I'm not understanding what the free driving training is about...

From your comment I think you have the gist of it. In exchange for the training, you sign a contract to stay with the company for a set period. It's not about hours. Most companies offering free training pay by the mile, not the hour.

 

You're essentially trading your labor for the cdl; usually a year of employment and the cost of training is waived.

I don't understand why a school would turn you away for having zero experience with manual transmissions. They're different enough to be largely unrelated as to their operation.

 

Not sure I understand that statement...

I went to a CDL School to learn to drive manual... Many don't know how to drive a manual... (FYI, car manual is different from truck manual) ... So they go to a school to learn.

But with the rest of your question, yes, as mentioned above, nothing is free... You are trading a time period of labor to offset the "free" training... If you leave early for something better, you will still have a liability to that company. It's an option.

 

A car's manual transmission is synchronized, a trucks manual transmission is not so practicing with a car is of little use. It will help some but you will need to learn how to double clutch when shifting a trucks unsynchronized transmission to match the speed of the engine to the transmission.

Most CDL testers do not allow for floating the gears (shifting without using the clutch) when doing your road test so learning how to double clutch when upshifting and downshifting will be probably be necessary for passing your road test to get your CDL A. Many companies also want to see you double clutch when doing their road tests as well. Hard to believe a CDL school would refuse to teach you shifting, after all that is what part of what they are being paying for.

Most drivers float gears instead of using the clutch after getting their CDL’s and only use the clutch when starting or stopping.

 

When I went to school, one of the first things they asked was who knew how to drive a manual transmission.
People who didn't they said great.
The rest of us they said had to forget what we knew about manuals.

 

What Bala said. A big truck manual is un-synchronized, while car manuals are synchronized. Two vastly different ways of shifting. People think that just because you can shift a sync manual it means learning unsynced is easy. Then they get to school and watch the people who never drove a stick at all learn how to drive big truck faster than them. I just don't get a school that says they teach you how to drive a "truck" but won't teach you about double-clutching.

 

Check with your state employment office...I know Georgia will pay for your school. ..if you are unemployed.

 

My cdl school preferred to people to not knowing how top drive a manual than someone with experience with one. I think that school is assbackwards. They should be able to teach someone to drive including learning how to shift

 

You don't sign a contract to stay with them for a certain period, you sign a contract for the cost of the training.
If you stay with the company for a certain period, usually 1-2 years, the cost of the training will be repaid to you.

At Swift it works something like this:
They train you, and then you owe them x amount of $ for the training.
During the first year you pay for that training through a payroll deduction every week.
Then they pay you back the same amount every week during the second year of employment.
In the end, your training is free.

If you leave the company before your obligation is paid off you will owe them the balance.
If you leave the company before it is fully paid back to you, you lose the remainder of the balance.

There is no guarantee of hours or miles, in any case.
Nor can there be.
We are paid by the mile, not the hour. And the miles depend on the available freight in the area you currently are in or going to. Many variables in that equation.