Schools in Riverside County, CA.
 

Hi All,

Been away from the board for a few months. I was wondering if anyone could chime in with any background information regarding the following schools:

Advance School of Driving in Fontana between Hwy 10 & 60

United Truck Driving School in Riverside near Hwy 215 & 60 merge

United States Truck Driving School in Rialto off Hwy 10

I have finally gotten my drivers physical done. Now all I need to do is get my tail in with my paperwork, cash and take the tests. I hope to get this done in a few weeks.

Thanks for any input..... :D

Paul

Just an update:

I ended up going with United Truck Driving School. There main office is in San Diego but have satallite classrooms in Temecula, Riverside, Santa Ana and a city I can't think of right now. The practice yard is in Riverside off the Hwy 60.

I choose to attend the Riverside location and I'm glad I did. The admission Rep, Tom, great guy he's been throughout the country and even into my wife's small town in southeast Montana. He was very easy to speak to and very helpful.

Cathy the instructor for the Temecula classroom has been teaching our class in the absence of the Riverside instructor. He had to drop the first day to handle a personal issue. Cathy has a wealth of knowledge and is very matter of fact. she has added real world tips at every point.

Anyone looking to go to a school that is accredited please look into them. I am not getting any type of compensation for these comments. Also, they limit the class to only 6 students. Today was our last day in the classroom. Friday we start our training in the yard by going over pre-trip procedures. If I can knock out the pre-trip tommorrow i'll be able to start backing on Monday. The next 2 weeks will be at the truck yard learning pre-trip and driving the trucks.

One other thing... We had 6 students start one is a roll over from a previous class who speaks 7 languages and at times has a heavy accent but is getting it the second time around. He drove trucks in Greece for 7 yrs. The other student dropped out.

Take care,

On the Eve of my Final Exam... the drive test at the DMV! YIKES!!!! To not say that i'm not nervous would be a lie. This is my time to prove to myself and to the state that I can drive a semi truck with enough competency to maybe not kill myself or another person!

I still feel the school is not bad and the guys at the yard have helped me so much.

Just a word of advice...... when you interview a school ask how many people will be in the truck doing the road skills. In my training truck we started with 3 guys.... then a fourth was added to us towards the end of the 1st week. This fourth guy was late or a no show on some days. Our third guy was out for 3 days do to being sick. This left 2 students in the truck which was great!
You must be assertive enough to say that you want more time in the seat. This the only way that you will be able to feel the clutch and double clutch... you can't learn by doing observation from the bottom bunk!

Take care all...

I now have in my hands a paper copy of my class A license! yahhooooo...

In California for the drive test you are allowed to have a 40 point deduction? ... also if you do something like not buckling up before you start your test, run a light or some other major violation your drive test is stopped.
In the truck that I was a part of.... student #1 missed 3, Student #2 missed 12, I missed 5, and student #4 missed 10. Our truck did good! other trucks from our school did not do so well. A couple of the guys were brought right back to the DMV test site after only being on the road for 5 minutes.

Well, off to Davis Transport I go........

Good luck

Congrats on passing. Did you take your test in Hemet? I did.

Thanks Bigmom!

The trucking school had us go to the Commercial DMV Center in Colton. They had people coming from Long Beach, Santa Ana... etc.. I asked a few guys why and they said this was the best place to test.

I'm in Missoula Montana now at Davis Trucking. I have a day of downtime since the Fourth of July will close the office and I'm not through with Orientation yet. :sad:

Take care.

Hi I saw that you went to the united school in Temecula. I am thinking of going
there my self. I just wanted to ask if you thought that it was a good school. I
have kinda looked at the others in the aria but some thing seem to be off with
them. Also I noticed that you went with Davis transport after you graduated.
Did you get tuition reimbursement from them for going to United?
Any info you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Advance is about 1/2 the price as United. In my research the instructors seem to jump back and forth between schools.

Thanks Bigmom. What had me concerned about advanced is that they actually
are running an add in the North county times that says learn to drive a truck
for free. I have not called them yet but might just do it if they are half the cost.
cause it looks like I am probably going to end up paying for this out of my own
pocket. I saw in another post that you had gone to Advanced what is your
opinion of them? Good-bad- some were in between. Thanks in advance for any
info.
Dave.

Dave,

The ad for free trucking is if you sign a contract to work for CRST. I went there because it was cheap and they had a schedule that fit mine. Lots of the major companies have them on their approved list too.

I went to Fontana. There were a lot of low class schools around Fontana and this school stood out and was a lot cleaner. Their focus is to help you pass the test.

If you have time check out a few schools and see which one you like. Keep in mind most of the people are former truckers and are sometimes jaded.

For example: there was one instructor that doesn't think a alley dock parking should take more than 15 seconds and stands there with a stop watch and times you.

Hello Dave...

I went with the Riverside School instead of Temecula since they had not move into that classroom while I was looking. I was in the Riverside Class the first day the Temecula instructor(cathy) came in and was sitting around listening to how the Riverside Instructor was conducting the class. He first started off by saying that he had never driven a truck just buses. At that point my warm and fuzzy for the school went away. The next day the Cathy came in and started to co-instruct and on the third day had taken over the class. She is very expirenced and gave us real world situations that we covered ontop of the book work.
I'm still with Davis and things are going ok. You can see what's going on with me and another driver on his thread.. Highseas to Highways. and read Goin Fer it's thread about Davis Transport also.
As far as tuition. I paid my way through so If there was something I did not like I could walk away. Davis is going to pay my tuition back not a problem.
If your interested in flatbedding.. take a look and talk to the recruiters. I spoke to Pat at Davis and got the warm and fuzzy with her.
If you hear one thing about them is they are so nice, small enough to know my name and keep me moving.
as of right now though...... Im in Sparks, NV at a kenworth dealer trying to get a bracket for my brake can. The weld broke on the bracket and Davis was like get it fixed and we'll pay for it no questions asked. I hear that these bracket brake sometimes....
Any way sorry for the late reply I've been running for the 8 weeks and have not really had enough time to stop and go through CAD in awhile.
I'm suppose to be heading home after my drop in CA for a week off...

I looked at ADS but found that everyones yard was in Fontana or Rialto area so instead of driving to Fallbrook I just hit the riverside school and the yard was maybe 5-10 miles away.
another company I was think of was Watkins Shepard but after going through school I realized I was not ready for just a 10 day training and set free. But if you think you can do it, they are a pretty good company also. My other negative think about them was that I could not take the truck home and there yard is in Santa Fe Springs. I would have to have my wife drive out 2hrs and then 2hrs back home.... hopefully not do this during rain or rush hour.

you in school yet? best of luck....

pb

Hey dewercs2!
Thanks for all the info! No I have not gotten in to school yet
because I am trying to find another way of paying for it other than going in to debt. I was and still am hopping that I can get a wia grant. I did apply for the
north county transit district to drive buses not the same as a truck but a step
closer and they pay you when you train. I Have been keeping track of you and
devil dices adventures. The company you guys are working for sounds like a
pretty fair company. Sounds like they let you get your job done and give you
enough time to get it done with out hounding you. Well thanks again for the info.
O and how come the thing under your name still says rookie seems like you have made more than enough post to move past that. :)

Hi Dave,

Don't know about the rookie part under my log in... But I'm still a rookie truck driver.
I lived in Escondido for about a year. I opened the old Home Depot on West Valley Parkway back in 1987 before I transfered to the Sports Arena Home Depot.
If you can get on with Escondido Transit I'd do that. Do you have a wife and kids? if so.... then stay home... The novelty of being on the road wears off pretty quickly.... But... I do like the to drive and OTR.. I do like... I got home last night and it was nice to be home... It's kinda wierd being in such an open area (home) compared to being in the truck. And that black box called a TV... WOW! lol....
As far as getting stuff done. Yeah, they say you have like 1900 miles and your eta is 4 days... so you start calculating 500 miles a day... and do you have mountians to climb..etc... its pretty easy to do 550 a day... 600 is harder but do able in a flat bed.

pb