OK Trainers Why are you a trainer?

I agree with you about who should be driver trainers but I go a little further. I believe that it should be another endorsement on your CDL. There should be a specific test you must past along with a safe driving record. To become a driver trainer you should have 10 years of safe driving and once you become a trainer you should be paid more ALL the time.

I also believe that every company should have a good solid safe driver trainer program and should be subject to inspections by the DOT. The FMCSA should write requirements that companies and driver trainers must follow. At least then it would be standardized and you wouldn't have drivers with 6 months experience trying to teach someone else. Lets face it, the schools are only there to get you your CDL and the companies should be the ones that teach the drivers how to become professional truck drivers. If any of those links breaks down then you have steering wheel holders that think they know all there is to know after 6 months and they're giving the profession a bad name.

 

Maverick is like that. You need 2 years with them and meet all their criteria. Man look at these places that rookies with 6 months stick time become trainers and run like teams.

 

Your right on,250,000 miles should be the min.I was never a trainer but I did training with a trainer that had almost no experience.Heck after 3 months they wanted me to train someone,I said hell no.That something we should tell DOT but they wouldn't care anyway.

 

I think GasHauler has it right. There are too many guys out there training that have no right to be. You can't teach what you do not know.

Safe Miles,

Larry

 

I became a driver trainer (hate the word trainer btw, animals get trained, humans get taught) for Maverick earlier this year. With any job i've ever had, I've been asked to teach others how to do the job. Whether it was waiting tables, working in a jail, or driving a truck. Teaching someone the proper way to do things and eliminating horror stories of driver trainers like i've heard, and seeing someone succeed is the reason why i became a driving instructor. There are some out there that do it for the money i'm quite sure. But in my opinion, they are selfish people who are doing it for the wrong reason, for themselves, rather than for the new driver that wants to learn the right way to do something.

At Maverick, it used to be up to the driver trainer when the student got out of the truck to evaluate out and get their own truck. I've heard of some driver trainers that would pick up a student, and drop them off to test out a week later without even letting them drive the truck. Hopefully those drivers are not driver trainers anymore. Now, a student has to be in the trainer truck for 21 days minimum. More if requested by the student or the driving instructor.

I was assigned my truck with Maverick after being out with a trainer on 011908 and was asked to be a driver trainer over two years later in March of 2010. I like to teach and love seeing the look on a students face when whatever you've been teaching them clicks. You can see it in their eyes, on their faces (they usually smile when you tell them good job), in their posture (head held high, shoulders back, walking tall) Seeing someone's level of confidence in their skills and abilities improve day after day is wonderful. We all in our lifetime's had a favorite teacher. Be it elementary, middle, high school, college professor, coach, whatever. Wouldn't you like to be on someone's list of favorite teachers?

Lumpers. lol. Yeah i've heard stories of "dog week" where the student does everything with little or no help from their instructor. The only thing i ever have my students do on their own is fold an eight foot drop tarp by themselves, once, so they dont ever let anyone do it on their own when they get their own truck once they see it's easier to do with 2 people.

To me its just rewarding to teach someone something that they've not done before especially if it make's the roads a bit safer out their for your families and mine for that matter.

 

After having four schools go under with me instructing for them, I'm not anymore. I am sure there are some decent schools out there but none around here that I would be willing to take pay cut to instruct for.

But, I loved the interaction with the student. It is the role of leadership that kept me doing it for so long, the act of helping someone get back to making a living again. Most drivers become instructors looking for an easy way to make a living. If done right, instructing is not an easy way to make a living. The pay is too little, the appreciation by the school is too little, benefits are too little and security is too little.

You just have to love teaching people how to drive an 18 wheeler. It is like being a father to strangers. It is worth it, but you will never make a decent living at it and with most schools the owner will be the one to put it out of business.

Greed causes most schools to fail.

BTW, I now train driver on pneumatic tankers at the small company I drive for now. A larger company that hauls frac sand wants me to train for them. I had better stick to what I'm doing..

 

I train because I enjoy doing it and for the money. I can't say I don't do it for the money because that would be a lie. Now with that in mind, I don't do it just for some extra miles. As was mentioned above, I like it when I can teach someone and they get it. You see the spark and you know they understand. It's also very fulfilling watching a student do an almost perfect maneuver and see the look on their faces. I've been with Swift for almost 2 years and I was asked to train after 6mo, but I told them not untill I'd been through a couple of winters by myself. Now, I'm on my 3rd student and seem to be doing well. My students know the INS and outs of logging, Qualcomm, backing, etc as best I can teach them. Sure they'll always be learning, but I will too.

The number one thing I teach my students is:
THINK! PLAN! DO!

Thinking before you do somethng, then planning exactly how to do it will keep you out of 99% of trouble out here.

Good day, be safe.
Russ