Dominion, you'll need hazmat endorsement also.

 

You will want to be holding off on those endorsements for now.

The Hazmat in particular you will be dealing with TSA/Homeland Security.

First off, get the CDL when you finish school. Make sure you test with the State DMV with a 18 wheeler that has airbrakes AND a manual transmission. Not just a auto. (States will slap a auto only restriction against your CDL if you test only in a Auto. That LIMITS your hireablity big time.)

Study the necessary process of getting your endorsements, Put together the necessary fees. Documents and so on.

CDL HAZMAT Endorsement | DMV.ORG

You will be dealing online or in person with TSA/Homeland Security

CDL HAZMAT Endorsement | DMV.ORG

That is not the only endorsement. You will want the tanker endorsement, Doubles and triples etc. Passenger is nice but limited to motor coaches and buses etc.

You WILL need a TWIC to access Seaports and sensitive industrial locations vital to the USA. Without that you aint getting in the gate. You will need either a Passport formal which it's own fees and process to get and a fast card for taking truck loads into Canada. You will need that CDL to comply with the Enhanced Real ID act of 2020 which means its get a gold star in the top center. The two biggest benefits for completing that level means you will be ALLOWED to board domestic flights inside the USA and access Federal Buildings and Federal Installations. Without that gold star on a non Real ID 2020 act compliant CDL or license, you WILL NOT be able to fly domestic, and YOU WILL NOT get inside a federal building or base. And you probably can guess no Canada either.

You also will be given a DOT medical. That is hard tied to your future CDL. For Tier one Interstate and intrastate commerce among other things. Every employer you ever visit in the future looking for work, YOU WILL be sent to ANOTHER DOT physical. Over and over and over. A two year card is what you want. If there is ANYTHING wrong with your body, mind or something else you will either not be given a medical card or you will be given a three, 6 or one year card only.

If you live in a state with recreational Pot, dont even be around it. Some companies test hair for that and it goes back almost a year. If you live in a state with medical pot, lose it. Generally if you are holding a pot medical card the logic dictates you are too sick anyway to hold a DOT Medical for trucking. Pot itself regardless of your state's legal or not, is absolutely and totally banned in trucking at the federal level. Period, end. dot.

If you have been given pain medicine for broken bones or whatever as of Jan 1 this year you need documentation from the ER doctor or doctor that gave it to you. You will have to prove that you are no longer taking that kind of medicine since last dose half life time it takes to leave your body TIMES SEVEN equals the amount of time you need to wait before you are allowed to touch a Semi truck.

If you have any family or friends engaged in legal or illegal drugs. You cannot associate with them or be around that stuff anymore. Drug and alcohol tests these days are very very very sensitive. And to have a failed test or a refusual to take a test is the same as a failed test. (Never refuse a test in front of Police with that CDL, you have just got it lost automatically) This industry will make sure that if you have a drug or drinking problem you are out. All the way out.

This is not meant to stress or scare you. If you are clean, you have nothing to worry about. Period. Nothing. Go forth and drive and be well.

You are going to learn just enough to pass the DMV test with that big truck in front of the state examiner for your CDL. Then you will need to pass more tests for each endorsement and so on. Then you will be given a trainer for a period of some months with most companies that hire you. Nothing is gauranteed. If something comes up in Orientation, home you go. And sometimes it's listed as a firing. Even though you were not formally hired and being paid.

Your CDL will be your greatest asset. It will also require great sacrifice. And you have to be careful to be not getting into trouble by breaking HOS rules, weight rules and 50,000 other laws all over the USA.

Should you survive and stay at your first job at least a year, you will find being hired much easier with possibly a better company. If you make it past two years, you will be on your way. Many do not get past three months.

You will need enough money to feed yourself, take care of yourself and so on without BORROWING ANY after your are hired on with a trainer. It will come to a alot of money because training pay really is poor. Your first mileage pay and so on will be pretty low. You will be surprised at how low it really is against what you require to take care of not just yourself but also a spouse, house, children and bills back home.

Things are improving in some ways. But in other ways you will find that you are being micromanaged beyond belief. Be very careful with your trip planning. Many people can barely get tto the doctors on time across town. You will be going across a Nation in all weather day and night to be somewhere within 15 minutes of assigned appt time.

You will have some fun too. It's not all work. It's like getting a tiger by the tail. Once you have a hold of it. you cannot let go. Good luck

 

I recently went through a private school and earned my CDL last week. To be honest, the TSA fingerprint for Hazmat and TWIC takes 15 minutes, I did both at the same time. The tests at the DMV to get the endorsements were not hard. Hazmat was the most difficult, but with the way the tests are given they are easy to pass. I had all the endorsements while I had my permit.

 

in some states (like mine) you can get all the endorsements like, doubles/triples, and tanker.
best to get them now, rather than later.

the hazmat (you should get that later) requires a background check, as well as the written test.

good luck.

 

The only reason to get endorsements before you get your license is cost. If you wait and get endorsements later you have to pay for the license again. It is cheaper to get them all up front.

TWIC cards are used in ports. It took me three years to use 1 the first time. In the 15 or so years I have used them 4 times. Hazmat I have used but not often.

Tanker endorsement seems to be more valuable now as it is used for Totes.

Double and Triples is valuable if you want to spend your winters in a ditch waiting for a wrecker.

 

If you have time, get them now. It saves you from having to pay for another license if you get them after.

I went and got my endorsements the day after I passed the skills tests but before I had actually gone into the DMV to get the license. They just updated my score sheet with the new endorsements.

 

When I got my permit last year, I also got all the endorsements except for Hazmat ; I did that as soon as I passed the CDL test.
Get as many endorsements as possible ; you are more marketable then. Learn on manual truck.

 

i usually recommend getting all the endorsements a TRUCK driver needs to be more marketable, as someone else said earlier.

but also, for one more VERY IMPORTANT reason....

COST..

the prices on the tests can jump at any time, from a low ***$11.50 each (here), to the moon, if any state says they need the money for a politicians pet project, and it's easier to grab cash cows like us, over raising taxes and ticking off the tax payers.

as it is, think about this, every x number of years *here it is 5 years at CDL renewal time*, we have to take the hazmat test, and we have to be finger printed.

for crying out loud, we are ALREADY in the data base..why do we have to PAY for the background check..AGAIN...and the finger printing AGAIN...???????

taking a NEW hazmat test..IF IT IS NEW, due to changes in hazmat laws/rules, FINE, i'll pay that...

but the rest of the BS...is just that..BS.....

we are NOT CDL drivers, we are CASH COW DRIVERS....!!!!!

or..CCD's...........

so they should change it from CDL training, to CASH COW TRAINING.....


*** the written endorsement tests here are $10 each...the state hits ALL people going to the DMV, or even the AAA office, a "technological fee" of $1.50 PER A TRANSACTION.....!!!!!

of course too, here, ALL CDL renewals or new CDL's, MUST be handled at the state DMV, no place else, "regular car drivers", that are AAA members can go to a local office and get 'SOME" DMV things done there......BUT...that $1.50 fee STILL APPLIES.....!!