Decided To Drive Again, Stuck Between Two Choices Since I Need To Get A CDL Again....

I made a post previously, that due to ignorance about self-certifying and my medcard, I lost my CDL. After thinking long and hard, looking at other trades, and thinking about my future. I decided I want to drive again, as some of you know, I had a rocky start in my trucking career, due to immaturity. Nothing major, just not the best work ethic.... The two choices I have now, are going to a mega to get my CDL and sign a contract with them. Looking at a company like SWIFT. Or there is a local CDL school, they have a 5 week basic course 5 days a week for 5000$, they also offer a loan at 11% interest and you do not have to start paying for it until after training is over. Or they have a "advanced course" that is 18 weeks, and claims to go over things like general maintenance and in general more in-depth over those 18 weeks, and that is a weekend-only course.

My overall goal is to eventually get an hourly local job after I get more experience. The CDL school teaches in manual transmissions, which is the major reason I am considering it. I want to eventually in a few years do hazmat tanker. And I heard that a lot of tanker's are manual transmission because the surge does not work well with autos. And that a lot of smaller companies still use manuals. I just do not want to be limited in my career with automatic only. I am debating doing the 18 week course as well, so I can continue to work while training. When I first trained at Prime inc, I went in with practically no money at all. And it makes training really rough until you get paychecks coming in. Plus I have more bills now than I did at 21 years old. And then the other option is Swift, where I would get my cdl for free, and within that year or so contract, I will get the experience I need to do local. However, Swift does not have a tanker division. If I went this route, I would continue working where I am now, save up some money first before shipping out.

So if you guys were in my shoes, what would be the best option? Very disappointed in myself, if I would of just stuck to it at 21, I could be driving that local job I want right now. I grew up allot since then, and just want to provide a better future for myself. And one day hit my goal of local trucking. Does any company that trains for CDL have a tanker division?

Also wanted to show, this is what the "advanced cdl class" includes, which some of this stuff would be nice to get hands-on training with. Allot of this stuff, I already know from my solo driving experience. But it would also be nice to brush up on things. Technically all I need to get my CDL again is to do a pretrip and road test. I am also exempt from needing to do the ELDT course that new drivers must go through. But I could not find a school or anywhere that would let me pay for a instructor to come with me with a truck to do just testing.

It is definitely a ****ty situation, right before I was rear-ended in my personal vehicle and injured. I was going through the hiring process for a tanker job with $1200 a week guaranteed pay. They did my drug test, background checks, and everything, and wanted to know when I could start. Then the accident happened, worked from home, didn't self-certify from ignorance, and now starting from scratch.

But it is true, as my family said, what is in the past is in the past. Can only keep moving forward and not dwell on mistakes, can only learn from them.