Standard Transmissions

But you got an answer, I answered it. i wasn’t clear about it but I assumed you would have gotten it with the two simple words because you know an awful lot about this industry as a newbie.

Your “opinion” that there is this mass exodus because of automatic trans is not true, plenty of companies still have manuals, they still make them for trucks so yes there are companies that hire people who have manual transmissions.

 

A few companies have transitioned from manual transmission to automatic but might be lucky to find a company that still has manual transmission trucks in their fleet. Any companies you’re interested in ask them specifically if the trucks are manual or automatic. One of the drivers here on the forums works for Crete/Shaffer and they gave him a brand new Cascadia with a manual-which is almost unheard of nowadays with fleet-spec trucks.

 

The community college near me has transitioned from having all 6 of their tractors being manual transmissions three years ago, to having nothing but automatics .
And it was a great class , over 300 hours .
Now everyone who attends it is stuck with an automatic restriction on their license.

but it’s the same as years ago when school buses switched to automatics,
They did it so they could easily hire people who were not skilled enough or co-ordinated enough to drive a manual trans .
And they also did it to reduce the training time.
Learning the shifting takes two or three weeks to just get the basics .

if you can get the CDL without the restriction , then do so, it will open up more doors.
Same with the other endorsements
Get the hazmat and tanker and doubles/triples and passenger too while you’re at it .