Over analyzing my choices. Pay for CDL or indenture myself?

I get that you think a private school is more likely to be a better quality school, but I gotta say that no amount of schooling is going to stop an idiot from being an idiot. A missed speed limit sign, failure to get out and look, unaware of your truck's height? No amount of training can prevent accidents due to driver inattentiveness. Now, I realize mistakes happen, and I'll make a few, but I intend on taking every measure to get, and keep a clean CDL.

My education is MY responsibility. If I am unhappy with my training, I'll make my concerns known. The quality of ANY education is directly related to the quality of the student.

I'm not extremely worried about my trainers ability. If I think it is lacking, I'll voice my concerns and move on. After all, this is my life (and others) that I'm taking into my hands. I think I'll risk coming off as a whiner or squeaky wheel before I risk someone else's life.

 

I didn't mean to insult you by simply disagreeing with you. Perhaps my hackles were raised with your "Listen here slim, Imma, tell you what is what, you gonna do this" attitude, then proceed to give me some learnin' by throwing out the "paid schooling is better quality that company schooling" crap. The best part was when you said "I'm not saying the private schools will do any better of training." and then go on to say exactly what you weren't saying.


I've said several times in this thread that I am certainly leaning towards a company sponsored CDL program, and that I wanted to hear thoughts about 3rd party schooling leading to better initial job offers.

I don't think that either way of schooling makes that much of a difference. I've asked around, read up, researched, and done much pondering on that specific subject. My completely unscientific, from the hip, gut feeling is that either someone is going to become a good driver, or someone is going to become a steering wheel holder just white knuckling it down the highway, and backing into every other truck in the parking lot.

The reason I come to this conclusion is that a few long time drivers on here NEVER went to any sort of school. They learned by doing, and asking questions to the more experienced folks around them. They seem to be doing OK, at least by their account. But I'm sure there are many more of those types that after a couple days, whoever was in charge decided "nope, that kid ain't driving my truck no more".

Then there are the multitude of posts, here and elsewhere, warning about how some companies won't hire from some schools, or only schools that they approve of. And then the posts about how someone hated school FOO , because they were never taught BAR, and on and on. I'm sure those schools put out some good drivers, and some crappy ones, too.

Or how about all the perfectly good drivers that drive for several years at Prime, Werner, Swift, or wherever else? And all the great O/O that got their start at said companies? Do those companies spit out some bad drivers? No doubt about it. Do they crank out some good drivers that have long, safe fulfilling careers? I think that it's safe to say yes, they do.

So to recap, I'm sorry you took my response as a personal affront. My response was as thought out as I could make it.

In the future, maybe you're "this is how it's gonna go" and "I know whats best" attitude could be toned down. This would serve two really good purposes:

1. It wouldn't set the person you're speaking to on the defensive.
2. It might help you be open to an opposing view with out taking offense.

Oh, fo show