[Zen Road Warrior]

I need to go to a company/school that pays for the cdl. Have horrible credit and am broke. The choices seem to be USA, Swift, Schneider, and maybe Roehl.

USA - haven't heard anything about.

Swift - the good is it is ptdi certified, the bad seems to be no mentors and awful equipment.

Schneider might not work for me because I'm between states at the moment.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I know it'll be rough the first year until I switch but I'm not sure who to stick it out with.

[dle]

PTDI certification only applies to specific schools and courses. I invite you to do a search on PTDI to find all the arguments pro con on that.

Could you possibly mean USA Truck?

Between states?

You might want to try searching for 'training companies', 'financing training' those kinds of things.

[Zen Road Warrior]

Swift's school is PTDI certified - according to the website and customer service person. Seems like this is a good thing - don't some companies only hire you if you went through a PTDI certified training?

Yeah, between states sounds strange. My license is IL but I'm living in MI and have no real home to switch my license over to MI. Schneider wants you to take the permit test in your home state....a bit of a complication for me.....

I meant to say USA Truck earlier.

So, it's swift, usa truck, roehl and i'm going to look into if cfi will somehow sponsor training. Hear mostly good things about them here.

[dle]

i will probably be corrected here but the only company that I personally am aware of is crete when it comes to hiring students.

you might want to get onto the ptdi site and confirm that the school and the course is certified.

Have you looked into WIA?

What you will more thank likely find out is that you will find most of the training companies have lots of bad press about them. Which is the best one for you? Can't really help, this is something that you will have to find out for yourself.

How long have you been looking into truck driving?

[Zen Road Warrior]

After some research, I'm now leaning towards Maverick. I'll look some more into Crete. Flatbed seems to be more interesting. I've been looking into trucking as a career for about 2 months now.

Maverick is not ptdi certified though. It seems that it's not a big deal if a school is certified.

[NevadaJim]

Originally Posted by Zen Road Warrior

I need to go to a company/school that pays for the cdl. Have horrible credit and am broke. The choices seem to be USA, Swift, Schneider, and maybe Roehl.

USA - haven't heard anything about.

Swift - the good is it is ptdi certified, the bad seems to be no mentors and awful equipment.

Schneider might not work for me because I'm between states at the moment.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I know it'll be rough the first year until I switch but I'm not sure who to stick it out with.

As far as PTDI schools are concerned, I haven't found one iota of proof that a school that has their course certified produces a better driver. Yes, Swift is PTDI certified, however take a look at their driver safety rating, it sucks. PTDI is pretty much a self appointed outfit. If a school pays for the certification they can call themself PTDI certified. But, it has nothing to do with the measure "quality" of instruction. Just because a good smaller school is not willing to fork over a couple grand to PTDI doesn't mean they aren't a good school.

If you can get on with Schneider I'd go that route. Probably the best training reputation of all the starter companies. They seem to have a strict hiring area policy, though.

Another starter company that seems to have a good rep is Central Reefer. Some will say to avoid it because it has ties with the owner of Swift. But, I've talked to allot of drivers and hear nothing but positive responses. Good miles, good equipment and decent starter pay, compared to the other training outfits.

I never looked at any flatbed companies because ...we'll...I'm lazy. The idea of rigging and tarping a load in freezing cold, wet, snowstorm, windy or 100 degree weather doesn't do much for me. It might be a blast, though, for someone young and energetic, just not for me.

Regardless of who you go with...Get your CDL...Get the experience...Get the hell out. Suck it up for year and then move on.

Good luck!

[Ski1958]

I did my CDL through C1 drivers training in DFW and was pre hired by USA Truck, USA will take about $28.00 out of your check for repayment. total cost approx. $5000.00.

Originally Posted by Zen Road Warrior

I need to go to a company/school that pays for the cdl. Have horrible credit and am broke. The choices seem to be USA, Swift, Schneider, and maybe Roehl.

USA - haven't heard anything about.

Swift - the good is it is ptdi certified, the bad seems to be no mentors and awful equipment.

Schneider might not work for me because I'm between states at the moment.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I know it'll be rough the first year until I switch but I'm not sure who to stick it out with.