(Pre CDL Newbie) Solo Or Team?

Wow Susan a little harsh. I think I haven’t expressed myself very well I guess. I’m not looking for a crutch and have never needed one. I guess I was just thinking that being alone at the beginning of such a new experience sounded a bit daunting to me. I hear what you’re saying though.

Not intended to be harsh but I hear of so many new drivers who want to team, thinking that they'll get extra help or training, and then there's those who's spouse already drives and they're going to team. One of my former trainees has a sister who's driven for over 5 years and the sister CAN'T BACK A TRAILER. What I pointed out was.. what if the spouse gets hurt, sick, or whatever? They are buying their truck so she'd have to run it solo. Not a good situation at all.

I know when I teamed with my other half for a short while, it really HURT my skills. He was just "trying to be nice", but he sure did me no favors. I'd get out to GOAL and he'd jump in the drivers seat! Then when we decided to no longer team because my company wanted me to train other drivers (and wanted him to resume training them) he actually had the nerve to insinuate (in front of the training coordinator) that I probably wasn't ready to train because my skills weren't good enough. You bet that made me pretty mad.

I quickly and angrily put him in his place, and proved him wrong. Nope, I'm not a showoff like he is. He's placed in the Georgia State championship in backing previously and has been driving for many years. I simply take my time, and get it done. I get complimented on my backing at some extremely tight customers. But hey, I practice almost every day lol.

Did I like teaming with him? YES. But there are definite pitfalls to avoid. We've discussed teaming again in the future, but I'm just not sure anymore that I'd ever team with him again, despite how much I miss running down the road with him.

Mary replied to Susan...

Wow Susan a little harsh. I think I haven’t expressed myself very well I guess. I’m not looking for a crutch and have never needed one. I guess I was just thinking that being alone at the beginning of such a new experience sounded a bit daunting to me. I hear what you’re saying though.

Mary, based on your initial post; I think Susan’s reply is spot-on. Expecting the support of a teamate is unrealistic. You are there to run the truck 23 hours per day, as efficiently as possible. It’s not designed as an extension of your training.

When I got assigned my first co driver. We realized that where areas we were strong in and others we were weak in. We both needed work on backing, both knew the qalcom I knew it better. He had no clue had to preplan a trip, low clearance, restricted routes he was completely oblivious of these things. His goal was to go solo at the end of his contract, I hadn't decided. But our general consensus was we would work as team figure this trucking thing out and eventually go our separate ways. He turned out to be a hindrance. My replacement co driver turn out to be a little flakey and now I'm a solo driver again So as of right now I have a rather negative out look on team driving

Wow Susan a little harsh. I think I haven’t expressed myself very well I guess. I’m not looking for a crutch and have never needed one. I guess I was just thinking that being alone at the beginning of such a new experience sounded a bit daunting to me. I hear what you’re saying though.

No that is reality. I just sent Brett an article discussing how this way of thinking can hurt a driver, just as susan described. You stated in the first post you would have the help of a veteran driver.... that is a safety net.

The reality is you might not get a veteran driver at all. what if you get someone who upgraded the week after you? Are you ready to be the veteran driver to someone who expected you to be informed? If you do get a veteran driver, that person is not getting paid to train you. It is selfish to assume they will voluntarily give up their very short rest time to make you feel better.

If you are that worried about it, try going to Prime or one of the other companies with a lengthy team driving ttaining phase. At Prime if you get you CDL elsewhere you must do 40,000 truck miles of team training. If you get it at Prime you do 30,000 miles. that way you extemd your training while deciding if teaming is for you. if you love it, great go team. if you hate it you can go solo as long as you dont do a team only company.