Important contributions to driver safety?

Once again, I am not promoting schools. I have admitted many times that there are a lot of bad schools that need to be shut down. I am not promoting my school either, please read through my posts and tell me where I have included anything but the state that my school is in.

My intention when I joined this forum was to do just what every other experienced driver is doing, to provide information from my experiences.

But from the outset, I noticed that people were lumping every CDL school into the same category. All my posts have been in response to the statements that every school acts in an irresponsible way.

My school started 6 students this week. Not a single one of them has had a ticket or accident in the past 5 years. Not one of these students has ever had a felony, misdemeanor, DUI, or reckless driving ticket. All of these students have solid work histories, and all of these students have been laid off from their former jobs.

Last week we started 2 students, and the week before we started 2 students. I am very picky about the people I train.

I don't think I have told anyone in this forum how much money they can make. In fact, my advice about any school has been to ask a lot of questions.

 

I would love to broaden my focus, but the last thing that I want is for anyone who reads to think that I have abandoned my position. It takes a couple of hours every night just to respond to the negative comments that I receive from 2 individuals.

I had a guy call me today who is currently earning 13.25/ hour for the DOT and getting 32-35 hours a week with benefits. I questioned him so harshly about the reason why he wanted to leave such a good job that he ended up just hanging up on me. Yes, I am a recruiter. But I am also a trucker. I try to bring realism into my interviews. There is only so much that I can do. If the doors closed forever at my school, another school would open up or another school would just train that many more drivers.

 

I completely agree with what you are saying Rick, but I don't feel that I fall in this category. CR England has several schools and starts 100-150 students every week, knowing that they will only keep a small percentage of them. Swift, CRST, and C1 training are the same way. Each of these schools are taking in hundreds of students per week, and probably don't even care if these guys are leaving good jobs.

I would like to be spending my time here trying to convince people NOT to leave good jobs to get into trucking. I would like to have the chance to tell people that Swift Training Academy sends an acceptance letter to almost every person that fills out a swift application. I would like to inform people about how the hiring criteria for most trucking companies gets more strict on a daily basis.

This issue is not black and white. Neither of us will convince every person that either argument is completely right or the other guys is completely wrong. But, we can spend our time helping people make informed decisions about what they are getting into. YOUR ARGUMENT IS CORRECT, SCHOOLS CAN BE BAD. BUT THIS DOESNT HOLD TRUE FOR EVERY SCHOOL. I will not try to plug my school on this forum, but I have a lot of good information to share if certain people would give just a LITTLE BIT of credit for being a decent and reasonable human being.

 

I truly don't know anything about simulators. I was trained in a real truck and that is how we train our students. I know of a school close by that has a shifting simulator to simulate different engines and transmission types, but I can't make an educated response to that question.

I am also against schools that turn out students by the dozens, even in the best of times. My average number of grads per week was 1.7 in 2008, and 1.3 in 2009. There are 2 recruiters at my school and the other one is slightly better than me at 1.8 in 2008 and 1.5 so far for 2009. The school as a whole averages around 3 grads per week. And while these grad aren't perfect backers or drivers, each one of them has the potential of being a good truck driver, and I am proud of each one.

BTW, I called 7 of my students yesterday that have graduated in the past 4 months. I got a hold of 5 of them and left messages with the other 2. Of the 5 I got a hold of, 3 are working with OTR companies(1 at werner, 1 at TMC, and 1 at Trans Am). One student started working with a local dump truck company, and is very happy with her job. One student(and incidentally, this is the one that I had made a comment about on this forum) went to work for KLLM, but got a trainer with some serious personal problems. He has been waiting about a week now for another trainer.

 

training like years before so they can weed out the bad driversWhat I'd like to see is another endorsement added to the CDL for driver trainer with rules in which he or she must qualify for. A safe driving record and at least 10 years experience. Then have a requirement for all the companies to follow and then be inspected periodically to ensure their progranm is in force. Let the companies do their own .

I agree, a driver trainer endorsement is a great idea. School instructors in Ga have to apply for and obtain an instructors license. However, the requirement to be a driver trainer at a trucking company is not at all monitored.

There are many items that bother me about CDL schools. First they'll take your money no matter what and then when the drivers seeks a job he's got too many tickets or a mark on his record the companies will not deal with. Will the CDL school refund any of his money based on the lies they told them to lure them in with?

I run complete background checks on students before they come to training, including criminal and MVR checks.

I'm sorry but I believe when a truck driver gives cra* to a 4 wheeler then to me he or she is just showing immaturity and non professionalism. Next time ask them what school they went to.

Giving crap to 4 wheelers is something people do long before they have decided on a career in trucking. If they did this kind of stuff around any of my trainers, they would be out on their ears... no questions asked. 4 of the 5 trainers at my school are over the age of 60 and all have the same 2 things in common: They all started their adulthoods in the military, and then went directly into trucking. The other instructor works a couple of hours per week, and he mostly just rides up to the State test site with students who are ready to test.