New law

Snow, not picking on you directly but your post gives me the perfect platform to say what I want to say on this topic.

A good school will most certainly teach you how to be a good driver. That said, a good education with relevant real world training conditions will not be cheap unless you find a good employer sponsored program such as the dock to driver programs offered by many LTL carriers. I say a 160 hour course is the minimum for the average person looking to become a truck driver. My experience as a CDL examiner has shown me that some will catch on sooner but most will just get by with 160 hours.

How do you know you are in a good school? For starters there is not half the class stuffed in the cab with you, it is just you and an instructor (maybe 1 other student) while on the road. You have modern, well maintained equipment that is from this decade, not relics from years gone by. The equipment should be representative of what the average trucking company uses not just the easiest piece of equipment to pass the skills test with! Also you have direct supervision and active instruction from the teacher on the skills range, not just pointed to a truck with the other students and told go figure it out.

My CDL training was only for a class B (started as a school bus mechanic that also had to drive) and the company I went to work for spent two months training me 8 hours a day 5 days a week. This was classroom with 10 other students, but the range was split into groups of 3 (one group was 4). In bus (driving time) was 1 on 1 and was half of the total instruction time (160 hours).

That was 320 total hours, paid at my full salary rate, just to learn how to drive a school bus. This is what a quality education looks like. After my first year with them they trained me for my class A so that I could then become a third party CDL examiner for our facility. Spent an additional 160 hours of fully paid time for that, again with 1 on 1 instruction for the skills and road time.

Also, what if you are not going on to OTR driving with a finishing trainer? I drove local from day one of my career, with a small company, did not work for a traditional carrier until I was more than 10 years in. There are many vocational drivers that go to a CDL school to get their license and then work for companies that do not have an in-house training program.

This is part of why the new entry level driver trailing standards were introduced. The base to build a solid skill set on as a professional driver should not come from on the job training with someone that has had a CDL for just a few months longer than the student, which sadly is the case in most OTR fleets. Instead it should come from dedicated, experienced and professional instructors with a well round course and good equipment. I am sad, no disappointed, that the ELDT rule has been postponed another two years. I am also angry that it does not include any behind the wheel time requirements. Actually, the ELDT rule is a joke but at least it is a step in the right direction.

As a former CDL examiner I have seen all sorts of folks take their CDL exam. Most could pass to the level the state requires but that does not mean I am comfortable with them being turned loose, same as with pilots. Just because you have a license to do something does not make you competent.

 

Brian991219, no problem. When I refer to schools I'm not talking about company schools that pair you with a trainer. I'm just about done, have to pass the test, then it's on to orientation followed by 6 weeks on the road with a trainer.

I'm remembering when I got my DL at 16 50 yrs ago. What I knew about driving could've filled a Post It note. It took a while b4 I could be called competent. A 4 or 5 week course won't come close to turning out a safe driver. A few thousand miles might.

The school I'm going to is KLLM. So far very professional. I've been around long enough to recognize a few things like that. Enough time behind the wheel to pass the CDL test and classroom subjects that educate. Like I said. It's subjective.

 

And no matter how many safe miles a driver has under their belt we must always remain vigilant. There have been 2 million milers that have gotten in fatal accidents that destroyed lives. This isn't a little car, this is 80000 pounds of death being driven over ice covered roads, through clueless 4 wheelers in heavy traffic, and by drivers who are sometimes exhausted and stressed out due to life on the road.

 

I still dont see the point of having to pay that kind of money for a school to rush people through.
I have never been to a driving school, and used to train drivers.

I once trained a guy in his 60s that got his cdl through a school, trained him on tankers, 1.5 years later they wanted to send me to a school to he able to be a “certified driving instructor.”
I said no school, So they sent the guy I trained.

Guess who still calls me with questions?
The certified driving instructor.
Its just a piece of paper.

 

CDL school is NOT about creating good drivers. CDL school is about learning enough to pass the state driving test. Your first company trainer is where you learn 90% of this job.

 

My driving school was ... ahem, a hell raising circus on wheels. There long enough to teach you something to pass the State test and gone the next year. But the people there, the instructors... they left a permanent mark in me.

I was not the driver I am now when I came out of school. I needed about a decade of seasoning and a little luck to get that far. In the end I go back to day one lesson one:

Don't you kill anyone.

As far as I know that didnt happen. Yet. And some of those I missed by this much with a 18 wheeler I am not certain of their survival or no injury. Two people in particular whom I will not talk about here. Lets just say they were still off the ground and functioning as a normal scared human should in the mirrors. I did my best.

But what a crazy school that was. There are no words to adequately describe that outfit and it's crew.