Comments By Dart

It may or may not make a difference, but my first month with Roehl was CDL school (students are emoloyees of Roehl day 1 of CDL school). My 2nd week on the road was with my 2nd trainer.

Either way, I'm in this situation now and must push forward in any way that I can, with just about any company that is willing to hire me and put me with a trainer.

While not ideal and will be more of a last resort, I got a text from CRST this morning (not really wanting to do team driving once out of training, but if it's all I can get, I'll take it). If going to Swift and training with my friend doesn't pan out, I'll give CRST a call back. At this point, just about anywhere that I can get some experience at is better than nothing.

I spoke with my FTM on Monday before I was terminated. All she really said about it was she had to talk to her boss about what's next. Later that afternoon was when I was terminated.

I spoke with her prior to that on Friday. During that call she voiced her concerns over my following distance and ramp speed. She also voiced a concern that 2 trainers had mentioned these items (my 2nd and 3rd trainers...I vastly improved on both following distance and ramp speed on the 4th day with the 3rd trainer). To that I responded with my own concerns of how I was being trained (pace, switching trainers, fleets that I was being trained on, and having weekends off). I did also agree that proper ramp speed and following distance are important. I also stated during that call that I was feeling a lot better about my pace and had no concerns about the training with my 3rd trainer (who I was still out with at that time). She also mentioned possibly putting me with a local trainer, to which I voiced my concerns about the pace of such work due to my experience with my 2nd trainer.

I've said everything about it there is to tell. Only other thing is another student who went to the same terminal I did for CDL training, but started 2 weeks later, who was let go on Friday for the same reasons.

I did not send any messages regarding this over the TruckPC (what Roehl uses instead of Qualcomm). I spoke with my Fleet Training Manager about it on the phone on at least 2 separate occasions that I can recall. In her mind it boiled down to a "he said, she said".

My 3rd trainer told me when I got off of his truck on Saturday that he would contact my FTM on Monday to tell her that I had greatly improved since he last spoke with her. Both my 1st and 3rd trainers told me on several occasions that I would be successful with the company and had nothing to worry about.

I'm thinking (and this is 100% assumption) that my 2nd trainer has said things about me that are not true and/or embellished and I have not been told what was said.

I also filled out the application here on TT. Hoping I'll get something back on that soon.

I never hit anything, nor did I get any tickets.

I never argued with anyone, though there were several times with the 2nd trainer that I wanted to. In those instances I would just bite my tongue and do my best to let it roll off of my back.

Including time at the CDL school, I was with the company for just over 2 months. I did receive my CDL during this time and now that I'm home, I have the hard copy in my wallet now.

I was never directly told that I owe them money, but the wording in my contract is such that I do owe them the $5,000 for training. They also took some of it out of my last paycheck, leaving me with essentially a no pay due.

I have not checked my DAC report. I don't even know how to do so. Maybe a quick Google search will provide me with the answer. I'll do that and post back here.

I've been talking to a long time friend of mine who's an O/O with Swift and is about to get his mentor certificate next week. If nothing else comes up, I will likely go that route and train with him...provided I could even get hired.

Brett,

The only thing I didn't share was that there were 2 instances where I had close calls with parked trailers. I came within inches of the parked trailer both times with my trailer. I was watching my mirrors and going slow enough to see it and respond by either stopping and backing up to go another way around (I had a misjudgment in distance between the trailer and another obstacle), or holding to the left a bit longer (in a truck stop and another truck was on the other side of the corner waiting for me to come around).

My 1st and 3rd trainer both felt I would be successful with the company. My 3rd trainer said that to me even after my close call tih the trailer at a truck stop. This trainer was almost positive that they were going to put me with a local trainer to finish out my 5 "solo" loads (loads where I do everything and the trainer is just there to answer questions if need be).

With my 2nd trainer, everything was at a very fast pace, which I felt was detrimental to my training. I would back off the throttle for a corner that I could not "read" due to lack of experience, to which he would ask me why I was backing off and yave me get back on the throttle. I would do the computer or paperwork and be rushed to get it done, when I slowed down to think about what I needed to do next or make a mistake on this due to rushing thriugh it, he would take over the paperwork/computer work. He would tell me to maintain a shorter following distance than company policy (4-5 seconds when company policy is 7), would get on me for slowing down for an off ramp before we reached the off ramp (signal on and was staying above minimum legal speed for the road until pulling into the off ramp's turn lane), then get on me if I waited to slow down until the off ramp turn lane and had to brake harder to ensure a safe exit speed. All of this had me confused until I was with my 3rd trainer for about 3 or 4 days. I mentioned these concerns to my fleet training manager.

As a side note, I just got off the phone with Melton and was told that they would not be able to hire me due to "safety concerns".

If any of you have seen my training diary, I explained the situation in detail there. For simplicity's sake, I'll give a brief rundown of it here before I ask my question.

Back in July, I attended Roehl's Get Your CDL program and earned my CDL. Throughout the month of August I was with a few trainers on the road. Yesterday I was let go and told that they felt the issues I was having were going to take longer than they wanted to put into me to fix.

Even though I have gripes about why I was let go, that's not what I'm going to do.

Problem is, I'm now on the hook for $5,000 for the training and have little money and no job. I've also read on other trucking forums about training companies preventing one of their former students who got their CDL through them from going to another company.

I signed the contract and cannot dispute the money...that's on me, and that's not what my question here is. I did not see a non-compete clause in the contract.

My question is...Could this potentially derail my trucking career before it even really gets started because of the training contract I signed with Roehl?

I've already put in an application with the company I wanted to go with all along, but I opted not to go that route initially due to my situation and the company's requirement of having a CDL in hand. If this company does not pan out, I will use the application tool on this site.

Thank you in advance.

Well, while my last trainer and I thought things were going well, today marks the end of my journey with Roehl.

With my first trainer, things were going really well, and thought there would be no issues with the rest of my training. He had a truck with an automatic, so with shifting out of the equation, things were easier. The pace of his fleet was also modest, allowing me time to actually think about and process what I was learning. He was on the 7/7 fleet, meaning he was out for 7 days and home for 7 days. I was off for 3.5 days before meeting with my 2nd trainer.

Things started going downhill with the 2nd trainer. He was on a local/regional hybrid fleet that was fast paced and offered littie time to process what's going on. This trainer would have me delay slowing down for off ramps, then when I slowed down quickly to make the turn, he would get on me for going into the off ramp too fast. He would have me at a 4-5 second following distance when Roehl policy is 7 seconds. Because my calibration to the truck isn't quite there yet, I would sometimes get to within 2-3 seconds and be told to back off. He would also have me drive 2-3 mph over the posted speed limit when the truck was capable of doing so. He would also have me take corners that we did not have to stop for in 6th gear (company policy is 5th). I would also have to spend 1.5 - 2 days at the terminal while he was on his hometime. Prior to the Labor Day Holiday, it was decided that I would go with a 3rd trainer, which I did not meet up with until Wednesday of last week.

My 3rd trainer was on a fleet that allowed him more time for things to be slowed down. Over the first couple of days, I was doing OK overall, but still had some following distance, off ramp spspe, and other issues. By the 4th day, I had practically no issues. This trainer was going home for the weekend, so they sent me to the Gary, IN terminal and told me that they would let me know what to do on Monday (today).

After sitting in Gary all weekend and waiting all day for word on what to do, I got called in to the office at about 3:50pm and waited to be seen at about 4:30 pm, where I was told that I was terminated due to concerns of following distance and off ramp speed. They also told me that after 22 days of training, it would take more than 2 or 3 days more to get me where I need to be and that the training schedule did not allow for that kind of extra time.

Provided another company will take me, I'm not giving up.

Thank you, G-Town.

Wow, I'm really getting bad about posting updates.

I've been with my trainer now for a bit over a week. He runs on a hybrid local/regional fleet (typical run is about 160 miles, max of about 300 one way, out for 5-5.5 days and home 1.5-2 days, lots of relay work, 2-3 loads a day).

When he goes home for the weekend, I get a bunk room at the Appleton terminal. There's free laundry and shower facilities at the terminal, as well as a courtesy car that I can take into town for an hour if I need to. Not a bad place to spend the weekend. This past weekend, I ran into 2 other students I went to CDL school with. Had a good time hanging out and catching up with them.

The pace is VERY fast. I struggled horribly with the pace last week, plus the struggle of transitioning back to a manual transmission after having driven an automatic for a week. I start keeping up more and more each day, and I'm doing more and more of the work each day.

We're now trying to get my "supervised solo" runs in. If all goes well this week, I should be testing out to get assigned my own truck sometime next week.