Need some advice

I drove for Central and had a great experience there. They have a school too. Their school is in Utah but they will pay to get you out there.

 

At this point, pet's and riders are the last thing a training company is going to let a student have on a truck. Too many distractions, there are enough out there already, without adding more.

Research, research, and research some more.

Its good that your asking questions now, instead of saying I should have listened. later. Swift, I believe has an academy, as does Roehl. Werner, at last contact, required 160+ hours of school before they would accept a student. I don't believe that they have a school. Schneider may be doing a school again. Watkins\Shepard might be holding a school as well.

There are a lot of options out there. Also don't forget about local companies, that may be willing to train a decent candidate.

 

try and stay away from cr england.......they will have you go to thier school in whatever state. then you will have to transfer your drivers license to the state they are in. then after graduation, you go with a trainer. after that trainer, you will have yet another trainer, and that person will dog you to become an owner-operator............eventually, you will get back home. then you have to transfer over your license again.

 

Watkins and Shepard doesn't have a school anymore but they do let you have a pet. US Xpress and Werner also have a pet policy but don't offer schooling. All 3 however do offer tuition reimbursement.

 

Sounds a lot like Stevens.

 

School!!!! Hell, they don't even have trainers!!!!! I would steer clear! Let the newbies that are just cycling thru and going back home drive for watkins! You really need to find a company and be trained by a qualified trainer. This is going to be the difference in whether you are going to make money out there your first six months or drive around aimlessly and end up going home with a sour taste in your mouth.

There are plenty of companies that have pet and rider policies. I am not sure what how many months they require before you have a rider with you though. Maybe these other guys know. You are coming up on winter anyway and I know for sure they do not allow riders in the winter.

My other advice to you would be to STAY AWAY from these mega-companies (ie; england, swift, werner, watkins etc...) I know, the schools are going to brain wash you and you will come out saying "swift accepted me,yaaa!" the rest of us will frown knowing we didn't do our job in saving another newbie from wasting their money and eventually going back home with a bad taste in their mouth. These schools get paid by these companies to recommend them. So these are the only companies you are going to hear about. I don't know about you buy I would stay away from any company, trucking or not, that has to spend millions of dollars in advertising to get people to WORK for them! Doesn't this honestly sound strange? There are thousands of trucking companies out there that aren't doing this. These are the ones that I would work for! No advertising means that their driver turnover rate is low, which means that their drivers are happier working for them. Simple equation right? One of main sources of making money is your dispatcher. Now, would you rather have a dispatcher that has a couple handfuls of drivers and really strives to keep all of them happy with good loads, OR would you rather have a dispatcher that is assigned hundreds of drivers, none of which they know, none of which they care, won't let you call and talk to them and easily has 50 of them replaced by other newbies every single day!? Now if you chose dispatcher number one, keep in mind that these jobs are going to require that you put forth a little more effort in your job search and follow-up. You are also going to need to put on a professional display when talking with them. It is also going to require a little more waiting time so that they may do extensive background checks and decide if you are the one they want to be part of their family. Now if you choose dispatcher number two throw on your wife beater, boots and hat with the pot leaf on it and show up for orientation on Mon. Some of them will even put you in your own truck by Wed. By Fri when you are complaining that you don't know what the hell you are doing don't worry, they will replace you by Mon. and leave a nice little message on your DAC. They will probably give you a little present like "truck abandonment" this is because when they looked out the window in their immediate vicinity they didn't see your truck parked to the left.

Hey if any of you guys want help, pm me or don't be afraid to ask some of these other guys. We really want to see you succeed. This makes us feel special in knowing we had a part in it. But man, when you go to swift or england etc... it really hurts