% that fail orientation/trainee?

JwinNC... I think it ks awesome that you were able to utilize the help and stuck with... if that was case the majority of the times I would be all for it... Unfortunately that is not the way it goes the majority of the times...

And the sad part is... some are even worse off then before they went to school.... some people never gave trucking a thought till they were down and out and sold on it through workforce or whatever...

I am glad it worked for you.. and a few others...

 

And you will most likely succeed because it is your hard-earned money and you actually care about your livelihood.. As a former CDL mill instructor, I can tell you that that is not the norm for most students.. The succesful ones always came at it like you are.. Good luck to you!

 

You might want to put more emphasis on the positive. In my experience you get what you expect. If you expect misery and a need to "suck it up", then you'll likely have that as a self fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, if you expect an enjoyable day of driving with a few challenges thrown in for fun and games, then you have something to look forward to.

I could focus right now that I "have to" drive all night with a maximum heavy load through the Rockies to get to my delivery on time. Maybe throw in some whining about folks that don't know how to drive, and maybe moan about the fact I miss my wife...

... or I can think about a beautiful passage through some amazing lightening that lit up the hills and be glad I'm not a desk jockey anymore.

 

Id say next to none actually fail ,alot will drop out or give up tho,


Trucking is a easy Job regardless of what the people here want you to believe ,the problem is trucking doesn't attract "the best people" and its very apparent if you go hang around a pilot a bit.

You will quickly realize this profession is full of people who weren't raised correctly(read scumbags) and so became professional drivers as a last ditch effort to make money. When people think truckdriver they think of some obese unshaved smelly guy with next to no social skills and in the majority of cases they will be right.

 

Interesting perspective from a nontrucker. Wrong, but interesting.

While there are certainly denizens of truck stops that fit the bill of your description, I've met many a trucker that is professional in every way. Many are college educated (like myself) and many have advanced degrees.

Regarding the statement that only those that choose to wash out make it, that's blatantly not true.

 

That's awesome.

How about you go into this profession wanting to run safe and legal, but you're expected to run over the speed limit, sometimes overweight, run tired because dispatch give you loads with delivery times that require you to cut your breaks short, and jiggle your paper logs to log it all legal?

Where does the magical positive thinking come in there?

 

Nothing magical here. Find a company that runs you legal. Since getting back into the industry I haven't had any issues getting pressured to run illegally for the last year and a half. If anything the pressure is to run legally and to COMMUNICATE when you will be later than expected.

 

I agree with mcmanly's post up yonder. Us stink ###, smelly, hairlip sorry no good for nothing sumbiches couldn't get a real job and looked to this profession as a last resort. (That's my excuse anyhow) i couldn't hold a job delivering pizzas. I saw some trucking school ad and off i went. A month later I was running down the road for .19 cents a mile. I'm glad i made the decision though. Today I'm running down the road for $1,400 a week and have 32 hours left on my 70 hour clock when the week is over and home every day.

 

indeed the picture of truck drivers that was painted by that poster is most likely that of the 70s or 80s and can not really say it was accurate even back then.

I will say that it had been my dream to drive a truck since I can remember and when I got to it was better than my dream and surpassed expectation even with all the crap from the company and dispatchers. You ask me I take truck driving over any office job I ever had any day.

The loneliness is prob the best part of the job nobody over your shoulder just you and open road. I get teary eye just thinking about it.