My Quality Drivers/Celadon experience April 2014

Hey Dum. Did you finish your final 3000 miles?

 

I'm still around. Ran my 12k miles and got assigned my own truck. Had a great trainer. My driving is so great that he couldn't really teach me anything but a few tricks and tips. He is also a lease driver and was invited to his house for three days while he took care of a few things. While with a trainer you will go to team mode at 8k miles if he and you are both comfortable. My 8k to 12k went by quick. I averaged 500+ miles a day over 2500 miles a week. Also if you don't drive you don't make money. So find a trainer that will let you run. All the miles until you get put into Team mode. If you want to avoid teaming with someone once your training is finished then I recommend going to the reefer division to be solo. You will be required to drive 120k miles or one year at 27 cents a mile. After that is up, you will make 33 cents a mile. If you do that math it equals to 7200 for them taking you through their school. Get your feet wet before you lease, but if you decide to lease while in this position you can make more instead of being stuck at 27 cents a mile for this time period. The only negative things I can say is they seem to be a little disorganized. However this is a rapidly growing company. That changes once your actually out there driving for them. Miles are good and they do have a great lease to purchase program. I was just assigned my first truck. International pro star eagle + with 218k miles max force engine and apu equipped. It's very clean. The only down side, the qualcom messed up when I just got it and check engine light was on. It broke a valve and is being replaced. Should be done Monday. The person in maintenance who checked it in did a bad job and now it cost me about 5 days worth of pay. Wish they had some 379 Petes hehe. New schools being built are kernersville, nc laredo, tx and richmond, va. Private msg me if you have any specific questions and I will do my best to answer best I can.

 

Be careful Dum how you set it up. If truck goes down and you have to swap trucks it should not take a half a day to so. Also if it doesn't fit a Greyhound bus think twice about putting it in. Less is better. Simple but convenient is the way to go.
Best of luck to you . I wish you all the safe miles you can handle.

 

First impression means a lot and im not impressed with this company and haven't even made it to Indiana for my training yet. Although most of my issues are due to Greyhound's lack of customer service.

 

Don't let Greyhound's ineptitude hold you back. If I had paid for my ticket I would have been demanding a refund. Gotta love being a customer and being treated like crap.

Anyway, I am still hanging in here after 6 weeks. I am now in the home stretch and they are preparing me for the test.

Took my first run on the test route on Friday and did pretty well except for missing a downshift while coming off the highway. That cause me to coast too far and would have resulted in a fail on the test. It's ok though a couple more times and I will have that down. Hopefully I will be on the test schedule next week. `

My overall impression is that this place is a bit rough around the edges. This is a growing school that is a fair bit newer then most of the others but they are working on getting better. It will take a bit longer to finish the school here but you really can't find a better deal. After all, the only thing you need money for here is laundry.. that's something you won't find at any of the other company schools.

 

Well, I am about to go take the test on Friday. I am really hoping to make this a one a done.

 

Woot.. one and done. Passed the test on the first try.

 

Congratulations. Job well done. I knew you could tough it out. Just don't forget to be observant of everything around you. Especially in a TS. Learn more from these drivers as to what to do and not to do. I like your attitude. I wish more drivers had one like you do. Keep it and it will pay dividends many times over. We just might meet one day.
Gordon A

 

Congrats again Dum.I wish you the best with the company.

And as for me I am just glad everything worked out where I was able to jump over to another company making a bit more money and home alot more then I was.And on top of it got my own truck 3 days after I started.