Profile For crawdaddydoo92

Some of you know me, most of you don't. Either way, it's been far too long since I was posting regularly on here. How long some might ask. Well, about the time our very own @truckermike was about to leave the office for the open road. I'm heading into orientation with WE on Monday the 12th. I'd say this has been about a 20 year journey. It always seemed there was something in my way. Something, or someone, saying that I couldn't drive for a living. It all started at my local career center around 2003 or 2004. I had driven taxi in my hometown by that time and knew I wanted to drive for a living. My step-dad, sadly he passed about 9 years ago, was a tow truck driver my entire childhood. I guess I caught the driving bug from him the summer we spent delivering dumpsters for a, at least then, new company in Maine called Troiano. I'll say this often in my posts "but, I digress." I talked about driving with my worker at the career center as I was always seeing job opportunities for commercial drivers. She knew I was epileptic and wouldn't, at that time, pass a DOT Physical. She told me that they couldn't justify spending money to have me trained when no one would hire me with a DOT card. I later found out this was not entirely true. Only companies that were regulated by DOT, things like HOS and so forth, had to require a DOT Physical. At the time, and to this day honestly, my dream was to drive for my local bus company. They never go outside of that 150 mile, back then it was 100, radius and, until about '22, didn't require a DOT Card. But, time marched on. I went to school to learn computer science, oddly enough it was the language that I just couldn't handle. If I'm being honest the math would've killed me too; kind of ironic as I was a whiz in high school, and below that, with math.

My life took a few turns, I started working minimally with U-Haul in their Car Share division that kept me busy between about 2012 and 2020, Covid shut that down. I also earn my Associates in Automotive Technology, I had planned to be a better asset to U-Haul but, once again, time marched on. Around 2021 I realized that FMCSA had created an exemption for Epilepsy around 2015. After some effort I managed to get my exemption, and renewed when needed. I tried driving for that local bus company but they just led me on. I talked to the career center again and they were willing to pay for my CDL training to get my license. Since they were footing the bill I chose to go with the Class A vs B. After getting my Class A, a local municipality gave me a shot but not enough training and things just didn’t pan out. Finally in 2025 I applied to WE around February and they wanted me to start in a few days. However, they wanted me to be in different forms of training, and away from home, for about 4 weeks. I was in the middle of my Spring Semester for Computer Technology and just couldn’t risk things. But, go forward 2.5 months and they were still eager to hire me for the same regional position with the same training followed by 5 days out and 2 days home.

So, I’m eager to get started. I’m reading @oldshool book and agree with most of what he’s said, mainly about things like giving it a year and the name on the door. I’m a bit anxious but I know that I’ll get the training I need and a chance to get my experience. I hope to keep sharing as I progress with WE.

I'm just getting into the book now. I start with WE orientation on Monday so I'm hoping to finish it by then. Out of curiosity, why did you say we need to pass a DOT Physical in order to get our CDL? I know in Maine that's not the case. I'm fact, you can even work for some of the local companies, mainly bus but still CDL, without ever needing the Physical. I thought it was only required as part of employment, or on your own if you're crazy enough to be an O/O, vs part of the CDL.

I'm looking to find out if there's options to get help paying for the physical and written test when we first begin, other than going through trucking school. I also wonder if the hearing test has a directionality component as I hear nothing on my left side and both my aids send everything to the right; hence everything sounds like it comes from the right. As I'll be looking to drive intrastate for a local bus company I have no reason to go through trucking school. The company will train me and pay for me to take my road test but I need my permit to get started. Given that I'm 99% sure they'll require me to have a DOT Card, and not knowing how things will go with my epilepsy, I figure I may as well do both ahead of time. I realize this is more CDL related than Trucking related but I welcome whatever help and advice this great community has for me.