Can I skip company training and be a team driver with a O/O?!

I meant his initial hurdle, right now his primary focus should be gaining the trust of a company that will put him in a truck, solo, once he proves himself in a trainers vehicle. Then he cannot screw it up for a year- then move on to a specialized/dedicated position.

That's the simple formula in this game.

 

Watkins & Shepard training is only 10 days. You must complete a CDL school before they will hire you.

 

would you just get on a motorcycle riding a hundred miles an hour without training?

 

Legally, you can go that route. In fact, all you would need to do is pass the written part of the CDL test, and you would be able to ride along and be trained by any licensed driver. But dude, he could pork you like something fierce. He could make you the trucking equivalent of a sex slave, and no one would know. And if you parted ways, like someone said, you would have no verifiable experience without him. Now if you don't mind being on the receiving end of buttsex, go right ahead and try. I have seen some driving gigs that are immeasurably worse than anything that could ever happen at the megas.

I knew a husband and wife team who had did a lease purchase at a mega, got pissed off and found a gig driving for an owner OP. The guy was a company driver for some company, had bought a truck, and put them in it. His wife had the fuel figured out to the mile. They could not idle the truck at all. APU did not work. They were out on the road, could never get home, didn't make enough money between them to get home.

i met another young driver that had a bad record and he had to take what ever job he could get, he got a job where he had to run team with another guy...same deal, but they only made $190 a week split. They were sleeping in the TV room of the truckstop because they couldn't idle the truck.

I'd rather have "CR England" tattooed on my forehead than to get punked out like some of the people I've seen. And these people had license and experience and got a ritual porking. You don't even have that.

 

Why...WHY do I have to always read about sodomy in the new driver forums.

 

Thing is, there are a few respectable owner-operators around who might provide a great initial driving experience, for the right new driver. But admittedly, they may be hard to find especially if he's not exactly in a good [cross-country] O-O area, plus the timing would have to be just right. So, would be very iffy to accomplish this route at best.

 

You do not need to go to a school to get your license. All you have to do is find someone who will allow you to use their rig to take the driving part of the test. You can't use mine. In Kansas City, there is a man who guarantees you a CDL for $300. He has a pickup truck with air brakes and pulls a short flat bed that has no deck, just rails. It also has air brakes. You can take his course and get the same license we all carry. Your wife can do the same thing. Now what? You apply at a company and they are going to give you their own road test. If you pass it, they will hire you. But the chances of you passing it are highly unlikely.

Driving a truck is a skill. It is not a skill you are born with it is something they you have to earn with experience. I find landing a 737 to be much easier then hitting a dock. The jet lands the first time most of the time. I have had to pull up and back for as many as 20 minutes to hit a dock before.

The question you ask is an insult to many of us. I know you did not intend it that way but we work hard at our PROFESSION. Looking for short cuts is not the way to become a professional.

 

Judging by the way many of the schools apparently are "teaching" today, I'm not so sure that going out initially with an o-o might not be the best thing he could do. The way the industry has changed lately, "schools" are becoming the "shortcut" to bad trainers. Not a good path to say the least.

I never attended a school and initially went out with a senior driver at a private carrier and learned from the best. A week later I was in my own truck making good money and doing what I was born to do. (Some do have natural driving/backing skills) 20 years later I made my way back to that company and had to fire that man who was still driving ... had moved into management then ownership by that time and began to get negative call-ins from motorists about once a month for 5 or 6 months.