community college or CDL mill

RickG · Dec 11, 2011

Roadfreedom said: ↑

This is a quote from "Consumer and Student Guide to CDL Training, Truck Driving Schools, and Trucking Jobs"

"There is only one organization that currently certifies truck driving courses: The Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI), located in Alexandria, Virginia. PTDI certification is voluntary. A school is not required to become certified. But a certified school is probably the best guarantee that a truck driving school maintains high truck driver training standards.
PTDI has developed three sets of strict standards that they apply to truck driving schools that want to be certified. PTDI will inspect the school and determine whether the standards are met. If they are met, the school's course is certified (schools are not certified) and the school can advertise that it teaches a course certified by PTDI. The three standards are for Skills, Knowledge and Curriculum. Skill standards are the basic skills an entry level driver should have (shifting, backing, vehicle inspection, etc.). As you might guess, knowledge standards describe the basic information a driver should know (how to plan a trip, licensing requirements, accident procedures and cargo documentation, for example). Finally, PTDI's curriculum standards identify the minimum course of instruction a truck driving school must present, including topics addressed and hours required for class, truck lab and driving. PTDI's standards for a school in this regard are very high. For example, PTDI requires that every student individually have at least 44 hours of driving instruction behind the wheel. That's a lot of driving time, and it cannot include any hours observing. (See Observation Time below).
There a number of advantages to PTDI certification. Students know that the training should be high quality, that they will receive a lot of driving experience and that the school has made the extra effort to demonstrate it is committed to the best training. Plus, the trucking industry has great respect for PTDI graduates because they know they are getting the best. They also know that their own company "finishing training" training costs will be lower because the student is well trained already. So, students that graduate from a top quality program benefit in the wallet as well because they require less training by the employer. Therefore they can drive solo sooner and earn more money faster. New drivers that attend short programs or get inadequate training can get stuck in the carrier's training program at a low weekly pay rate for a long time. We think PTDI sets a great standard that benefits everyone."

I hope this helps some. I plan on attending CDL College Truck Driving School in Aurora Colorado in the first quarter of 2012. It is PTDI Certified. I am sure there are other schools that are PTDI Certified also, but I live in Grand Junction Colorado and I plan on attending soon and applying to Stevens Transport for work.

There are many considerations and this is just one. I know of one school that is PTDI certified but after visiting their school, I wouldn't go there. They are much closer to me but the trucks they use are old and beat up. CDL College school trucks are much nicer and newer. I don't want to mention their name because you know the old saying "If you don't have anything nice to say ........................................."

gary
Click to expand...

Just who wrote this "guide " anyway ? What a bunch of BS . Has anybody heard of training companies reducing the number of weeks a trainee gets $300 a week to drive team because of the school they went to ? With so many students washing out at orientation or with a trainee it must be obvious at the CDL school some people just aren't going to make it as drivers . Do any PTDI schools fail anyone and refund their money or do they pass everyone , take their money and let them go on to fail ?
When are you people going to open your eyes and see the reason carriers keep hiring is because the majority of PTDI graduates left the industry for one reason or another .

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