Am I understanding this correctly. After you go through a trucking school and get your CDL and are then hired by Schneider, you go through a three week training out of which only 7-10 days out on the road with a trainer? Most companies you are out with a trainer 3-5 weeks! is only 7 days enough training? The thought of 5 weeks with a trainer does not appeal to me but 7 days doesn't seem like enough time.
Difference is in those other companies "training" is you're run as a team for those extra weeks for cheap labor
well its an either you got it or you dont situation. get the basics down and go. learn daily from there. it requires the confidence in your barely tested skills to get out and do it.
Remember this isn't school anymore, it's a job. They teach you the basic like how to work qualcomm and let you be. But schneider will give you extra days and help if you ask for it no problem.
SNI is all about safety and they do 3 weeks of it (with the 1 week with trainer). I hear they are pretty strict about it too so if they think you're not ready they will take the extra time I'd imagine. I'm in the same situation. I don't want to team train at all. I think training in this occupation needs to change to avoid that but safety is the goal so the more time the better.
Schneider doesn't allow trainers to team with a student. Trainer must be sitting on the passenger seat while the student drives. We have former trainers here (myself included) and current ones on this forum.
With Schneider bulk, my road training was 5 days with a local driver, split with another trainee in a sleeper truck. So that was 2.5 days driving for me. Never parked in a truck stop, never fueled, never went thru a scale. Picked up my truck in Gary, IN ,, first solo right into the frying pan,, rush hour traffic on I-80 Gary, IN with 45k in the hole and off to Pittsburgh. You'll be fine!
7 -10 days is plenty of time with a trainer. Anyone needing more time than that probably rode the short bus to high school. TransAm is 11 days I think and the trucks are much nicer; set up with driver comfort in mind. Remember, it's driving trucks; not being the lead astronaut on a Mars mission.
I went through Schneider training, I didn't think it was enough before I went, and I still sort of don't. But, the thing is, with me at least, if I waited until I was "ready", then I don't think I would have ever gotten onto the roads. I was extremely lucky in that my trainer was great, really knowledgeable, never distracted or not paying attention, and totally made me do pretty much everything. So, yes, it's sort of a "throw you into the deep end so you'll learn to swim" teaching technique, but it works for the most part.
