Advanced Driving School

[MJC]

I'm a nebie and finally understand why exp'd drivers dont have faith on us. I got my class A 7/31/09 and was supposed to have an orientation with Watkins Shepard. I was supposed to start 8/12 but my app wasnt completed so they pushed me to 8/24. App still wasnt completed so got pushed to 9/2. Again app wasnt completed so was pushed to 9/12. In the meantime a friend hooked up with CRST and talked me into going with them. I know, you dont have to say it. Anyway I'm down here in Fontana CA. CRST said I need to take a one week refresher course so they sent me to Advanced Driving School. I just completed my refresher and what an eye opener. They offer a two week course for people who want to get a class a. First week all they do is paperwork, physical, and permit tests. Second week they start driving and that Friday they take the DMV test. All the instructors at the school are certified DMV testers so testing is done at their facility. I went through a 4 week course where we had to have our permit, and med card before we started class. The first three days we spent watching video's and learning about the tractors, trailers, break system, heights, weights, inspection stickers, and how to fill out a log book. Fourth day we started driving and doing our skills. Along with that we learned how to couple/decouple a tractor and trailer and adjust the breaks with the slack adjuster. With Falcon in that month I probably drove around 500 miles or so. In my refresher probably around 150 miles. I had a guy taking the refresher course with me that didnt know how high the trucks were, how to couple/decouple, and how to fill out a log book. I'm sorry but four days to learn how to drive a clutch, operate a tractor trailer, downshifting is not enough time. We had a couple of other people taking the refresher that couldnt shift and they also had their class a. This school does nothing with log books, no general info, no break adjustments, no coupling. Its driving, baking, pretrip, and break test. Dont get me wrong the instructors were great, very knowledgable and good driving teachers, I learned several things, but four days, thats not enough time to let somebody out on the road with no general knowledge about anything.

[rkeck]

That's why most large trucking co's mandate new drivers and drivers with questionable "recent experience" run with experienced drivers for 1 to 3 weeks first.

And this speaks to the importance of the driver-trainers and their assesment of new drivers before turning them loose. Problem is many trainers don't want to deal with (train) "poor" drivers and look for any way to get them out of their truck ... either quickly fail them or wrongly ok them to let the chips fall where they may for the carrier and others.

The botom line is all one needs to prove is that he can "safely" navigate the truck down the road, around turns, and brake and can do so with a resonable amount of "confidence". All the rest will usually be learned (hopefully quickly) in the school of the "real world", on his own. Driving a truck WELL can not be taught, it can only be learned thru real-world experiences.

That being said, though, it's truly frightening if schools are KNOWINGLY passing students who obviously can not demonstrate the ability to safely and consistently command a truck thru the most basic of courses.

[MJC]

it just surprised me with how other schools run their classes and the incopatence of the drivers they put out after about 4-5 hours of road driving expierence. Dont these large company's see that or dont they care.

[rkeck]

Well, they care but they're in a difficult situation. trucking is a business with EXTREME liability exposure and their is 2 schools of thought regarding drivers. And, with freight having slowed down, tranportation co's are not having any trouble covering freight with current capacity.

But the 2 schools of thought are

1- Hire INexperienced drivers and train them your (the co's) preferred way and cull out the bad ones and keep the good ones, mixed in with a small percentage of their better, experienced drivers.

2- Hire EXperienced drivers who have proven themselves, but for that experience you get "cockiness" and many who are "over-confident" and think they know everything, including all the "shortcuts". These shortcuts are often as dangerous as raw INexperience.

Again, I'm sure there are some schools out there who are doing a DISMAL job of training, and are also releasing these poor candidates to carriers for them to deal with, while they collect their fees. But I'm not sure how to really address the problem. I'd imagine that if the problem was resulting in "sufficient or masive" losses due to poor school-trained drivers, that nationwide investigations and crack-downs would be occurring and there would be a public uproar, but since there is not, I assume the problem is "acceptable" for now.

[MJC]

maybe thats why a lot of new drivers who have had their class A for 6-12 months cant find a job. They just keep getting weeded out