From expereience what companies will have the most miles?

The company that is guaranteed to have the most miles will be the one you don't work for

 

Actually the better advice in this case is to acquire your CDL via the cheapest method possible, as in the end all you will end up with is a CDL either way that qualifies newbies only to become trainees. Hence, since your CDL will not be anymore or any less valuable, common sense dictates that you get it from the cheapest source available.

Also, by acquiring a CDL from a trucking company as opposed to an outside school, in most instances but not all of them, you will also automatically qualify for a job upon successfully attaining a CDL. Whereas an outside school will gladly accept your hard earned money, but if subsequently you can't get a job later on for what ever underlying reason, well then that's no hair off their back, as they will indeed force you to pay for the cost of the school job or no job, which in most cases is quite a bit more expensive than a school provided by a trucking company.

Moreover, no matter where you acquire your CDL, outside school or trucking company, either way you will have to be hired on by a training company to undergo training. Now with most schools provided by trucking companies, in return for working for them for various lengths of times depending on the training companies' parameters, they will forgive the total cost of the school. However, with outside schools, you will always have to pay back the cost of the school no matter what.

Of course, most training companies will also help with the repayment of loans for a certain length of time to help newbies out that acquired their CDLs through outside schools with the repayment of their loans. However, this benefit also applies to newbies that acquired their CDLs through company trucking schools that then subsequently quit the company for whatever reason, and then get rehired by a different training company.

Hence, since schools provided by companies are usually the cheapest route to get into trucking as a career, I believe they are the better of the two choices most of the time. However, there are always some exceptions to that rule. For instance, if a prospective driver were able to acquire some source of outside funding, i.e., a scholarship, then an outside school would definitely be the better choice under those circumstances. Otherwise the deals offered by trucking companies are hard to beat, as a CDL acquired either way is worth exactly the same thing. So why pay more if you don't have to?

 

IS None of the above here somewhere.

 

What you qualify for is indentured servitude . You're obligated to a year of low pay . If you don't complete it you're given a negative DAC , no certification of training , and a bill for useless training that will be for more than you would have paid at most private schools .

 

What are you smoking? It doesn't matter how you acquire your CDL dude, either way you will end up as an indentured servant earning low pay working for a training company. As companies that aren't training companies have minimum experience requirements that newbies without adequate experience can't qualify for. Hence, acquire your CDL the cheapest way possible, which in most cases is via training company CDL Schools.

In addition, if you go through a training company CDL School and then subsequently survive through the initial training period and also the subsequent much longer training period for a set predetermined amount of time, the cost of the school will be entirely forgiven.

However, if you acquired your CDL from a Private CDL School, on the other hand, which is usually quite a bit more expensive for exactly the same thing, you will still nevertheless have to repay the cost of your school no matter how long you stay employed with the initial training company you hired on with. Now it is true that most training companies will help those people that acquired their CDLs from Private CDL Schools to repay the cost of their schools, but at the same time it also true that they will also help those people who acquired their CDLs through different training company CDL Schools that they subsequently hire repay the cost of their schools as well.

The main difference between people that acquired their CDLs via training company CDL Schools vs. Private CDL Schools is the former will have the cost of their schools forgiven relatively quickly, while the latter will still be repaying back the cost of their school for several years, and the cost of the Private CDL Schools was considerably more expensive as well.

Finally, people only end up with a negative DAC report if it is warranted and most of the time it is indeed warranted. Also, why should someone who quit before completing his or her training be awarded with a certificate of completion? Should high school dropouts also be awarded diplomas too? Give me a break! Not to mention that practically all drivers on the road today received their so-called "useless" training via training companies. I don't think those drivers would consider their training "useless," as they comprise the greatest bulk of professional drivers on the road today. Hence, speak for yourself dude and don't paint with such a wide brush.

Lastly, if you wash out and don't survive the training, either way you will still have to pay for the cost of the school. However, those that went the training company CDL School route vs. the Private CDL School route will owe less.

 

There are no DOT standards or requirements for the training of CDL drivers only testing. You can walk into the DMV in your hometown and pick up the study manual, study the manual, pay the fees, and take the test. You will however need a truck to do the road test in and that's it.

DOT was kicking around the idea of putting some standards and requirements when they revised the HOS and they decided against it saying that the industry was all ready demanding higher standards of drivers and it would put an unfair burden on farms obtaining a CDL.

Most companies that hire student drivers have a standard which is normally 350 hours from an accredited school. Every company is different so call around to a few companies you are interested in and see how many hours they require.

Why the short course vs. the long course:

Some students already have their class B and have been driving for sometime.
Some students are laid off or unemployed and need to receive min. required hours to find a job and return to the work force.
Some students have jobs and take the longer course to work it into their schedule
Some students want the full training and practice to have more jobs available to them and feel comfortable with the skills

Company sponsored training vs. non-company sponsored training

Their are far to many reasons to explain here why company sponsored/paid training is a very bad idea, if you really want to know there are a lot threads on this web site alone explaining the down falls and horror stories driver have been thru fulfilling those contracts.

So I will explain some of the benefits of attending a non-company sponsored schooling path.

1. Most accredited schools have FASFA and other financing options. Some state labor agencies even have free money.
2. Most schools offer lifetime job placement and normally know who is hiring locally before it is even advertised.
3. Most schools will have you pre-hired before you even finish schooling
4. If you attend a non-company sponsored training you receive all of the tax credits and deductions and NOT the company. Like tuition, books, maps, clothes, pens & pencils, notebooks, cost of a laptop/computer, cost of a printer, ink, paper, cost of the medical exam, permitting fees, meals, travel expenses, etc..
5. Normally you will start with a higher CPM rate than drivers coming out of their own school.
6. Most companies have tuition reimbursement up to $10,000 which is paid directly to you weekly or monthly with no contract.
7. You can leave the company anytime you want cause you owe them ZERO!
8. When you are in school you may find you like hauling something different than what you thought or you may receive better job offers. You are not locked into one company for the next 12-15 months so you can do whatever you want.

 

This is the truth!

I have seen it with my own two eye on DAC reports of drivers applin to my company and my brothers company.

Driver that don't completed their OTR training or full one year OTR contracts receive a very negative review on their DAC as well as notice that the driver owes the company money. When you call these companies they send an itemized list of what the driver owes and normally its between $7,500 & $10,000. Most carriers will not hire you with this on your DAC.

Again attending any school is not required to receive your CDL. Some local companies will ever hire you, 99% of all the OTR carriers out here require formal training.

Read my post about Non-company sponsored training vs. company sponsored training and it should clear this up for you.

If you live in a remote part of the country where there is no school near you there are some schools that have housing available. If you look under "Truck Driving Schools" on this web site you find one in the southern Jacksonville, FL area listed as a heavy equipment school that offers housing and FASFA. My brother attended school there and both our companies have hired a lot of driver out of this school.

What you receive by not attending a company sponsored school is freedom to work where ever you want when you are done training including locally. The tax benefits and tuition reimbursement programs will off set the cost without selling you soul to some company for 12-15 months.