Which of the megas have reasonably short training periods?

Drivers here are giving you alot of good info & advice yet you seem to think driving a truck is easy peasy, it's not!!
You have no idea of all it takes to drive 18.
There is no normal in trucking, As others have said every day is different on the road, different freight & weight, traffic, weather, terrain, time of day you're driivng, different dock layouts in different cities, irregular eating & sleeping schedules, it's a mess lol.
But it can be a great career if you have the right mindset for it. It was even fun back in the old days before extreme regulations, now...not so much.
You chided mjfreespirit for admitting he was still learning after 4 yrs, trucking is a job where you never know everything & if you think you do you'll soon find yourself in trouble.
I've drove 20 yrs & still would say to myself "oh, thats a better way to _______", or "if that happens again now I know what to do".
I don't think you have the right attitude for trucking & I think you will have trouble finding a trainer willing to work with you, they don't appreciate attitudes like yours. I hope you prove me wrong & become a successful truck driver. Good luck.

 

Pilots have to be arrogant, it's in every job application, seriously. But why not stick with aviation, do you have ifr, twin, commercial, cfi? Always been my dream career, but I just got to ppl. Not ifr either, never flown into clouds and had carb icing, sunny clear and > 50° for me to go.

 

You don't need a trainer to drive a truck, if you do, you should reconsider as it doesn't get easier. Go to Watkins Shepard, none of that bs trainer time. ZERO!

 

That's orientation, not trainer time.

 

In trucking 4 years is a healthy amount of time. Its certainly long enough to laugh at YOU. You made stupid comments. what the hell do you expect?

 

To the OP, I'm going to recommend that you weed out all the opinionated bias and look at the common thread - training has value. I've got 20+ years of transportation experience, 28 years of operating a 4-wheeler and haven't hand an at fault accident since I was a junior in high school. I wanted to rush through training because I wanted to show my stuff and take charge of my career.

BIG MISTAKE. I had a very bad Tuesday and now I'm looking to be back in a trainer's truck. It's not because I'm not mentally ready - it's because that my skill set was worked on in shopping center parking lots and not truck stops, rest areas, or East Coast infrastructure. Backing into a Chicagoland grocery store door is nothing like trying to negotiate a NJ warehouse - one was built with 53' trailers and sleeper cabs in mind, the other one, not so much. Parking in an Indiana mega parking lot and doing a parallel is NOTHING like trying to negotiate a Flying J in Elkhart, MD or even a simple angled lot on the PA turnpike.

Take EVERY advantage of a trainer. Anybody can drive one of these things going forward at 60mph. It's turning corners in rural Ohio; backing into situations where its not just one move, but go into door 6 so you can get pointed in the other direction for door 10 instead of facing the drainage ditch and the nasty yellow retaining blocks.

Learning has value and training is what you make of it, especially at a mega - because if you think your dispatch team is going to set you up for success, you are highly optimistic.

Best of luck and be safe.

 

Been there done that, do it at GFS from time to time, yeah it's not to fun and can raise the stress meter a lot.

 

Schneider used to be only 5 days with someone.

 

It can be done but it's not recommended. At 24 y/o I paid $1,200 and got my CDL after 20 hours with only 1 hour on the road in a 6 spd FL70 /w pup trailer. Got hired a few months later doing local steel hauling which consisted of wide loads and overhang up to 12' on a 48' flatbed driving through downtown LA and surrounding areas and my "training" there consisted of riding in the truck for a week with a Mexican guy. One morning I came in and was on my own; everything I've learned was either self-taught (driving a 10 spd from YouTube vids) or by asking other drivers I'd see throughout my daily route. Just over 2 years now and finally got my experience so I'm with another company hauling stone and tile making over $20 an hour local. The key is to take it easy, use common sense, and listen to the more experienced drivers. Don't be afraid to ask for help if you aren't sure of something as this isn't a game. Everyone does stupid ####, especially as a new driver, just don't make it a bad habit. And you're always learning; this company only has fixed spread axle trailers and it's new to me. It'll probably take a few weeks at least to adjust but I'll get there.