Hey Guys, Thank you very much. I did not expect this much feedback, and its all very good. You guys are gentlemen indeed. For you guys to take your time and respond to a total stranger is awesome.
Im sorry, my son is in Rock Hill South Carolina. I think he has a good driving record. I know he got one ticket and hopefully thats all, but i doubt he'd tell me. He left NJ about a month back. Im in Brick NJ but I work for the military and we are being BRAC'ed to Aberdeen Proving Grounds (off I-95 at the top of Md)
He was very excited about the CREngland training thing, but i read a lot of stuff online and so he didnt go this turn. Rock Hill is about 40 mins south of Charlotte NC. There is a community college truck driver program located about 70 miles away at ISothermal community college, and I think Sage trucking is the vendor that does the driving program.
I will pass this info on and Ive been trying to get him to be proactive, because I think thats probably what you need to be a trucker on the road. You are pretty darn independent and probably have to be resourceful.
My ideas i gave to him were these (#1-#9): But I think there is a world of info right here. Im going to point him to this page.
1. Call Isothermal (or whoever you want) and ask if you can go down and
have a talk with Mr Bridges. Tell him you don't know anything about it as an industry, or as a
vocation. He's been there many years.
2. Open up the phonebook, call a local trucking company and ask to speak to
Human Resources. Ask for an appointment and go ask them how they hire their
drivers, and how a young man gets started. Ask if they hire out of schools,
and if they do, what schools? Ask questions. Like do schools get
accredited? Are there accredited truck schools? How long is it? What endorsements do I get? How do I get
tandem, and tanker endorsements? Blah blah.. you can think of 50 good questions
3. Go to the library and request any books they have about the trucking
industry.
4. Join any of the zillion truck driver forums online. I'm on one of them.
Ask questions.
5. Call moms uncle - the driver that drove for 30 years.
6. maybe stop at a rest area and see some decent looking trucker, tell him
you'll buy him dinner if he will sit with you and talk about trucking.
7. You can listen to someone you mentioned below, or you can develop your
own plan, do some research, talk to people.
8. Another approach is to immediately get two pt jobs.. wrok a fewm months,
and then join a service and go to the Armys truck driving school thru the
Guard. In fact, they Army has a Troops to Truckers Program to fill the
shortage of truckers with guys rotating out of theatre.
9. Check with the Better Business Bureau for their independent rating of
truck driver courses. You probably cant go wrong taking the one offered
through the local community college. Normally college cooperative programs
are better than industry specific ones.
Im going to direct him to this page and maybe he can join a forum and ask his own questions. Im just trying to help him and also keep him from potentially wasting money. The lady at CRE told him he'd start out at 53K and full benefits. Im not sure how they promise that
Thanks Guys
Dave Nolan, Brick NJ