newbie looking for some advice

Swift

Werner

Schneider

 

Go to your local unemployment office and see if you qualify for the WIA program. They may be able to pay for most, if not all of your training and you won't owe anything or be under a contract to stay with a company for a year because they paid for the training.

 

Both the last posters gave great advice but here is some more.
The big copy and paste cheap freight companies do offer schooling and work but after six months to a year,do yourself a favor and try local driver temp companies. This is the little dirty secret of the industry and they offer a wide assortment of types of loads,routes and pay scales. Helps you to figure out what suits you best and most if not all offer temp to hire. Another thing,KEEP THAT DRIVING RECORD CLEAN! As we are starting to see the csa laws can be used in our favor in negotiating wages and benefits with companies. There will always be the bottom feeder companies that no matter what will have the cheap freight and crap wages but you keep clean and you can go up,up,up.
BTW,thank you for your service pal.
Vet myself.

 

Check out Millis Tansfer ... they train their own drivers. All you have to do is get the CDL Permit and your DOT physical. Then go to their training school (they have 4 of them in different states). I am not a recruiter, just finished their school today.

 

I have heard great things about Millis Transfer. However they don't hire out of Michigan so I did some more research and decided to go with Central Refrigerated. They want you to sign a one year commitment. If you fail the school or quit before your year then you owe $3000. If you fulfill your one year agreement then you only have to pay back have the tuition at $28.50 a week for a year. They start to take this payment as soon as you get your own truck. I am scheduled to go to there school in Utah on June 10th. I have heard that it is fast paced learning. I found out about there school from http://www.truckingtruth.com/free_truck_driving_schools/homepage2.html. It will show you a break down chart of the details of expected commitments and so on with the companies that have there own school.

But so far the best advice I heard on this thread was for you to check for an WIA program.

 

There are no DOT standards or requirements for the training of CDL drivers only testing. You can walk into the DMV in your hometown and pick up the study manual, study the manual, pay the fees, and take the test. You will however need a truck to do the road test in and that's it.

Most companies that hire student drivers have a standard which is normally 350 hours from an accredited school. Every company is different so call around to a few companies you are interested in and see how many hours they require.

Why the short course vs. the long course:

Some students already have their class B and have been driving for sometime.
Some students are laid off or unemployed and need to receive min. required hours to find a job and return to the work force.
Some students have jobs and take the longer course to work it into their schedule
Some students want the full training and practice to have more jobs available to them and feel comfortable with the skills

Company sponsored training vs. non-company sponsored training

Their are far to many reasons to explain here why company sponsored/paid training is a very bad idea, if you really want to know there are a lot threads on this web site alone explaining the down falls and horror stories driver have been thru fulfilling those contracts.

So I will explain some of the benefits of attending a non-company sponsored schooling path.

1. Most accredited schools have FASFA and other financing options. Some state labor agencies even have free money.
2. Most schools offer lifetime job placement and normally know who is hiring locally before it is even advertised.
3. Most schools will have you pre-hired before you even finish schooling
4. If you attend a non-company sponsored training you receive all of the tax credits and deductions and NOT the company. Like tuition, books, maps, clothes, pens & pencils, notebooks, cost of a laptop/computer, cost of a printer, ink, paper, cost of the medical exam, permitting fees, meals, travel expenses, etc..
5. Normally you will start with a higher CPM rate than drivers coming out of their own school.
6. Most companies have tuition reimbursement up to $10,000 which is paid directly to you weekly or monthly with no contract.
7. You can leave the company anytime you want cause you owe them ZERO!
8. When you are in school you may find you like hauling something different than what you thought or you may receive better job offers. You are not locked into one company for the next 12-15 months so you can do whatever you want.

 

i think the best trucking job out there for you to have a long-lasting career is car hauling. Once you get your CDL-A, companies like United Road have 4-car carriers you can get your feet wet on. they're easy to load and unload, move up to a quick loader and then a high rail. it's a specialty hauler but once you learn you'll have your pick of the big carriers to move up to.