Celadon/Quality Driving School ?

I drove OTR for 22 years until i had a stroke in Augsust 2011, in fall/winter 2012 the Drs said i had progressed far enough that I could test to get my license re-instated, foolishly i yielded to family pressure and gave up my CDL , in January 2013 I got a class C PA drivers license.. bye bye trucking right? well , maybe not. This summer I started checking out company sponsored driver training programs, I gotta say some of them scare me!How they think they can take joe schmo and make him a truck driver in 3-4 weeks is beyond my belief. I've always thought Celadon was a solid company and their training time frame sounded much more realistic to me so i applied and have been accepted for schooling to begin in Indianapolis in mid January(the TT review of Prime's program had me very interested in them if Celadon did not accept me, I wish y'all had reviewed Celadon)... I really would rather not hear all the "new breed steering wheel holder" garbage but if anybody has anything adult to say about Celadon or their program I'd like to hear that

Welcome aboard Keith!

. I really would rather not hear all the "new breed steering wheel holder" garbage but if anybody has anything adult to say about Celadon or their program I'd like to hear that

We love when people come over here after visiting other forums like TheTruckersReport because TruckingTruth is an entirely different world and you'll love it. We don't disrespect each other or bash trucking companies. We focus on being friendly, honest, and helpful. So you don't have to duck for cover every time you post a question or comment - we're friendly folks!

Ok so Celadon's school is fairly new. I think it's about a year old and I personally first heard about it several months ago. I'm getting ready to update our Company-sponsored training section but haven't done so yet. When I do, Celadon will be in there.

But so far the feedback we've gotten is that the people running the school have been really nice but it isn't run very well yet. Someone mentioned they're disappointed to see that they're making the same mistakes they've been making all along and don't seem to be learning from them. That to me sounds like a management issue. But it's all conjecture at this point.

So overall it's a good program and I've heard a lot of great things about it. But they still have some growing pains so I'd expect to need quite a bit of patience. You've driven for over two decades so I'm sure you have the patience thing down quite well.

The biggest thing to keep in mind with those programs is that they're more like a tryout than a school. They're testing you all the time in various ways and a lot of people don't even know they're being tested. We got a report from one of the programs (not Celadon) that the instructor told everyone to stay in the classroom and he'd be right back. When he finally came back an hour later there were three people that had gotten tired of waiting and left the room. All three were dismissed from the program for not following simple directions.

So when you show up, in spite of the fact that you could probably teach the course better than half of their instructors, make sure your attitude is friendly and humble. Just do what they say, roll with things, and before you know it you'll be solo and you won't have to worry about it. That advice would pertain to any of the company-sponsored programs. They bring in a lot of people and maybe 25% of them actually make it all the way through.