Automatic Restriction With C.R. England But My Options Are Limited

I have a criminal record with 4 misdemeanors and one felony. All but one misdemeanor are over 10 years old. I was declined training by Stevens Transport, Swift, Prime, Millis, MCT transport, FFE, and Roehl. Swift actually sent me to the school in Corsicana and during the first day got notification my background didn’t pass. I was honest on all applications. That being said C.R.England put me on a bus to go to Salt Lake City, Utah for school. I already obtained my permit with tankers endorsement. They have a 100% automatic fleet and I will receive a automatic restriction on my CDL. I’m not excited about that but due to my poor decision making as a youth my options are limited. Has anyone gotten a restriction removed or after my contract is up can I sign on with another company (record permitting) that will allow me to take the steps necessary to remove it? I realize the industry is moving for automatic transmissions and I understand why but I eventually want to become a owner/operator and drive a standard. Any advice would be appreciated.

Theres a guy who worked with me briefly who had the restriction on his license. He spent $300 for the day to rent a truck to test. He was able to practice in our trucks with a licensed driver that didnt have the restriction. He had to do the entire test to remove his restriction. pretrip, skills and road test (in iowa). He said it was rather easy as he already knew how to back and drive he just needed to demonstrate he could shift well enough to maintain control of his vehicle.

About the owner operator comment id suggest doing more research into it. This forum trys to avoid getting too deep into that topic as its geared mainly towards helping people get started in this business. Its discouraged here to lease or buy your own truck. If you decide to go that route PLEASE get atleast a couple years experience before you even consider it as an option as the learning curve is so steep.

I see you didn't give CFI a shot. As far as O/O goes, we do discourage it. However, why would you buy an older truck with a manual transmission that you won't know how it was used. I have a friend who bought his own truck and he wanted and got an automatic.

Big Scott is right, it's very easy to remove the restriction later by just retesting in a manual at a cdl school. The hard part is finding someone who will let you practice on a manual. Some schools do like a one week refresher course--that's all it would take you to learn manual if you already know how to drive.