Starting school Today 23 Jan with DTS

I am starting school today with DTS. I will update this with any info I get weekly so it does not get bogged down with the same mumbo jumbo. The school is outside of Spokane wa and since the GI. Bill is payongbfor it I said why not. I hope to get on with System Trans after school in there NW Regional division. More info later. Wish me luck.

 

Ok so my first week came and went. I now have my permit and am ready to start driving. School is starting to pick up. We have done some straight backing, coupling and in coupling, sliding tandems on a refer, sliding the fifth wheel, and even some driving on the street. The instructors are very knowledgeable but frankly I think our class is to large for this time of the year. It snows and ices here in the winter so it pushed the testing back for one of the classes, which in turned delayed the class before us and has had us spending the majority of our time in doors behind a desk. The class before us graduates next week I think so hopefully we get some more time behind the wheel because I need more time to practice the double clutching. It is so much easier to just float the gears but the state wants us double clutching, stupid.

 

Well today I got to get some in town driving in. Boy was I nervous. By the time I was done the hour two hours felt like ten. My lower back was tired from being so tense. I had to tell myself to relax as I drove. On the end it was fun and I have a new found respect for these guys who have to put up with all the small brains out there in the cars on the road.

 

Good company. They pay newbies $.325 per mile and after a year it goes up to $.345. They pay tarp pay, detention pay, drop pay, the first two years is 2 weeks paid vacation. Years 3 & 4 is 4 weeks and years 5 and up 6 weeks. And the pay is the average of the 52 weeks. Oldest truck on the fleet is a 08 Kenworth T660 with APU and they are currently in the proces of replacing all the trucks with 2012s. TWT is the same but starting pay I think is .30 and goes to .33 and they pay hourly while you wait up to 8 hours at $10 an hour provided you have that many hours of on duty time left. System is average 12000 miles per month and TWT a little less. Teams for system is a .50 split and 20000 miles a month and TWT I think is .40 same miles.
In the end the pay between the two companies is about the same. But system will get you some exercise in.
Home time is same as industry wide one day off per week. System does have multiple divisions with different home time available that you can request out the bat but you just have to wait for a trainer. Like the heavy haul guys are home weekends.

 

well I finished the school and got my CDL. The training was great and if you took advantage of the time given you were well prepared for the test. There was one guy in particular who literally slept a few times in the sleeper birth, well as you guessed it he failed the VI before even doing the backing. idiot.