Need help finding and choosing trucking school

Morning Star Trucking - Los Banos,CA & other locations in CA
Stevens Transport - www.stevenstransport.com (probably school in Denver,CO)
Prime Inc. - Salt Lake City,UT

 

The Morning Star Trucking Company provides transportation services for bulk tomato, freight and transplanting operations throughout the agricultural regions of California, primarily during the summer months. During peak summer operations, we employ about 600 drivers operating approximately 290 trucks.

• Top drivers can earn up to $19,500 for the season.
• Gain valuable driving experience!
• 21 years and up!
• We will provide Class A training to qualified candidates.
• Free housing available during the season.

Qualifications

• If you have a permit or are interested in training, please use this link: Class A Truck Driver Training
• Preference given to those who can work the entire season.

Job Type: Contract

Salary: $1,300.00 to $1,500.00 /week

 

@SoCalCory - read this thread.

 

Morning star.
Will Get you trained to get your CDL in exchange that you work a full season for them. They will get you trained up for your drive test only, all the book and written test stuff is up to you to study and pass on your own. You should have that done before you start training with them as you need your permit and medical card on you to drive the truck in training. 12 hr shifts minimum, 7 days a week. Usually averaging 400 miles a day. Anywhere from 3 to 4 or maybe 5 loads a day. If you do not complete the season they will bill you $3,700 for the training cost.

Morning star is not hard to get on with, this last season they were practically begging for people to drive for them. They usually stop training before the season starts but they were training people almost all the way through the working season. They had to hire a bunch of Owner operator contractors just to get more help. Get your permit, medical and keep a clean drug test and you are in. Since they are so hard up for drivers you might even be able to negotiate with them, such as demand they train you on a manual transmission even for first season. They sometimes offer to do this if you sign a contract for 2 seasons. Tell them you will drive for them but want manual transmission training and no second year contract agreement. I think a few drivers actually got that deal this year, if I knew then what I knew then that is what I would have demanded.

If you complete the season which starts around the first or second week in July and ends in the first week of October, usually about 80 driving days and you do not damage any trucks or trailers and do not get caught doing anything unsafe like not inspecting your equipment correctly, you will get a $4,000 bonus. at the end of the season. Any damage/repairs come out of your bonus pay, if you do too much damage then they let you go. Be careful and you should be able to complete the season without a scratch as I did.

How much you make depends on how much you drive every day, down time, waiting for a load, traffic etc can cut into that. Realistically you are looking at maybe $1,100 gross a week at best unless you are willing to do 14 or 16 hr shifts which I would not recomend. Do not listen to what they say the top drivers make. These are drivers that cut corners and are unsafe, These are the guys that hook and go, do not inspect their trailers and just haul ###, leaving trailers in the field for you to bring back that are now loaded and often not road worthy, or leaving more work for the good drivers that have to repair lights and adjust brakes that the lazy drivers should have done. Do not be one of them, Inspect every trailer as if you expect to be pulled into the scales and looked over by the CHP, you do not want any tickets on your record as a new driver. Those guys are often the ones you see broke down on the side of the hwy waiting for someone to come repair a blown tire or other issues that could have been caught in a proper pretrip inspection. you get no days off and you need your sleep, it really sucks to have to suck down red bull and coffee by the gallon just to stay awake pulling overloaded trailers on the hwy.

Housing is basically a big portable trailer, maybe 20'foot by 25 foot. one big open room with a bunch of scattered beds like a homeless shelter or something. If you are cool with sleeping in the same room with 20 strangers farting and snoring, you should be fine, but I would recommend working a shift like 9am to 9pm and having something like a SUV or Van or Truck with camper etc to sleep in at night, it will be cooler and sleep-able at night and driving during the day is better as you do not have to be in the dark on some of the very rural, narrow roads we have to drive on where one wrong turn will put in you down a hill or in a river or canal. I had a shift that got me off in the early afternoon, too hot to sleep in a vehicle and by time it got cool enough I would have only a few hours to sleep before my shift so I chose to commute for an hour each way. If I was to do the season again I would have requested a 9am to 9pm shift and bring out a small trailer to sleep in. I could have got an extra medium or couple short loads a day and got more sleep and saved lots on gas.

You will be trained only on an automatic transmission, they will not train you on a manual as they use that to get you to come back NEXT season when they will train you on that. So you will have a class A but have a restriction for Automatic only.

Also Morning star is not an "Accredited" training school. Some companies do not want to hire a rookie driver that has not graduated from an accredited school like swift.

You will make some decent spending money and get driving experience, expect maybe $1400 to $1800 take home every 2 weeks as a more realistic earning. It varies, longer trips pay better than shorter trips, the load is not really worth much at all, Your cut for a load might be $20. You also get paid depending on distance of the trip. A 20 mile round trip and load might earn you $23, A 200 mile round trip may get you $75. You might think, 60 miles of short trips earns as much as a 200 mile trip. Yes but you might make that $75 faster doing the long trip and be doing much less work. For one you will do 2 hooks and drops, one inspection for each trailer and most of your time is spent in the driver seat listeing to music and putting miles under your belt, where as the 3 short trips will be 6 hooks and drops. 6 trailer inspections, you will have to repair any broken lights or out of adjustment brakes on those 6 trailers, you often have to wait in line to get an empty at the plant, you have to wait your turn, this is wait time, you may have to wait a little while for a dispatch to tell you where to go then map it out from the map book, then you may have to wait in line at the field for a full trailer, more wait time. The longer trip was much less work, less stressful and probably much faster than the 3 short loads and may have even paid better. At start of shift I always asked dispatch for the longest dispatch they had available and let the other drivers fight over trailers for the short loads thinking they were going to clean house by doing more loads. Miles is where you get paid, the loads are not really worth much.
I am glad to have my Class A, Glad I made some money and have some experience but If I had it to do over I would have went through a school like swift. Accredited, full time work, and you will get experience with flat beds and van trailers. I got no flat bed or van trailer experience which is where most of the jobs are. I have never backed a dry van trailer to a dock, swift will give you that experience. I may have to go through swift anyway to get the training I did not get with Morning star.

 

@I-5 Ca What happens if you take a day off on your own? Do they terminate you?