Trucker Forum - Trucking & Driving Forums - Class A Drivers - Instructor lied; put student in danger

We all know even some of the schools with the PTDIA rating leave a lot to be desired. The school I went to was a nightmare, but I can't give the name because the owner would probably sue me. It was a SMALL school in the Midwest, and the instructors were all 'good ole boys', and they didn't want to talk bad about the nearby KKK.

I am not black, by the way.

One instructor there put me in a very dangerous situation -- ordered me to pass a farm tractor going up a hill on a two-lane rural highway, at dusk, refusing with the threat of violence to even let me put my truck headlights on, and with zero visibility of oncoming traffic , yelled at me: "PASS THAT TRACTOR"!

I wouldn't do it, because it wasn't safe. The farm tractor ahead of me pulled into a driveway. So the instructor said: "Oh, you don't have to do it now."

Forty minutes later he told me to put my headlights on.

He also got off on smoking in the cab, even though everyone knew I was a non-smoker.

The instructor then lied about the incident with the tractor. This man was believed, and I was treated like scum for the rest of my so-called training at that school by all the other instructors, who were friends of his.

The fellow student in the cab during the incident was the son of a friend of that instructor, so he wouldn't back up my story. Another 'good ole boy' in the making.

Somehow, I graduated anyway and passed my CDL test on the first try.

Nobody at the school congratulated me. I went through 6 weeks of hell. Oh, did I tell you they made me wait two extra weeks before even taking the CDL test, adding to my personal expenses?

Girls, LOL. If you can, go to the school and meet the instructors first before you put down your money. I realize, of course, that's almost impossible for a lot of us.