The $350 CDL in 3 days

Your hittin' the nail! Actually, it was the truck my step dad drove when he first got out of school and that's when I really started my craving for trucking even though I was to young to even think about a CDL at the time. If I remember right they considered the truck a 99' on the paper work because it was built at the end of the year or something along those lines. 99' FLD120 70" 234"(?) WB with a Cummin's "I think" was an N14 450-475HP Straight 10 Rockwell. So far out of all the truck's I've been in sense it's still the best riding to me and deserves keeping the title of Freightliner than a Freightshaker. Pulled like a champ up hill and never missed a lick. Only problem we ever had out of it was at the SLC yard at 3 in the morning when the alternator went out and the truck shut down.

With what I heard from some other driver's that was with Dick Simon, it sound's to me that they kept their truck's "fine tuned". All these other truck's I've been in either beat you to death, break down, loose power going up hill etc. Sure wish I owned one.

 

That's great, Skunk!

I'm glad your stepdad had good luck with his truck.

I didn't bother to take the numbers off my truck, and one day I was parked loading hay when a guy in a four wheeler locked all four tires and backed up and jumped out of his car.

"Hey, it's my old truck!!" He was yelling. "It's old 1357!!" He came running up and asked me a million questions about it. It was the first brand new truck ever assigned to him.

Small world, isn't it?

 

Maverick will hire and train you regardless of how you got your cdl but they are probably pickier then the license tester was.

 

Kid, I was wrong on the year but had a feeling and it was infact a 99' because it was built in Aug. 98 so that's what it was listed as. Sorry for hi-jacking the thread again guy's. Now back to our original programming. Well, I'm going to go on and try to get with PAM sense it's my last option sense I don't of anyone who has a truck and Diesel Driving Academy is the only school we have here and with out cash in hand or financial aid they won't take you even if you are prehired with a company. I don't know of any company that would sponser through them.

 

Sounds like training is getting worse and worse. One now must be out of work for ten weeks? Talk about a HUGE opportunity cost. 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for ten weeks will eliminate many who work day jobs, unless this scheme has some sort of night school component.

One going this route won't be under the thumb of a company, but he will still be under the thumb of the trucking school. And considering many big companies have their hands in the pockets of the mills, there is a good chance one going this route will still be an indentured servant of the companies.

Companies like SwiftQuit offer reimbursements, but they pay a piddling amount each month. This is smart, in a way. The turnover at these outfits is so high they can pretty much count on getting out of paying anything above a smidgen of tuition reimbursements. Most drivers going to the Quit will have quit before even 25% of their tuition is reimbursed. Pretty snazzy, I must say.

Get a grant for the training. There are worker retraining grants out there whose horns aren't being tooted. Many have a vested interest in making sure you don't know about those grants. If you have to pay for training yourself, go cheap or go into some other line of work. Trucking these days just isn't secure enough to justify forking over several thousand dollars for training that is worth may 500 bucks at most.

 

dear drivers im in kentucky and got my cdl permit im looking for a place to rent truck and do that i have been in school but if you miss or dont pass a pre trip or road test you got to wait for a month to retest my schol doesnt allow you to keep practicing or driving that is a long wait as a rookie to retest without practice i would rather pay or find someone to drive with

 

hey let me in on secret ky sucks my school wont let us practice if we dont pass much and we only got ten hours behind wheel i got cdl permit and past pretrip ready to get to work

 

I also didnt go to any driving school, i started driving ten wheeler farm trucks when i was 17 with just a regular license, i did get my cheuffers license and drove ten wheelers and semi truck after that, then came the CDL,, took the written test and at the time was able to get my employer to sigh a waver so that i didnt have to do a driving test, being able to have someone show me the ropes at 17 and then later on deisels was a blessing, but experience counts for a lot.

 

The training requirements havent been determined yet and will take over a year to go in effect when the ruling is made .