New CDL Grad Looking For Help On A Tough Decission

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Kurt K.'s Comment
member avatar

Hi, I am a new poster to the forum. I first want to thank everyone for the honest feedback that is given. It's nice to read a trucking forum that is not primarily negative. Also, love the new layout.

I have a dilemma that I was hoping some of you might lend your experience to. I have recently graduated from a private driving school and have my CDL A. I have multiple pre-hires and have narrowed it down to four companies. Swift, Roehl, Werner and Western Express. Because of family health reasons I wanted to get the most home time possible (I know wrong business for that). Roehl says 11-14 out 3 days HT, Werner; 1 day for every week out min. 10-12 out, Swift no guarantee on NE regional (I live in Rochester NY) but I could probably get it which would be 6-9 days out 2 home (maybe he means 34 hr reset), Western express guarantees NE regional home weekly for my 34 hr reset. Any feedback on this would be appreciated.

One other question: What are peoples general impression of Western Express. I have done some research and their FMCSA scores are terrible and their Standard and Poor's rating was dropped from stable to negative with a CCC+ in April of 2012. My concern is the stability of the company and its ability to pay its employees. They already have no tuition reimbursement and have lousy training pay. I could overlook those two things if I could trust the company.

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

  • Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
  • Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

Regional:

Regional Route

Usually refers to a driver hauling freight within one particular region of the country. You might be in the "Southeast Regional Division" or "Midwest Regional". Regional route drivers often get home on the weekends which is one of the main appeals for this type of route.

CSA:

Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA)

The CSA is a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) initiative to improve large truck and bus safety and ultimately reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities that are related to commercial motor vehicle

FMCSA:

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

The FMCSA was established within the Department of Transportation on January 1, 2000. Their primary mission is to prevent commercial motor vehicle-related fatalities and injuries.

What Does The FMCSA Do?

  • Commercial Drivers' Licenses
  • Data and Analysis
  • Regulatory Compliance and Enforcement
  • Research and Technology
  • Safety Assistance
  • Support and Information Sharing

Fm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

Pre-hire:

What Exactly Is A Pre-Hire Letter?

Pre-hire letters are acceptance letters from trucking companies to students, or even potential students, to verify placement. The trucking companies are saying in writing that the student, or potential student, appears to meet the company's minimum hiring requirements and is welcome to attend their orientation at the company’s expense once he or she graduates from truck driving school and has their CDL in hand.

We have an excellent article that will help you Understand The Pre-Hire Process.

A Pre-Hire Letter Is Not A Guarantee Of Employment

The people that receive a pre-hire letter are people who meet the company's minimum hiring requirements, but it is not an employment contract. It is an invitation to orientation, and the orientation itself is a prerequisite to employment.

During the orientation you will get a physical, drug screen, and background check done. These and other qualifications must be met before someone in orientation is officially hired.

Pre-hires:

What Exactly Is A Pre-Hire Letter?

Pre-hire letters are acceptance letters from trucking companies to students, or even potential students, to verify placement. The trucking companies are saying in writing that the student, or potential student, appears to meet the company's minimum hiring requirements and is welcome to attend their orientation at the company’s expense once he or she graduates from truck driving school and has their CDL in hand.

We have an excellent article that will help you Understand The Pre-Hire Process.

A Pre-Hire Letter Is Not A Guarantee Of Employment

The people that receive a pre-hire letter are people who meet the company's minimum hiring requirements, but it is not an employment contract. It is an invitation to orientation, and the orientation itself is a prerequisite to employment.

During the orientation you will get a physical, drug screen, and background check done. These and other qualifications must be met before someone in orientation is officially hired.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
David's Comment
member avatar

Hi, I am a new poster to the forum. I first want to thank everyone for the honest feedback that is given. It's nice to read a trucking forum that is not primarily negative. Also, love the new layout.

I have a dilemma that I was hoping some of you might lend your experience to. I have recently graduated from a private driving school and have my CDL A. I have multiple pre-hires and have narrowed it down to four companies. Swift, Roehl, Werner and Western Express. Because of family health reasons I wanted to get the most home time possible (I know wrong business for that). Roehl says 11-14 out 3 days HT, Werner; 1 day for every week out min. 10-12 out, Swift no guarantee on NE regional (I live in Rochester NY) but I could probably get it which would be 6-9 days out 2 home (maybe he means 34 hr reset), Western express guarantees NE regional home weekly for my 34 hr reset. Any feedback on this would be appreciated.

One other question: What are peoples general impression of Western Express. I have done some research and their FMCSA scores are terrible and their Standard and Poor's rating was dropped from stable to negative with a CCC+ in April of 2012. My concern is the stability of the company and its ability to pay its employees. They already have no tuition reimbursement and have lousy training pay. I could overlook those two things if I could trust the company.

Welcome to the new and improved forums!!

Congrats on your CDL.. I can't give any feed back on the companys except for Swift. Im a current driver for them. I take my home time every 2 weeks (12-14 days out with 2 days off..) typically I go home on Wednight night and come back to work Saturday morning.. (wife has thursday and friday off) Im generally on the West coast most of the time, so getting home isn't hard. There have been times when I would take a trip east but I'd end up with an extra day off when I got back home...

You could do a trip west and then another trip east in 9-12 days and be back in time to go home... My DM does his best to get me home on time. Keeping open communication with your DM will go along way for ya.

Hope this info helps you out. Sorry I can't provide more for you with the other companies... Feel free to ask me about swift. Be happy to help out.

-Dave

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

  • Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
  • Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

Regional:

Regional Route

Usually refers to a driver hauling freight within one particular region of the country. You might be in the "Southeast Regional Division" or "Midwest Regional". Regional route drivers often get home on the weekends which is one of the main appeals for this type of route.

CSA:

Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA)

The CSA is a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) initiative to improve large truck and bus safety and ultimately reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities that are related to commercial motor vehicle

FMCSA:

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

The FMCSA was established within the Department of Transportation on January 1, 2000. Their primary mission is to prevent commercial motor vehicle-related fatalities and injuries.

What Does The FMCSA Do?

  • Commercial Drivers' Licenses
  • Data and Analysis
  • Regulatory Compliance and Enforcement
  • Research and Technology
  • Safety Assistance
  • Support and Information Sharing

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

Fm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

Pre-hire:

What Exactly Is A Pre-Hire Letter?

Pre-hire letters are acceptance letters from trucking companies to students, or even potential students, to verify placement. The trucking companies are saying in writing that the student, or potential student, appears to meet the company's minimum hiring requirements and is welcome to attend their orientation at the company’s expense once he or she graduates from truck driving school and has their CDL in hand.

We have an excellent article that will help you Understand The Pre-Hire Process.

A Pre-Hire Letter Is Not A Guarantee Of Employment

The people that receive a pre-hire letter are people who meet the company's minimum hiring requirements, but it is not an employment contract. It is an invitation to orientation, and the orientation itself is a prerequisite to employment.

During the orientation you will get a physical, drug screen, and background check done. These and other qualifications must be met before someone in orientation is officially hired.

Pre-hires:

What Exactly Is A Pre-Hire Letter?

Pre-hire letters are acceptance letters from trucking companies to students, or even potential students, to verify placement. The trucking companies are saying in writing that the student, or potential student, appears to meet the company's minimum hiring requirements and is welcome to attend their orientation at the company’s expense once he or she graduates from truck driving school and has their CDL in hand.

We have an excellent article that will help you Understand The Pre-Hire Process.

A Pre-Hire Letter Is Not A Guarantee Of Employment

The people that receive a pre-hire letter are people who meet the company's minimum hiring requirements, but it is not an employment contract. It is an invitation to orientation, and the orientation itself is a prerequisite to employment.

During the orientation you will get a physical, drug screen, and background check done. These and other qualifications must be met before someone in orientation is officially hired.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
Kurt K.'s Comment
member avatar

Thanks Dave, that helps a lot.

Brett Aquila's Comment
member avatar

Hey, welcome aboard!!!!!!

Roehl says 11-14 out 3 days HT

Wow, that right there is going to be very tough to beat. In fact, nearly impossible. That is some really good home time and we've had a number of people come through here that worked for Roehl and they seem really happy with the company.

I don't know much about Western Express. I definitely wouldn't worry about their FMCSA scores - that can be lousy due to the fact that they hire a lot of student drivers who tend to get in more fender benders and don't catch things on pre-trip inspections and things like that. Their credit rating I couldn't say too much about other than to compare it to other trucking companies. I know Werner is one of the most consistently profitable companies out there so you might check their rating for sake of comparison. But overall, I wouldn't worry much about credit rating - almost all trucking companies are financed to the max. It's a commodity service - every company is pretty much hanging on by a thread :-)

If you're looking for regional runs with good home time, you'll mostly find that with dry van. Have you spoken with Schneider? I know they have some really fantastic home time options and someone I spoke with recently out of Pennsylvania got on with them and gets home a lot.

But the biggest thing when it comes to finding a job in trucking is comparing the various features of different companies and speaking with a company's current drivers. Don't go to TheTruckersReport and ask what people think of a company. You'll get nothing but garbage. Head to a truck stop and speak with some of the current drivers face to face as they're coming into the truck stop. Don't go knocking on doors...drivers aren't fond of that. Catch them when they're fueling up or walking inside. But their current drivers are a great source of inside information.

Other than that, choose a company based on your preferences, not on what others think. Compare home time, pay, benefits, equipment, types of freight, opportunities within the company (local, regional, dedicated, etc) and things like that.

Pre-trip Inspection:

A pre-trip inspection is a thorough inspection of the truck completed before driving for the first time each day.

Federal and state laws require that drivers inspect their vehicles. Federal and state inspectors also may inspect your vehicles. If they judge a vehicle to be unsafe, they will put it “out of service” until it is repaired.

Regional:

Regional Route

Usually refers to a driver hauling freight within one particular region of the country. You might be in the "Southeast Regional Division" or "Midwest Regional". Regional route drivers often get home on the weekends which is one of the main appeals for this type of route.

CSA:

Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA)

The CSA is a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) initiative to improve large truck and bus safety and ultimately reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities that are related to commercial motor vehicle

FMCSA:

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

The FMCSA was established within the Department of Transportation on January 1, 2000. Their primary mission is to prevent commercial motor vehicle-related fatalities and injuries.

What Does The FMCSA Do?

  • Commercial Drivers' Licenses
  • Data and Analysis
  • Regulatory Compliance and Enforcement
  • Research and Technology
  • Safety Assistance
  • Support and Information Sharing

Fm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

Dry Van:

A trailer or truck that that requires no special attention, such as refrigeration, that hauls regular palletted, boxed, or floor-loaded freight. The most common type of trailer in trucking.

OOS:

When a violation by either a driver or company is confirmed, an out-of-service order removes either the driver or the vehicle from the roadway until the violation is corrected.

Kurt K.'s Comment
member avatar

Thanks Brett, I just filled out a Schneider app and will call them tomorrow.

Roadkill (aka:Guy DeCou)'s Comment
member avatar

Feel free to ask me about swift. Be happy to help out.

-Dave

Hey Dave, I am also thinking about Swift's company school and have pretty much narrowed it down to them or a local private school in Baton Rouge. I live in New Orleans, so the logistics of attending the private school are one of the things in the "con" column at the moment. They are a really well recognized school and have good relationships with all the major freight companies that hire locally, Roehl, Schneider, Warner,etc..just still wavering between them and Swift, though..not really a matter of money for me. I can pay for school up front, just really boils down to logistics. The Swift recruiter indicated initially that I would attend school in Tennessee if I went with them, but I have since found out they have a school located in Texas, which is a lot closer, but after school, I still have to come back to my homestate and arrange to take the CDL A test with the DMV. The private school is recognized as a third party CDL testing facility, so the instructors are also the ones who would give me my CDL test, so I pretty much do EVERYTHING at the school, physical, permit test, road test, etc.. Swift want my to have my permit in hand when I arrive. This entails going and arranging my own physical at a locally "approved DOT" doctor and then going down to my local DMV and sitting the permit test, which I do not anticipate to be anything of a challenge. I have completed Brett's online CDL training course TWICE and scored over 98% both times and I'm going through it again, just to cement the knowledge into my head..you see, I'm one of those guys that HAS to have tons of seemingly random information just floating around inside my brain ready to pluck out and drop into a conversation at any given moment..you don't EVER want to play me at any kind of trivia game..but I digress, damned A D D ....look, a squirrel..also, the recruiter at the private school said that while Swift will pretty much take care of all of your schooling, housing, transportation to and from school, etc... that their initial CPM rate is a little lower than the industry standard, but hey, that could just be the recruiter trying to entice me to go to her school based on trying to get me to believe I will earn more money by going the private route..again, all knowledge is power, so ANY information you could give that would help me make a better, more informed decision, would be helpful..

thanks, Guy

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

  • Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
  • Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

DOT:

Department Of Transportation

A department of the federal executive branch responsible for the national highways and for railroad and airline safety. It also manages Amtrak, the national railroad system, and the Coast Guard.

State and Federal DOT Officers are responsible for commercial vehicle enforcement. "The truck police" you could call them.

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

DMV:

Department of Motor Vehicles, Bureau of Motor Vehicles

The state agency that handles everything related to your driver's licences, including testing, issuance, transfers, and revocation.

CPM:

Cents Per Mile

Drivers are often paid by the mile and it's given in cents per mile, or cpm.

TWIC:

Transportation Worker Identification Credential

Truck drivers who regularly pick up from or deliver to the shipping ports will often be required to carry a TWIC card.

Your TWIC is a tamper-resistant biometric card which acts as both your identification in secure areas, as well as an indicator of you having passed the necessary security clearance. TWIC cards are valid for five years. The issuance of TWIC cards is overseen by the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
Brett Aquila's Comment
member avatar
I have completed Brett's online CDL training course TWICE and scored over 98% both times and I'm going through it again, just to cement the knowledge into my head.

Make sure you really focus hard on the logbook section and the Weight & Balance. Those are the two sections we built ourselves because that information is critical to doing your job out there but the schools hardly teach it.

In fact, one of our long-time forum members is on the road now and getting tickets for being overlength because he didn't know the laws and nobody told him during schooling or his training on the road. Unfortunately he didn't do the Weight & Balance section of the course or it would have saved him a lot of grief. I hate to see that happen.

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

  • Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
  • Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

Logbook:

A written or electronic record of a driver's duty status which must be maintained at all times. The driver records the amount of time spent driving, on-duty not driving, in the sleeper berth, or off duty. The enforcement of the Hours Of Service Rules (HOS) are based upon the entries put in a driver's logbook.

TWIC:

Transportation Worker Identification Credential

Truck drivers who regularly pick up from or deliver to the shipping ports will often be required to carry a TWIC card.

Your TWIC is a tamper-resistant biometric card which acts as both your identification in secure areas, as well as an indicator of you having passed the necessary security clearance. TWIC cards are valid for five years. The issuance of TWIC cards is overseen by the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
Roadkill (aka:Guy DeCou)'s Comment
member avatar
double-quotes-start.png I have completed Brett's online CDL training course TWICE and scored over 98% both times and I'm going through it again, just to cement the knowledge into my head.
double-quotes-end.png

Make sure you really focus hard on the logbook section and the Weight & Balance. Those are the two sections we built ourselves because that information is critical to doing your job out there but the schools hardly teach it.

In fact, one of our long-time forum members is on the road now and getting tickets for being overlength because he didn't know the laws and nobody told him during schooling or his training on the road. Unfortunately he didn't do the Weight & Balance section of the course or it would have saved him a lot of grief. I hate to see that happen.

Yeah, the HOS section took me a couple of times of going over to get it into my head..especially the 70Hour 8 day week thing..I kept asking myself, "Self, if you have 14 hours a day to be on duty, and 11 hours a day to drive, and you max out every day, then how are you supposed to NOT run out of hours??" Then I realized, that a lot of your time that you are supposed to be "on duty" and "driving" will actually spent sitting at the dock..and that if you're very clever, you can use your split sleeper rule to stretch those hours out..and maximize your drive time and hence your paycheck.. :)

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

  • Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
  • Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

Logbook:

A written or electronic record of a driver's duty status which must be maintained at all times. The driver records the amount of time spent driving, on-duty not driving, in the sleeper berth, or off duty. The enforcement of the Hours Of Service Rules (HOS) are based upon the entries put in a driver's logbook.

TWIC:

Transportation Worker Identification Credential

Truck drivers who regularly pick up from or deliver to the shipping ports will often be required to carry a TWIC card.

Your TWIC is a tamper-resistant biometric card which acts as both your identification in secure areas, as well as an indicator of you having passed the necessary security clearance. TWIC cards are valid for five years. The issuance of TWIC cards is overseen by the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
Brett Aquila's Comment
member avatar
Then I realized, that a lot of your time that you are supposed to be "on duty" and "driving" will actually spent sitting at the dock

The time you spend at the dock will be logged as sleeper berth or off duty 99% of the time. That won't count against your 11 driving hours of course but it often does count against your 14 consecutive on duty hours.

The thing about knowing the logbook rules inside and out is that you'll know all of the loopholes you can use to keep rolling when others think they're out of options and have to shut down. Especially with electronic logs.

Logbook:

A written or electronic record of a driver's duty status which must be maintained at all times. The driver records the amount of time spent driving, on-duty not driving, in the sleeper berth, or off duty. The enforcement of the Hours Of Service Rules (HOS) are based upon the entries put in a driver's logbook.

Electronic Logs:

Electronic Onboard Recorder

Electronic Logbook

A device which records the amount of time a vehicle has been driven. If the vehicle is not being driven, the operator will manually input whether or not he/she is on duty or not.

Sleeper Berth:

The portion of the tractor behind the seats which acts as the "living space" for the driver. It generally contains a bed (or bunk beds), cabinets, lights, temperature control knobs, and 12 volt plugs for power.

OWI:

Operating While Intoxicated

David's Comment
member avatar

Feel free to ask me about swift. Be happy to help out.

-Dave

Hey Dave, I am also thinking about Swift's company school and have pretty much narrowed it down to them or a local private school in Baton Rouge. I live in New Orleans, so the logistics of attending the private school are one of the things in the "con" column at the moment. They are a really well recognized school and have good relationships with all the major freight companies that hire locally, Roehl, Schneider, Warner,etc..just still wavering between them and Swift, though..not really a matter of money for me. I can pay for school up front, just really boils down to logistics. The Swift recruiter indicated initially that I would attend school in Tennessee if I went with them, but I have since found out they have a school located in Texas, which is a lot closer, but after school, I still have to come back to my homestate and arrange to take the CDL A test with the DMV. The private school is recognized as a third party CDL testing facility, so the instructors are also the ones who would give me my CDL test, so I pretty much do EVERYTHING at the school, physical, permit test, road test, etc.. Swift want my to have my permit in hand when I arrive. This entails going and arranging my own physical at a locally "approved DOT" doctor and then going down to my local DMV and sitting the permit test, which I do not anticipate to be anything of a challenge. I have completed Brett's online CDL training course TWICE and scored over 98% both times and I'm going through it again, just to cement the knowledge into my head..you see, I'm one of those guys that HAS to have tons of seemingly random information just floating around inside my brain ready to pluck out and drop into a conversation at any given moment..you don't EVER want to play me at any kind of trivia game..but I digress, damned A D D ....look, a squirrel..also, the recruiter at the private school said that while Swift will pretty much take care of all of your schooling, housing, transportation to and from school, etc... that their initial CPM rate is a little lower than the industry standard, but hey, that could just be the recruiter trying to entice me to go to her school based on trying to get me to believe I will earn more money by going the private route..again, all knowledge is power, so ANY information you could give that would help me make a better, more informed decision, would be helpful..

thanks, Guy

Not sure what info your wanting... I did my schooling through the Phoenix terminal. The only thing I had to do before school was get my dot physical. After school I just had to transfer my CDL from Arizona to California which I wound up having to retake the written exams...

the schooling was pretty fast paced with little wiggle room to grasp the concepts of backing, pre trip, shifting, and handling these big rigs..... the only bad part with going with the schooling is for the first 13 months you're stuck paying off the student loan. Swift does pay you back after the 13 months.. Swift tuition is 3900.. which is taken out per paycheck once you get released to solo. They take $75 per week and the also reimburse 37.50 per week.... housing is also taken out at $23 a week with no reimbursement. After 13 months you will have paid roughly $1950 for tuition at which point your contract with them is paid.. they will match the other 1950.. if you stay for another year they will pay back the 1950 you paid making your schooling free... make sense?

As for starting rate, it is low.. 25cents per mile, within 6 months youll hit 31-32cpm.

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

  • Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
  • Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
  • Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

Terminal:

A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.

DOT:

Department Of Transportation

A department of the federal executive branch responsible for the national highways and for railroad and airline safety. It also manages Amtrak, the national railroad system, and the Coast Guard.

State and Federal DOT Officers are responsible for commercial vehicle enforcement. "The truck police" you could call them.

Dm:

Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager

The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.

DMV:

Department of Motor Vehicles, Bureau of Motor Vehicles

The state agency that handles everything related to your driver's licences, including testing, issuance, transfers, and revocation.

CPM:

Cents Per Mile

Drivers are often paid by the mile and it's given in cents per mile, or cpm.

TWIC:

Transportation Worker Identification Credential

Truck drivers who regularly pick up from or deliver to the shipping ports will often be required to carry a TWIC card.

Your TWIC is a tamper-resistant biometric card which acts as both your identification in secure areas, as well as an indicator of you having passed the necessary security clearance. TWIC cards are valid for five years. The issuance of TWIC cards is overseen by the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

HOS:

Hours Of Service

HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
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