Comments By Jay F.

I briefly worked for TMC. Still in contact with the guys from my class. It’s a great company, and you will earn 50K your first year. Perhaps more. Flatbed is a lot harder work though.

The school I went to, was used to train swift drivers. They took good care of their students. Put them up in a nice hotel, and none that I talk with had anything bad to say. They are a great company. You don’t get to be that large by doing it wrong.

Do you know why you were denied by tmc?

Everyone is going to die. Truckers will be last though. Somebody has to haul the bodies to the mass graves

Jay, why do you consider financed tuition to be evil?

ll I’m saying is people should realize they are on the hook for a substantial amount of money should they fail. I feel that could be stressed a little more.

They are two ways to pay: your own savings, or Other People's Money. Should you fail at any big ticket plan, you are out the dough, whether you're savings are gone or you owe big time.

So don't sign up for any CDL school if you expect to drop out before you get a job. Be safe and keep hauling the mud.

I don’t consider it evil. I think it’s a good thing all I’m saying is if you don’t give them a year you will be on the hook for more than you might have gotten through private school for. I agree with 95 percent of what you guys preach. In this case I don’t think there’s a huge issue if he goes the private school route. He already has a B we know he has a clean driving record, and is a good driver with his 29 foot truck. He isn’t as green as most. Again I’m not advocating private school for every person. Had private school been 6K for me I would’ve went with company sponsored training.

Everyone in this group pushes hard for sponsored school.(makes me think the referral/recruiting fees from these links are pretty high)

You guys are so cynical. I've been on this journey of helping new drivers for about seven years. Nobody's ever paid me a single dime, nor would I ever want to receive any remuneration.

Jay, if you had any concept of the size of the audience here, you'd understand the "rooftoos" reference. A lot of people read these conversations.

It has to be huge. I lurked for months before joining.

Look I’m not trying to tell everyone to take my route. What you guys prescribe is right for almost all. This guy is the exception imo. If I was on every thread shouting this it would be wrong. I’ve read the horror stories of people going the private school route. What you guys do should be commended. All I’m saying is people should realize they are on the hook for a substantial amount of money should they fail. I feel that could be stressed a little more. My buddy was shocked. (It was all his fault. He didn’t do his homework) but we both know most don’t do their homework. If they did there would never be stories of guys with horrible driving records going to private schools and having a worthless CDL from it.

All these guys give great advice but one thing I don’t understand is they readily admit 90-95 percent fail at OTR , why push people into something where if and when they fail they will have a 6-7000 dollar bill hanging over their head.

First off that high percentage of failure is not related to OTR. It's just related to truck driving in general. Jay, you have only your own limited experience to go by, and it's extremely rudimentary. You've done a lot of things we don't consider as "best practices" when starting this career. So far it's working for you, and we are glad of it.

I would never recommend starting out driving a concrete truck, or a dump truck. Those jobs have killed a lot of trucking careers. As soon as a minivan full of little kids slams on the breaks in front of you while you've got 10 yards of mud loaded, you'll understand why I think those jobs are terribly dangerous for rookies.

We teach best practices. You took a shortcut to what you wanted. That's fine, but please don't be thinking you've got some super secret formula for success that needs to be shouted from the roof tops. So far you've been fortunate. I hope that trend continues.

First off I’m not shouting it from the rooftops. This gentleman is a special example. He has truck driving experience. Here in charlotte driving similar style trucks pays well, however he lives in a rural area, and the jobs aren’t as plentiful. At the time I didn’t know that. Now I do.

As for private vs sponsored school. Regardless the failure rate is high. Everyone in this group pushes hard for sponsored school.(makes me think the referral/recruiting fees from these links are pretty high) the thing I don’t see mentioned is hey while this is a great route, if you fail to complete it. you will be on the hook for a substantial amount of money. It’s not like only 2-3 percent are failing because they went to a company sponsored school. We both know it’s still really really high.

As for me. I know I’m extremely fourtunate. You’re right cement trucks aren’t easy to drive. (They have the highest rollover rate in the industry) I have way less braking power for almost the same amount of weight. What I do know OTR wasn’t for me. I’m glad I did it my way, because I was able to pay for school out of pocket. And 2850 is better than 5-7000 no matter how you slice it.

RWD

All these guys give great advice but one thing I don’t understand is they readily admit 90-95 percent fail at OTR, why push people into something where if and when they fail they will have a 6-7000 dollar bill hanging over their head.

I'll give you one of the biggest reasons why people quit in the first three months. It's because they spend more time researching a few cents per mile difference, or the color of the trucks, or how many days a week they can have off, or if they will have to train with someone that may not give them a hug every single time the trainee does what he or she has been told.

What these same wannabes should be doing is soul-searching, asking good questions on here, listening to those that know what we speak of, and being honest with themselves as far as the trucking lifestyle (not a job) will truly affect them.

Those that don't do adequate research, those that don't do the TT High Road Training Program, those that don't read Brett's book, and those that jump into this on a whim without committing everything to success are the ones that are most likely to fail.

I worked on a cruise ship. I did a lot of reading, but it didn’t prepare me for it. When I was training on land for 3 weeks I asked workers that had worked on board questions they would simply respond ship life. I could try to explain it to you now, but until you experience it all I can say is ship life.

I feel the same way about trucking. You can read all you want, but until you drive the truck. back the truck. wait To get loaded. wait to get unloaded. try to find parking. Deal with weather. Deal with dispatchers. Etc etc etc you won’t understand. All I can say is truck life. You gotta be out there to see what it’s like, and let’s be honest it takes a very specific type of person to do the job. Its definitely not for everyone. I’d just hate to see someone be on the hook like my buddy from school is.

RWD

I have an auto restriction as well. Our fleet is over 100 trucks and all are auto. I had basically zero experience, I applied for hundreds of cdl B jobs. I live in charlotte nc and the area is booming. Most of them all pay 18 plus an hour. It doesn’t have to be cement. Check out indeed and other job boards.

One other thing is like to touch on is private school. I went against the advice of this group and went to private school. I understand why they recommend company training. A lot of people don’t do their homework go to private school, and have some sort of record that keeps them from getting hired. I have a clean record, and didn’t want to commit to a contract. Which brings me to my next point. All these guys give great advice but one thing I don’t understand is they readily admit 90-95 percent fail at OTR, why push people into something where if and when they fail they will have a 6-7000 dollar bill hanging over their head.

I paid 2850 for my schooling. There was a kid that was in school with me that was signed up with Stevens transport. They paid for his schooling. He lasted 4 weeks, and the very next day after quitting he had an email wanting 7,600 dollars for his schooling. I have the email he sent it to me. I didn’t want that. I found out that OTR wasn’t for me, but 2850 is a lot better than 7600. I also wasn’t bound by a no compete clause and could go to work with my current company

What part of nc are you from?