Driver Trainers and the $$$$

[kips41]

You guys think that these folks have to be perfect shifters, backers.

No, that they could, and will learn with time on their own.
Trainer should teach them how to see the road, how properly react in a different situation..and the other stuff like that!

Which IMHO could only be done, by constantly watching their performance while they are driving.
And i don't believe, there is much you could see, from the sleeper!

If you want to rick your life, and make some extra $$$, that's fine with me!
But don't pretend, and call it a "training"!

Actually you see alot more sitting in the sleeper watching a person than sitting in the jump seat turned looking at them. Now you don't do this the first day. But when you are sitting in the back keeping an eye on them they relax because you are not staring at them. You can see what they are doing with their feet better, are they turning their head and keeping their eyes moving or do they fix stare while driving. Do they not follow too close b/c you are in the jump seat but when they relax they tend to creep up on other vehicles. Do they white knuckle on you, do they flinch.
When they first start they can't use the cruise, no talking on the CB, no screwing with the radio, and no use of cell phone while driving ever.

Trainees are all different types and having trained over 100 you learn how to train......kinda like driving....practice makes you better at it.

The company did a study and they found that a driver with 3 plus years with the company was 5 times more likey to be in a major vs. a rookie.

Now the rookies had more accidents but were more likely to be low speed turning and private property accidents like backing and striking fixed objects.

There's more to training than watching the driver. How the heck are you watching the road, traffic, lane changes and other obstacles the trainee will run up against. Don't you teach the Smith Sysytem to your trainee's? You can't teach defensive driving techniques from the back.

Thank you for the insight, and yes I do teach the Smith system all 5 keys by the way.


You guys are acting like someone spends all the time in the sleeper. It does not happen that way. Heck years ago I ran 4,000 to 5,000 miles a week solo and stopped and slept everynight. And before all you log book cry babies say it can't be done legally, you right i was running at least 2 logbooks!!!!! Louisiana to southern ca and back a fast as you could go.
In '93 I made over 50k making .26 cpm you guys are smart and can do the math. Have not made less than 50K since then, used to laugh when JB was bragging about there drivers making that and I had been doing ti for several years. It was in a company truck but it did not have its nuts cut either.

Now back to training, I started the thread to let the new guys know that you can make good money being a trainer, might be something to think about one day.

Did not mean for it to become a critque of how companies train.

And for all you that want to critize me, I have been trainer for over 10 years and trained over 100 new drivers.......so when you have been there and done that let me know......otherwise you are a wanna be that is too afraid to get-r-done

[stevedb28]

you all call teaming training, thats interesting because the trainee sure gets screwed in two ways. First, training or lack of, how in the $#@! can you correct a mistake that you didnt see because you wanted to sleep so you could get your freakin miles. Second, hes already getting the standard weekly pay and making him get you more miles. Thats a total F-U buddy attitude. That did not happen to me and its a very good thing because I would not have tolerated it at all. If I wanted to do it that way I would have gotten my cdl on my own and drove local for some rock hauler. Besides our trainers get paid extra cpm while training and they get paid 1 cent for every mile that the trainee drove the first yr of on their own driving. Now, thats 3 weeks training, so if you got a new trainee every 3 weeks, that would be 17 trainees in a yr (not realistically), so lets say you have 10 out of a possible 17, and one in three stay for the full yr. Thats 3 people. 1 cent per mile times 100,000 miles is 1000.00. times 3, thats $3000.00 extra for being a trainer. But if you try to team/train, you are no longer a trainer once they catch wind of it.

[homer]

another thing for new guy to cry about is driver unloads. i needed that money but never got a dime of it. dont unload anything. youll see, once you get familiar with the unit you will be team driving. its the nature of the beast and you gotta learn the ropes. deal with it. maybe you cpuld spend some real cash and have some equipment dedicated to your education and park it when your not driving it.

[Rev.Vassago]

i agree with vassago but unless things have changed drasticly one can expect 5 on 5 off or some variant.

Not available under the new rules.

Heck years ago I ran 4,000 to 5,000 miles a week solo and stopped and slept everynight. And before all you log book cry babies say it can't be done legally, you right i was running at least 2 logbooks!!!!! Louisiana to southern ca and back a fast as you could go.
In '93 I made over 50k making .26 cpm you guys are smart and can do the math. Have not made less than 50K since then, used to laugh when JB was bragging about there drivers making that and I had been doing ti for several years. It was in a company truck but it did not have its nuts cut either.

And you are bragging about this WHY?

Now back to training, I started the thread to let the new guys know that you can make good money being a trainer, might be something to think about one day.

And if that is the motivation behind becoming a trainer, given the type of training that is currently used throughout the profession, I pity the trainees.

And for all you that want to critize me, I have been trainer for over 10 years and trained over 100 new drivers.......so when you have been there and done that let me know......otherwise you are a wanna be that is too afraid to get-r-done

That is the dumbest statement in this entire thread.

[homer]

righto.i just log 300 miles a day.that would suck have go 8 hours or 11 nonstopped. i just go in two states and stop whenever i feel like it. no sleeper. i dont know or care how they team log it.i would be solo if i was otr and get some life anyway i could. i have never been hungry enuff to train like that but do some in my daycab rarely.

[stevedb28]

5 on 5 off!!! whens the last time you trained one of your 100 trainees there super trucker :shock: Id love to see you explain that one to a new trainee and a DOT at the same time. Training is not only about you making a buck, its about taking pride that the generation of drivers coming behind you got better training than you yourself did. Leave a mark, dont make a mark! If you dont take pride in the work and are only training for money, DONT DO IT. You are wasting companys time and no doubtedly making your company look really bad to that trainee. If you do it right, you wont be blaming yourself if the driver you just trained gets killed 1 week after you released him from your truck. Not that youd feel guilty anyway considering you dont feel guilty using a fellow driver as a bankroll. Its wrong all the way around, if your company promotes that behavior, they have no moral backbone and dont care about the well being of any driver they have. The dead president hide the faces of their drivers basically, they look at you and see MONEY MONEY MONEY.
Why even have the trainee go out with another man to train, if you are just going to say heres the key start it up and go to bed.

Safety begins with upper management, I realize this, and if a company doesnt promote safety, I wish theyd just shut their doors forever. team training is not safe, and one rookie mistake can mean disaster. Just forgetting to look in the fisheye mirror and wham, someone is dead, if you were up front you would have seen that car in his blind spot and saved this new driver the agony, and he would remember that incident with no one dead. Think about that the next time you head to the bunk with a trainee driving. SWEET DREAMS

[redsfan]

The sad thing is that while money shouldn't be the motivatiing factor in becoming a trainer, the reality is that this is the motivating factor. It should never be looked it as "hey, I can double my income if I become a trainer". Most reputable companies will offer incentives to trainers. Things such as a couple extra cpm or an extra couple hundred bucks per week should be enough to make up for any miles that the truck is losing by having a trainee at the wheel instead of an experienced driver. After a couple of weeks, as the trainee gets more proficient, they will probably be running close to if not at the same miles as someone more experienced. That's when the bonus kicks in and then many offer an extra penny or so for every mile that the trainee drives over the next year or whatever. IMO, a company or trainer should never get rich off of training students.

If we are going to team train why even bother having a training program at all? We can just hand a newbie a set of keys and a phone number. Go out and run and then call us at the end of the day and we'll review any problems that you might run into. It would be the same exact thing as having a trainer in the bunk. Neither one of them saw anything that happened while the trainee was at the wheel, but their going to offer guidance at the end of the day.

You say that others are crybabies because we agree to follow the HOS rules. By this same logic a person who spoke out against someone selling drugs on a school playground would be a crybaby also. In both cases someone is breaking the law. In both cases there is the potential for someone to get severely hurt or even killed because you are choosing to break the law. The law is the law. We may not always like it, but we follow it because there are consequences if we don't. That was the 2nd dumbest thing I've ever heard said on this or any other board. The dumbest was the statement about running 2+ logbooks. That just makes you so cool to say something like that. You are a true super trucker and we should all bow down. Now if you really want to do something to look cool and be my hero for the rest of my natural born days, pull into the next scalehouse and tell the DOT how cool you are also. Better yet, show him your multiple books, I'll bet he'll be so impressed that he'll give you a nice piece of paper and a sticker acknowleging your achievement! If you're really lucky he might even give you free room and board at the finest hotel in his county. That would be much cooler than spouting off on a board or Channel 19 about it.

IMO, everything that is wrong with trucking begins with the drivers who think this way. I get so sick of hearing all the drivel on the CB that I usually end up turning it off. I'm normally not one to sling insults, but I'm gonna call a spade, a spade. Plus someone has to defend all of us "crybabies" out here who choose to follow the law.

[kips41]

The log book is a whole nother thread but, It is hard to have respect for the DOT when they make up the rules by pulling something out of their butt..... The new rules causes more problems than it solves.....drive when you are tired and sleep when you are awake. Then there is the whole issue of PATT and CRASH.

Then we have OOIDA which is nothing more than a marketing program to sell stuff. They have absoutely nothing to offer a company driver, since the majority of driver's are company you would think that they would change.

And we have all of this why: We have idiots among us, those who can't drive in a straight line and run off the road, those who follow to close and hit a car full of people and run over and kill the occupants and get so tired and sleepy they will not pull over.

And it is about pay....the industry gets what it pay's for.

[NevadaJim]

most 100000$ dollar trucks with 2 drivers run team 24/7 .i hear all this crying about team driving.i dont believe these mega carriers are running trucks with 2 drivers 11 hours a day.i wont run a sleeper or train. if i did the wheels would be turning or i would get rid of that trainee if he is not capable of driving.

I think you are mistaking things here. Nobody here is bashing team driving. It serves a purpose, and has a place in this industry. What we are bashing is how companies throw a brand new driver into a truck with another guy, sometimes with very little experience of his own, and make them run a team operation under the guise of "training".

In reality, very little training occurs in a situation like this, as the driver with "experience" is sleeping while the rookie is driving. While this puts miles under the tires, it provides very little (if any) actual training.

If companies actually took their training seriously, put their trainers through a program to teach them how to train a driver, and paid them to actually train (rather than paying them mileage), you would see the quality of driver that these companies put out increase dramatically.

But, in reality, this will likely never happen, as companies have accepted the fact that they have 130%+ turnover rates, and will spend as little time and money as possible actually training their employees. Sadly, a lot of this is caused by the drivers themselves, as evidenced right here on this message board (new drivers talking about and getting advice to get with a training company, with the plan of moving on once they have fulfilled their allotted time that they must).

If drivers took their employment seriously, did the research before hiring on with a company, and stuck with them once they chose a company to drive for, then perhaps these same companies would take the drivers more seriously, and offer better training, and better rates.

After all, you reap what you sow.

[/rant]

That sounds like the logical thing to do. I think these big companies know this as well. But, why should they adopt this theory and have to pay drivers the higher wages when they know there will be a replacement for him in a year. Maybe the big companies just figure it's cheaper for them to keep the 26 cpm driver for a year and replace him rather than keeping him and paying the higher wage each year. Plus they get another $3900 for each replacement that attends their school. I think they know what their doing, right or wrong. They make money on both ends.

[solo379]

We have idiots among us, those who can't drive in a straight line and run off the road, those who follow to close and hit a car full of people and run over and kill the occupants and get so tired and sleepy they will not pull over.

Somebody trained them....i guess?

[greg3564]

The log book is a whole nother thread but, It is hard to have respect for the DOT when they make up the rules by pulling something out of their butt..... The new rules causes more problems than it solves.....drive when you are tired and sleep when you are awake. Then there is the whole issue of PATT and CRASH.

So what are you saying? That you don't follow the laws because you disagree with them?

[kips41]

The log book is a whole nother thread but, It is hard to have respect for the DOT when they make up the rules by pulling something out of their butt..... The new rules causes more problems than it solves.....drive when you are tired and sleep when you are awake. Then there is the whole issue of PATT and CRASH.

So what are you saying? That you don't follow the laws because you disagree with them?

Is that what I said or are you just making up stuff now too.

[greg3564]

The log book is a whole nother thread but, It is hard to have respect for the DOT when they make up the rules by pulling something out of their butt..... The new rules causes more problems than it solves.....drive when you are tired and sleep when you are awake. Then there is the whole issue of PATT and CRASH.

So what are you saying? That you don't follow the laws because you disagree with them?

Is that what I said or are you just making up stuff now too.

When you put these two quotes together, it sure sounds like you don't play by the rules.

And before all you log book cry babies say it can't be done legally, you right i was running at least 2 logbooks!!!!!

The log book is a whole nother thread but, It is hard to have respect for the DOT when they make up the rules by pulling something out of their butt.....

[homer]

i drive 12 hours a day in a daycab last nine years.been logging solo except last year i had a co driver learning the locations for a couple weeks.i read all the time about these teams and their logging practices. had no problems here or would not stay. you got a problem ill mention it next time i call in. no body works here with less than 2 years experience or cries about the snow or driving too many hours. doing a lot of investing so maybe ill be ok when i fail like i hear about here.

[homer]

oops i mean 12 hours on duty. whew almost brought on an audit !