So much for 'pre-hire' letters!

I am only paying $3995 for my school and that includes learning a 18 speed, a Super 10, and a 13 speed.


Oh, and it includes my bus endorsements.


Wow....you got the shaft.

 

I know hindsight is 20/20 but, You should have gone to Bishops. My dad knows him personally. He worked with him back when Grand Union was still around. Hes been driving for atleast 30 years. Hes had the training company for I think 10 years. Not sure what his rates are now but it used to be cheap compared to the rest of the schools.

 

i am SO glad i have a B cdl, so when i do the upgrade to A i'm gonna be taking private one on one courses at a trucking school and it will cost me 100 bucks an hour, you book in 2 hour sets, you need 8 hours before they will sponsor you, they have the DOT cop come in, it's not gonna cost me much money, i think around 1500 bucks or so including the road test. besides that i dont need to go over all the stuff i learned when i first went to truck school. and i went to NETTTS and let me tell you, F that school. there are some great guys there but most of them just stand back and dont tell you anything. my first day out on the road i'm driving, i hear what sounded like a mail box being hit, i thought i hit a friggin mail box! the instructor goes "look in your rear view mirror" there was about a 1 foot thick long about 6' long rolling in the road. i hit it, i had no idea what was going on and he goes "watch out for those kinds of things".

and i know some of you are gonna go "wait a second, you dont need to go over what you learned in school, didn't you just bad mouth the school?". i learned a lot in the classroom. the videos we watched, the book work stuff etc. i've driven lots of different transmissions in trucks, i'm not trying to be ####y at all i'm not, i just need to get behind the wheel of a tractor trailer and learn how to maneuver it and i'll be good to go. it's gonna be weird as hell for sure i'm so use to straight trucks but i'm sure i'll be fine. cant wait to do it i love driving trucks!!

 

I know it won't help as you are in NY, but here in MN a local Teamsters Union is taking applications for construction equipment haulers as an apprentice. They train and you get paid training and earn 60% of scale. paid by the hour, as an apprentice it comes out to about $20/hr or so. I wish I would have known that before I started school!

Other options for the interim, state and county positions? Also some schools and community colleges offer "refresher courses". These are usually very affordable and would offer help in the shifting. Some schools and private training facilities in MN offer per hour training also to master anything a person needs to brush up on. Maybe a school or private facility may offer that. You could also look in the online yellow pages (or your phone book) for truck training that offers the above.

Sorry to hear about the school.

 

Didn't the OP say he COULD start school without a pre-hire letter but it wasn't recommended?

Screw the recommendation... go to school.

 

I paid out $3995 also to SAGE. I almost messed up and went to PAM as their whipping boy for however long it took, then I found out that the community college had the SAGE program. That was when I also learned that the big CDL schools are just as shady as the big trucking companies. All they want to do is fill a seat and collect money off of you.

But you, you definitely got hosed. What is on your driving record that's keeping you from moving forward with these people? By the way, TMC runs an orientation every monday, give them a call too.

 

I see your in NY but I don't remember where in NY. Have you tried some of the garbage haulers? Santaro,and Champagne are both in Syracuse as is Gypsum Express,Karl Johnson is out of VT(?) Black Horse, Maines and Willow Foods(?) are in Binghamton. Go to a truck stop in your area and see what Co. trucks you see and start there and DON"T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER! keep calling and applying sooner or later you will call just after some one quit or got canned. In the mean time get as much road time as you can and learn to shift! I run 90/81and 17 and will try to pick up some more names for you. Best of luck

 

He already went to school. Failed his test at Roehl and found out his other pre-hires didn't mean anything. That's what the post was about.