Comments By Annee

Hi all you wonderful helpful truckers here on my favorite trucking website.

I'm scheduled to test in about 10 days and I still can't offset or parallel park. I get the concept and others make it look so easy but once I get in the truck I lose it. I have the first part down but turning and straightening up in the boxes isn't working for me. This is killing my confidence and although I have the pre trip and driving down, I'm beginning to feel kind of stupid. Why can't I get this?

I turn the wheel all the way to the right, count out to 3 and turn the wheel to the left and then straighten out - this part I'm fine with. My problem seems to be getting into the boxes correctly. I have even jackknifed trying to parallel. Are there marking points I should use to know when to turn? Can anyone give me step by step instructions? You guys (and gals) have helped me (even though you don't know it) with so many parts of this process up till now, I'm hoping you can help me again.

Thank you once again for any advice you can offer. Annee

My test on Monday regarding squatting: First, squat and go under trailer twice for twenty seconds each time. Allowed to touch one knee or one hand on the ground. Next time was back inside. Had to squat and touch one hand to the floor ten times consecutively. Heart rate monitoring after each tasking.

Thanks, Charles, that makes me feel a little better. I can squat as long as I can use a hand to get back up straight and I go under the trailer at school quit a bit so Roehl is still my 1st choice. Appreciate the info. Annee

Ok, thanks for the reply.

Regardless of the balance test, you WILL have to pass some type of physical/heart rate test, but it really is not too difficult. You should be fine

Did you have to go through the squat tests? This worries me a little. Thanks, Annee

Day Two(08 Mar 16): 0700 - Waiting in the class room for the instructors to show up. About 5 minutes later, in walked the instructors and informed us we would be working on our turns today. We split back up into our two groups of three and the other group headed out to the truck while mine headed to the simulator. I will be blunt. I absolutely hate that POS simulator. Everything, and I mean everything, feels off. Shifting doesn't feel right, depth perception goes completely out the window, and it will tell you you're hitting a curb even when on the screen you're not. After spending around 30 minutes each on the simulator practicing left and right turns with the trailer, we headed out into the yard to the truck while the other group came inside. For the next 45 minutes everything seemed to go very well. Of course I managed to basically forget everything I had learned about shifting the previous day and managed to bump myself into reverse instead of second as well as mistakenly bumping myself into 9th gear instead of 7th. But after a few minutes everything came back and I began to actually work on my turns. According to my instructor, we all did better than expected. We initially began with just left turns before lunch. Afterward, both groups got into our respective trucks and and began with right turns. Again, my group did well. My instructor felt we were doing well enough that tomorrow we will be hitting the town. In the mean time, after our second break we went out for a "commentary drive" where our instructor drove around town talking us through everything he was doing and looking for. When we returned, we jumped ahead of schedule and the three of us started working on our backing. We did several straight line backs between cones and concrete divider walls with about 3 feet of space on each side of the trailer (don't quote me on the spacing.) After we did much better than expected (again, my trainers words, not mine. I'd never make the claim. Personally I'm still waiting to run myself over while driving.) we moved on to offset backing both left and right. While we were basically walked through this step by step, it was still great practice. Especially getting to practice feathering the clutch. After this it was time to head back to the hotel and grab some chow. All in all, it was nothing short of an amazing day. We are currently a little over a day ahead of schedule. Tomorrow we have, unfortunately, more simulator time planned for backing practices, then we will be taking the trucks onto the roads for some real practice. Time to get some shut eye for what is sure to be an interesting day tomorrow.

As a side note, anyone who comes to Roehls WI location, bring waterproof boots. Currently, both training yards are dirt. And when I say dirt, I mean three inches of mud with small streams running through everywhere. If you ever wanted to know what it was like driving an 18-wheeler in a dirt derby, you'll get to learn.

- Razor

Razor- The medical tests seem pretty heavy with the squats, I'm wondering if that's because you're thinking of driving flatbed or does everyone have to go through that? I'm in CDL school now and hope to test out in 2-3 weeks and Roehl is my 1st choice for employment. I broke my kneecap a few years back and squatting can be tricky for me. After reading your posts I'm a little worried I won't pass this part of the test.

I know you just started and might not know, just thinking you might have noticed others in the class doing different tests depending on what they intend to drive or any other insight you might have.

Is there anyone that works at Roehl on this board that might know? Appreciate any advice given. Thanks, Annee

Annee, forgive me if you think I was mean spirited. It is very frustrating for us when people jump in here like Oliver did. Here's why: he obviously has been doing considerable reading in here since he jumped in on a thread that was one year and five months old. Anybody that has done that much reading in this forum has an idea about the way we approach things. Then on top of that he chose a thread where folks are sharing their positive experiences at Roehl and simply states:

I don't feel it's a good company.

Annee, a person can be shy and elaborate just a little in an online forum! How is Oliver's remark even considered helpful at all by anybody? It has no substance, no supportive facts or arguments, just a blatant dig at a company who is not here to defend themselves. And on top of all that it goes against everything we have heard from people who are actually out here proving themselves successful at this after having made their start at Roehl.

Anytime somebody wants to claim that a company is "not a good company" in here, they should be prepared to defend their statement because we will challenge them on it.

I get it Old School, in fact Roehl is on the top of my list of companies I want to start out with which is why I was attracted to the posts. It just seemed he was being ganged up on just because he didn't elaborate. Agreed he should have elaborated and also agree that his post added nothing to the conversation but wouldn't it have been fairer to ask him to elaborate instead of berating him? Sometimes we have no idea what other people are going through.

I'm done preaching....sorry, it must be the mother in me. My 2 cents for whatever it's worth :) Annee

Thanks guys. As far as Prime knows, I just left. I let the office, and my recruiter know. Got turned down for PAM and they said something on Hire Right was the reason for the denial. I'm going to call tomorrow night to see what's on it.

Request a copy of the report directly from HireRight, they are legally required to supply a copy to you if requested.

Well, I personally am glad Oliver chimed in. After reading all these posts about how well everyone is doing at Roehl, I actually considered it myself. Thank you Oliver, obviously you are right and everyone else must be wrong. Whew, almost blew it.........

Hey Guys, why so mean? Some people are shy or may be a little intimidated...so he didn't elaborate. He wasn't sarcastic, threatening or mean-spirited so why the attack?

So sorry to hear this Sam! You have such determination and would have done great in this career. Obviously I don't know details but hopefully whatever it was wont keep you down forever. Hopefully you will keep trying and will be successful!

Hi Sam- I just wanted to tell you that I also did not make it through Prime. I made it to the PSD stage but couldn't take my trainer yelling at me. My confidence was shot within 1.5 weeks so I made him take me back. I ended up going a different route, going to my local college and it's working out wonderfully, I'm hoping to test out in 2-3 weeks. The trainers are professional, knowledgeable and most important to me, patient. I don't know the details of what happened to you but I would encourage you to try a different route for your CDL if possible. I'm not positive about this but I don't think you are in any database since you didn't have your CDL and never drove so learn from any mistakes and move on. There are many options out there to get your CDL. Just my 2 cents......good luck to you. Annee

Even though you've been attending this school for about a month, the actual hours you have in the truck seems minimal. I'm wondering if you can get a portion of the $6,000 refunded. Do you have a contract with this school?

Yeah, the hours are pretty paltry, not enough to really master anything. I'm working on getting out of the loan altogether. The loan for the schooling is a signature loan, meaning it didn't go through any lending institution. It's basically a "promise to pay" broken down into monthly payments with interest. So to let me out of that loan all they have to do is tear up the paperwork. (And I'm trying to strong arm them into doing just that.)

This sounds like a small company and it's probably unlikely they would spend the money to go after you legally especially since they certainly haven't fulfilled their part of the bargain.

I've been through the same kind of school, it was a local school contracted by Swift. There were days I never made it into a truck, some days there were 19 people sharing two trucks. What a waste of time. I ended up asking the President to release me, which he did. He was very nice about it and I never heard from them or Swift again. Good luck.