CDL School Incident

I am a CDL-A student almost ready to test out for my license. Sorry for my long post in advance but need to give full pic here. I’m not training with one of the mega carriers like Prime or Swift, it’s a local program. We were randomly assigned an instructor once we got to backing and driving. They hired a new teacher onto their staff, we’re his first class, and lucky me (not) was assigned to him, myself and another student driver. The other drivers in our class got assigned to a more senior instructor by luck. I started off having issues with this instructor when it came to backing. I figured out and passed all of my other backing maneuvers and then here comes the 90. His way of teaching is a cluster f***. Finally I had to go to the top main teacher and tell her after a week with this guy trying to learn the 90 his way, this isn’t working he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he keeps changing the setup markers he wants me to hit on my truck and trailer going into the 90. The senior instructor finally this morning showed me his way, practiced 4 times total, tested and passed the 5th time. Next today is perimeter driving, there is a road around the entire school probably 2 miles long total, setup kinda like the real road with signs and what not. Along the curves there are these big rocks. I was practicing and did the course probably 10 times successfully. On my last pass he had started taking to me about where I think I’m gonna apply. Doesn’t matter right now in this moment, my first time ever behind the wheel actually driving this truck. One of my last turns I didn’t go high enough around the curve and my passenger back tandem tire pops up about a foot on this rock. He had me so distracted answering him, I caught it and backed up and went around. He had me park in the truck lot to check for any damage. Thankfully there wasn’t any. We get out of the truck since it’s end of day anyways and I tell one of my classmates in the other group I kinda hit a rock trying to lighten it up but I was so worried. So my instructor tells me I need to note this on your file and I’m like why, then and he asks the other teacher can you come look at this tire real quick with me. We’re all back in the clsssroom ready to be told go home for the day. He comes in and immediately I ask how’s the tire worried I’m gonna get kicked from the program. I’ve got everything riding on this program. My boyfriend is a veteran driver and we’re gonna go team somewhere together, but this jacka** teacher comes back in the room and I ask is everything ok, said it’s fine don’t worry about it. In my gut I’m like is he trying to CYA since he already kinda looks like an idiot that he couldn’t teach backing now this he shouldn’t of been taking to me about anything while I’m just learning to drive. What’s the worst that could come of this? I was the driver and should have caught that curve that I was too shallow but it’s his job to say hey you’re too close, I have a feeling he’ll try to CYA and blame me

I am a CDL-A student almost ready to test out for my license. Sorry for my long post in advance but need to give full pic here. I’m not training with one of the mega carriers like Prime or Swift, it’s a local program. We were randomly assigned an instructor once we got to backing and driving. They hired a new teacher onto their staff, we’re his first class, and lucky me (not) was assigned to him, myself and another student driver. The other drivers in our class got assigned to a more senior instructor by luck. I started off having issues with this instructor when it came to backing. I figured out and passed all of my other backing maneuvers and then here comes the 90. His way of teaching is a cluster f***. Finally I had to go to the top main teacher and tell her after a week with this guy trying to learn the 90 his way, this isn’t working he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he keeps changing the setup markers he wants me to hit on my truck and trailer going into the 90. The senior instructor finally this morning showed me his way, practiced 4 times total, tested and passed the 5th time. Next today is perimeter driving, there is a road around the entire school probably 2 miles long total, setup kinda like the real road with signs and what not. Along the curves there are these big rocks. I was practicing and did the course probably 10 times successfully. On my last pass he had started taking to me about where I think I’m gonna apply. Doesn’t matter right now in this moment, my first time ever behind the wheel actually driving this truck. One of my last turns I didn’t go high enough around the curve and my passenger back tandem tire pops up about a foot on this rock. He had me so distracted answering him, I caught it and backed up and went around. He had me park in the truck lot to check for any damage. Thankfully there wasn’t any. We get out of the truck since it’s end of day anyways and I tell one of my classmates in the other group I kinda hit a rock trying to lighten it up but I was so worried. So my instructor tells me I need to note this on your file and I’m like why, then and he asks the other teacher can you come look at this tire real quick with me. We’re all back in the clsssroom ready to be told go home for the day. He comes in and immediately I ask how’s the tire worried I’m gonna get kicked from the program. I’ve got everything riding on this program. My boyfriend is a veteran driver and we’re gonna go team somewhere together, but this jacka** teacher comes back in the room and I ask is everything ok, said it’s fine don’t worry about it. In my gut I’m like is he trying to CYA since he already kinda looks like an idiot that he couldn’t teach backing now this he shouldn’t of been taking to me about anything while I’m just learning to drive. What’s the worst that could come of this? I was the driver and should have caught that curve that I was too shallow but it’s his job to say hey you’re too close, I have a feeling he’ll try to CYA and blame me

The best advice I can give you based on your post is that you need a serious attitude check and you need it right now. Don't ever, and I mean EVER, try to lay the blame for something you did wrong on someone else. Who was driving when the passenger side rear tandem hit that rock, you or your "new teacher"? YOU WERE!! And stop with the "I was distracted" bull****, already. In the real world of trucking there are distractions galore and if being distracted was a legitimate excuse, there would be dead bodies stacked up like cord wood up and down every highway in the country.

You f'ed up a curve and hit a rock. YOU did that. And guess what? The fact that you would try to blame your own mistake on "being distracted" is actually WORSE than f'ing up that curve in the first place!

Humble yourself quickly or you are going to fail. This "new teacher" who are blaming all of your problems on has probably forgotten more about driving a truck than you know at this point.

Seems to me he was "distracting" you on purpose, as a test, how you'd handle it, even as small as it were. In school, IS 1 big test on it's own. There's plenty of ways to test you without you realizing it. Just concentrate on what YOU'RE doing behind the wheel, ignore the chatting etc.....Yes, YOU messed up, it happens, and you need to learn from it, so it don't happen again. Keep your head on a swivel, and check your mirrors every few seconds, to avoid scraping/hitting something, you're nearing the finish line of training where ever you're doing it at.

Good Luck, and suck it up buttercup, own everything YOU do out there.

I was practicing and did the course probably 10 times successfully.

Was he silent all 10 of those times? If yes then he obviously felt comfortable enough to throw some talking in. And if not, why was it a problems this time?

You need to learn accountability. Let's say you get your CDL and your driving teams with your boyfriend. He's talking to you, you've got your GPS going, it starts raining, you also have the radio on and now your in an unfamiliar area. You make a turn incorrectly and bump a parked car. How do you think the cop will react if you say "I was distracted." It's part of your job as a professional driver to either avoid or learn to block out distractions. This was 100% not your teachers fault. It was yours. And you know what, that's ok. You bumped a rock, backed up and corrected with no damage to the tire. Learn from it and move on.

Take it from somebody who has his fair share of mishaps early in his career. Learn accountability. Accept when you screw up, admit it, and learn from it. If this industry is good at one thing it's humbling people.

Yeah its been said but you assuming the instructor doesn't know what he is doing is more than ironic, its retarded. You have no basis for knowing what he is or isn't doing yet.

In general, you need to take accountability for your actions and decisions. As others have said, you can't possibly fathom the level of distractions we encounter in the real world. Its expected for us to be impervious to them and perform our job no matter what.

We don't get the opportunity to have oops moments, it can kill you or others by the time you realize your mistake.

There's no pretty-pass in trucking. We're all judged the same, on our performance. Eat some humble pie, change your attitude to that of I might not make it through this, so I'll use everything I can to perform as best as I can. And learn everything you can from every one.

The examiners will talk and ask you questions. Then what?

You should have had your boyfriend train u.