Sleeping and shift arraignments while training w/OTR trucking company

You can expect to be sharing a truck with a trainer for about 4 weeks. During this time, you will sleep while the "trainer" drives and vice versa. You will probably do more than your share of night driving and will have to learn to sleep in a moving truck during daytime hours. Some people can adjust to this and some people can't. Also, make sure that you always sleep on the bottom bunk when the truck is moving. You should have no problem getting the 6 to 8 hours of sleep you require, but it will not be of the same "quality" that you get at home. You will have to deal with engine noise, bumps in the road and radio/CB noise.

 

If you go with a good company you will not be sleeping while the trainer drives and vice versa. A good company you will do 90-100% of the driving and the trainer will be in the passenger seat TRAINING YOU. The top bunk will be yours ( very small and hot ) but again never sleep on the top if truck is moving. That being said most companies will train you as mentioned above, ( running you and trainer like a team and very little training ) but there are a few who will train you properly not just run you as a team operation while in training. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

 

i have a harder time sleeping now that i run solo ! swift will run you and thats what its all about $$$$$$

 

Well once you are released from training then yes you are right it's all about the $$ but while in training being run like a team is not training. Would you operate on someone say doing a open heart surgery if you were not a DR? Would you Fly a plane with thousands of peoples lives in your hands if you had 3 weeks or about 5 hours of training? My would you want to drive an 80,000 lb missile with no experience with someone sleeping in back with thousands of peoples lives on the road at risk? Yes I know it happens all the time and it's one of the only things that scares me is that guy behind the wheel with only a few hrs seat time and his/her trainer sleeping in the back.

 

The 1st week or so they run as a solo driver .menter stays in the jump seat .if the student is doing ok then and only then do you try to sleep with the student driving highway only at 1st .they are not even to pull in to truckstops without the menter up and in the jumpseat.for most it works out very good and they do fine some need more time and they get it.

 

This is the result of a "trainer" not doing his job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfi6SGjAc3k

Both the student driver (cdl= 9 days) and the sleeping "trainer" are now dead. Its one thing to sleep on long open roadways after the student has earn some miles but, had the trainer been doing his job the student would have known to slow down considerably. They both would be alive and their families would not have to suffer thier loss. There is a reason they are called trainers or mentors. DO NOT put up with this. Your life is on the line.

 

1 week that pretty much sums up my statements. My company requires experienced drivers to do a minimum of 2 weeks with a trainer just to learn our systems, paperwork and procedures, when they hire students they require a minimum 6 weeks with a trainer and the trainee does pretty much all the driving except when the trainer see's fit otherwise. If the trainer is caught sleeping while having a student trainee it is cause for very strict discipline up to immediate termination. I know that a company to train this way is very rare but they do exist. Could be why we have almost no turnover ( less than 10 drivers in the last year from a fleet of over 1500 drivers ), and one of the best safestats in the industry. You get out what you put in.

 

very true outerspacehillbilly. i trained with werner and the way they run them is like a team. the trainer sleeps and the student drives then vice versa. im glad i had a decent trainer at the time and im fairly good behind the wheel. i've always just picked up and drove all over hell and half of tennessee before i got my cdl just because i liked traveling. it helps.lol. good luck on finding a good company to go with. i would definately not train the way i did because a lot of stuff can go down. i heard a story one time where a trainer stopped at a truck stop and went to a motel to get a hooker and the hooker's pimp came to the truck while the student was sleeping and drew a gun on him looking for his 'girl' lol. i'd definately do my homework. haha