Comments By Chris

So, I have an interview for a local position with a local beer distributing company that I used to work for. I used to be a truck helper there, then went off and got my CDL and started driving for Melton. I LOVE what I do, but I also love my son and wife. I honestly didn't expect an interview from this company.

My delimma and why I am posting here. I want to be home every night and have those 2 days off a week, go to the gym and start lifting again, cook in a stable environment, but I'm gonna miss my big blue were, errr truck.

What do you suggest for me to get the heck over myself?

My driver trainer wants me to take the truck out of gear when taking turns at the company i'm at, however the speeds for each gear are not the same in this truck, i learned how to find my gears per my speed on a different truck. What do I do? I don't understand what he means by bumo until i find the right gear.. also, i have a bad habit of taking corner super fast, how do i beat into my head that i need to slow down more? It's so terrifying...

I haven't posted in awhile, but I fonished CDL school and tested on 07/25/2017 then got on a plane to Tulsa, OK on 07/30/2017 to start Orientation with Melton Truck Lines on 07/31/2017.

I won't get too much into Melton Truck Lines as this thread is about 4CDL.com out of the Hampton, VA Thomas Nelson Community College campus. However, I will say I am still here and will be at Orientation tomorrow! I am 100% sure i'll be here to graduate Sunday, I am loving the sweat and hard work. If you're looking for a easy, cushy job, don't do flatbed. I mean, the concepts are easy, it's just hard in battling the sweat that drips off your forehead across your safety glasses, glasses fogging up, although you use your bodyweight mostly for binders and straps, it still takes a certain amount of strength. Laziness can get you or even worse someone else killed.

Anywho, as far as 4CDL in Hampton Virginia goes, they have some good instructors and some **** poor instructors.

If you pay cash, the training is $3995, financed $4995, they take many different grants, however I know nothing about them as I paid cash up front.

Gerald is a great in classroom instructor, he's okay on the road, but not my desired road trainer, he is good at teaching backing too.

Larry is a great road trainer, I never would have gotten to where I am on my parallel parking and shifting if it weren't for him. He got to me where I put the truck in parallel park with only 1 half pull up. He got my shifting to where it was smooth with rare grinds or scrapes without dumping the clutch either. I have a lot of respect for this man, do right right by him, he'll do right by you, this means you get out what you put in.

If you decide to go here, help clean up at the end of the day! I know you're gonna be tired, sweaty or cold, ot sucks, but they do a lot to help you, help them out too!

Rick is the head of the Hampton part of the program, good guy, he does a lot of the behind the scenes work, you won't see him too much, but remember he does work hard. All the instructors want to help you, but don't sit around, practice! If you're not backing, go pre trip, step in and go through pre trip with others, it'll help you hone your knowledge. The parts are an issue, you can learn them in a couple hours, it's a matter of fofuring out the what, why, and how to each part so you can link the correct terminology to each component.

Back every single chance you get. Don't complain about not getting any road time if you can't back in darn right near perfectly. If you can't back a truck in with ease, then you don't know how to control that truck well enough to be on the road anyways.

If you drive a manual, forget everything you know. Also, before you go to the shift pad to learn shifting, LEARN YOUR GEAR PATTERN. Study IT EVERYDAY until it's engrained into your head. I sat up in a truck that was turned off and went through the gears with rhe shift pattern written in front of me, it truly head, i bounced through that shift pad for 2 days then went on the road, all i had to do was smooth out my braking and clutching.

These are little heads up tips from me that they won't tell you. Don't bad mouth instructors, if you do, they won't wanna help you, why should they if you goof off and bad mouth them? They are humans too. Just because you think they arent doing anything doesnt mean they arent. Larry and Gerald are good trainers, respect them.

Another thing, don't skip class, especially if you are a weekend day guy, unles syou are sick, but communicate that via call to larry and gerald or rick if neither of those two are working that day. If I had to miss a day on the weekend due to life in general, I always made it up during the week when i could. I even went extra days during the weeks. Over 12 weeks, i probably got 300+ hours although my certificate says 160. They stopped counting my attendance because i went over hours a month prior, but that's the beautiful part of 4CDL, if you aren't ready for testing, they don't send you unless you whine and raise cane. If you need resfreshers later down the road, guess what? Refreshers are free for life! They won't gaurentee you a job, but they will also take time to help you with job placement based on your desires and abilities. The recruiters that do come to the school seems to be brutally honest because rick, gerald and larry do NOT allow them to Bull crap you, they'll throw them out, with that said, if you don't hear a company suggested, there is a reason, they bull crapped in the class room or on ths lot when they came most likely.

Anywho, that is all I have to say, I rate the school overall 4 out of 5 stars. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me!

I haven't updated in awhile, life has been well, to say the least, hectic, but school is great! It took me less than a hour to learn the parallel park, I run through my pre trip basically, I do it fsst according to them, but to me i feel like i'm taking my time, I hit every part, I finally started remebering to actually call out and touch the engine block lol, as if it's not obvious where it is, oh well.

I am a weekend guy, but they let said I could come anytime during the week if I wanted to, so I did that on a friday. Saturday wasn't much of anything special, I took my final in class exam, 104 questioks, omly got 1 wrong due to misreading, oh well, I still maintain my 4.0 average lol.

Sunday was exciting, father's day! Funny thing, the only people who showed up to class at all were all fathers, the rest who didn't show up aren't at all.. lol! And even then, only 4 of us showed up ON TIME aka 15 to 30 minutes early, i'm always early.

Anywho, we pre tripped the truck and got on the road, i didn't do any road driving where cars existed the student in the class ahead of me did, but then they finished and we drove to the shift pad (an empty less used back road that goes in circles, TAKING ANOTHER LEFT TURN!!!)

As you well know, or should if you've been reading, i've never driven manual, well.... It worked to my advantage, I double clutched and never tried to single clutch it. My forst few shifts and first brake to a stop were well, JUMPY JUMPY. I then started shifting very smooth, I'd get all the way up to 7th, about 25mph theb down shift to 4th. The instructor was able to stop giving me direction. After only 10 minutes, i'm so proud of myself, not trying to toot my horn, just feeling proud. Impressed everyone in the truck, he even held a conversation with the other students because he was so confident in my ability at that point. Wasn't nearly as difficult as U thought it would be, and splittimg the gears? Psh, easy. Now i can't afford to take an extra day off for class this week so i'm waiting till saturday to get back in the truck, fortunetly, i catch on and 99% of the time retain everything i learn perfectly.

So I am at this point gonna continue rotating on practicing all my back maneuveurs, doing 3 or 4 pre trips a day, and of course get some time of the shift pad now! :) Can't wait till I get out on the road, i'm sure it'll be very soon, I am doing my best to finish fast by taking extra days. Orientation is July 31st, it was the 17th, but I talked to the recruiter and told her about the weather related and instructor related setbacks and she pushed it back for me so i'd have wiggle room.

Any good trucking simulators out there to practice on at home.

I am currently in school, I have been using American Truck Simulator just for fun, but it has hekped me greatly on the fundementals of backing and taking right turns while trying to keep the tandems close to the curb. I play it only, I found a place on the game where i could practice off sets too. It's best to have a steering wheel, the shifter is unrealistic however.

How common is it to get a false positive from a hair follicle test and has anyone that's been genuinely clean ever had a false positive?

Following, I am 100% clean myself, never touched any illegal drugs, but after reading stories online, i'm a bit concerned, shouldn't have to be...

The false positive is from reading the online stories about people in denial of their illicit drug use.

If you are not using, and haven't for 9 months (hair follicle test), then try not to worry about it.

Most likely these 'false positives' being spewed out all over the internet are actually just 'false information' from folks who are in denial, that is great to know G-Town, I feel 100% at ease now. Well sorta, on that matter I do, i'm still tripping over myself trying to learn trip planning, I wanna do my best at my first company and become one of the top tier go to drivers. I have always been the go to guy at every company I ever worked for because of my consistency and reliability, maybe i'm overthinking my learning.

They will only need to verify your employment for the past three years. Once you've driven a truck professionally then by law they have to verify your employment, or your whereabouts, for the past 10 years.

What if you've driven buses with a B Class?

I believe the same applies.

How common is it to get a false positive from a hair follicle test and has anyone that's been genuinely clean ever had a false positive?

Following, I am 100% clean myself, never touched any illegal drugs, but after reading stories online, i'm a bit concerned, shouldn't have to be...

Simply think about it this way, if the cost of shipping goes up, how long do you think the retail price of product will stay the same? Do you really think shippers are going to take the extra hit to their pocket or raise prices to fund their riches?

I have been on the shipper side of things, I always looked for the highest quality BUT also the CHEAPEST bid to move my materials. If my minimum shipping cost were to have risen, guess where i'd make up for that? In the retail of the materials I had.

As long as companies are still profiting, they will try to get as much out of a shipper as possible, but even if they profit $30 on that load in the end, profit is profit and it adds up when you have super companies such as swift and others..

There will always be a lower bidder, and some O/O's that fail will run for less than their operating costs because they don't know they are, hence one of the MANY reasons many fail in the first 6 months and TT suggests against it, especially for the non business minded..

I work for Melton & went through their orientation 4 months ago.. I can tell you 1st hand..everything Brett & Old school said is pretty dead on..

Their orientation is a vetting process & some people will get weeded out for various reasons...14 of the 22 in my orientation got to become drivers for Melton.

You should be fine if you are honest with them, haven't done drugs & can show that you have had a little bit of practice driving a semi.

They also do both kinds of drug tests hair & urine...and they have an interrogation process where they will have different personnel ask you the same questions about various things in different ways...sometimes they will do it in an informal manner to catch you off guard...They are looking for inconsistencies & will send you home if they catch you in a lie...even a seemingly trivial one....I saw a couple people in my orientation sent home as a result of this. They are real big on honesty.

I should be perfectly fine then. One thing that erked my nerved on the phone but I didn't show that it did. They kept bantering me about drugs, I have never even touched a cigarrette let alone illicite drugs, have I been near then? Well sure, I graduated high school in 2012, in my school you couldn't go through a day without seeing someone smoking one, my school was kecoughtan but everyonr called it krackatan but I never touched anything myself, I care about my body too much. The lady then says "you know most people have had some form of illegal drug in their lifetime, it's okay as long as you tell us."

Me "I have never touched a drug."

A 10 year hair follicle will prove that though. That was just on the phone!!! Lol, i'll be okay. Thank you for your input, i'm excited!