Time out on the road while training

Many trainers train JUST because it pays more money. Good trainers really train. For others the truck gets more miles with a trainee on board plus they get a certain fixed amount per trainee. Lots of trainers are just company drivers that said "yes" when asked to be a trainer.

 

Absolutely true. A good trainer WANTS to teach, but as you say many are in it simply for the money.

Nobody would train if there wasn't a financial incentive. I wore a set of ten toe prints in the passenger seat. The average trainee gets into the truck, fresh from a CDL school, with a grand whopping total of 10 hours behind the wheel. They're still in the tunnel vision stage, so focused on trying to make that next shift they don't see the car getting ready to pull out in front of them or the traffic stopped up ahead.

On average I upgraded a trainee in 28 days from getting in my truck. The fastest, most motivated did it in 23 days. The least motivated by far was an older gentleman that took 48 days. I should have booted him off my truck in the first week. I was stubborn and thought I could teach him some work ethic. Never happened.

 

Covenant has a 180 hour program. We had our cdl when we were hired. One week orientation, 180 hours which is about 3 to 4 weeks on the road with decent training pay. One week at terminal testing out. Then one week off for home time. It depends on the company you hire on with. Longer training periods are not a bad thing if they pay decent for it. Schneider had a shorter period of training, 18 days I think. And most companies will route you to your home for home time, regardless of where the terminal is, unless you're trying for regional, dedicated so you'll be home every week

 

And if you think you can train a WIFE? (Husband?)

HA. I invite you to try it.

I did quite a bit of the west, such as the Oregon trail (84) and so on, but with her and loads going that way and fro we really had work to do. I cannot remember a time I did not sleep even though I havent slept until next week many a year long ago. If you were resting, you were constantly monitoring her driving by how the truck was behaving. (This one I say thank god for the auto... I eventually also trained her in a manual) or solving problems that come up.

Here is one on the Larimaie drop in Wyoming, kind of wondered how the new driver got that far. But eh... without further ado.. keep in mind if you scratch 8 because you did not kick the revs try 6th.

 

Boy

Boy...that brings back memories.

I think the trainer was adding stress to the situation, rather than helping the trainer relax. Often if a trainee had issues with a shift I often reached over and put my hand on his and helped gently get into the gear with coaching to make SMALL adjustments to the throttle.

Anyone want to buy a used truck that spent its life as a trainer's truck?

Edited to add: I ALWAYS taught my trainees how to downshift on a downgrade. Often I deliberately made them start a downgrade in a gear too high. I always prepared them with the theory well in advance and demonstrated the technique, then calmly talked them through it. Every one of them got out of my truck capable of handling any hill.

 

I could think that trainee in the video was too tense. Therefore not processing to make decisions in a timely manner.

When people get like that you can have paraded a circus in front and they would not see it.

I don't know about you but it's really hard to watch that nice calm video, I would have had that thing set up long before he did. But eh. Ive got a picture somewhere in my pile that shows that exact grade on the last half and everything below covered by a storm front that was lashing the city with a blizzard. So here we go from pretty weather to filthy mess in a few moments. That's just a little grade. Nice one to be sure for training. Just thinking of some bigger ones to boot. US322 in PA comes to mind.