North Carolina CDL School

I just went back to CDL School Yesterday. I had gone to a company CDL School 13 years ago but had been recalled back to the Military soon after and had not driven a tractor Trailer for over 12 years. The Companies I called all said I should take an 80 hour refresher course then apply to them. When I called the schools and found out what was available I discovered that the post 9-11 GI bill would cover the full 160 hour school at a non company affiliated school so I am taking the full school. One big difference this time from the company school I attended way back is that at that school we had to have a permit and a physical before we showed up. In the class here there were only 2 of us who already had permits. On the first day of class (Monday) the classroom was filled with 18 people, from reviews I had read you hoped for a class of 10-12 people so that you would receive maximum time in the driver's seat, so I was somewhat disappointed that we had a full class. The Instructor was a retired Army first Sergeant with a good sense of humor and a lot of patience and he was very good at making sure the very diverse class got along well. Of the 18 I think 5 of us were over 40 the rest were between 25 and 35. 6 were female. The first day was spent watching classes on E-tread video's. The highlight of the day was the director of training reading the riot act to the class about using foul language and behaving professionally. Which I think actually got some of the younger guys in the class to become a little more serious about the job they were training for. Most of this class is commuting to school, and several have family members who own trucks who are just getting CDL's to join the family business. 2 others besides me are using Post 9-11 GI bill benefits to attend the school. I had an opportunity to talk with many of the driving instructors and have a good feeling that they really do want to do a good job teaching folks how to drive. I have read many negative reviews, but I haven't experienced any of the bad things that they talked about.

Day 2 (Tuesday ) Today was drug test and Physicals in the morning. 4 people from the previous day did not show up so the class has shrunk to 14. After Physicals I think 3 more have dropped the class. So I think our class may be a much more manageable 11 or 12 people. We most of the rest of the day doing more etreads videos and the instructor helped people who were having problems with mock general Knowledge CDL exams. The Day finished with a Presentation from Steven's transport telling us the great things that would happen if we joined them after graduation. I am pretty happy with the school and the training so far.

Well we finished week 1 at Roadmaster in Dunn. The class which started with 18 has rimmed down to 11. There are still 5 of us over 40 in the class, but only 3 of the female students remain. Day 3 of the class started with classes on logbooks and log book roll ups. The instructor Mr Carr was a very good instructor for that class. That afternoon we went outside and Mr Carr reviewed the pretrip inspection. The Instruction was good but the truck we were looking at was pretty old and worn out. I am hoping that the trucks we actually drive will be in better shape than this one. The class is pretty self motivated so after the initial review everyone quizzed each other on the different parts of the truck. The day ended with a recruiter from Werner telling us about the opportunities his company offered. Day 4 was spent reviewing test questions for the people who still needed to get their permits. There were computer based tests you could work on your own And the instructor put some questions on the board that the whole class could participate in answering. Again the instructor was very good at answering any questions anyone had. I used quite a bit of that time to review the Haz Mat sections that I could find on E treads and on the sample tests. At noon we dismissed to go to the Driver's License office and get permits. I easily passed the HAZMAT endorsement test and put an additional tool in my toolbox. I am not sure how the rest of the class did on their tests. We have one student in the class who has several violations on his driving record, He is continually trying to see if he can get any truck companies to look at him. I do not know what the admissions people told him when he signed up or who is paying for his class or how it is being paid. He could get lucky and land a job, however I think this is what gives truck driving school a bad rep, most likely he will have difficulty finding a job, and he will be out quite a bit of cash for the school. Again I do not know what the reps told him before he signed up but I hope they were straight with him about job prospects. Or it could be that he was not honest about his record at first so the school may have mislead him based on what he told them. I am looking forward to Monday when I get to jump back in the cab and see how much I remember from more than a decade ago.

Finished week 2. On Monday and Tuesday we went on the road in the trucks. Both days there were 3 students and one instructor in the truck. Day One there was a lot of shifting up and down the first 5 gears to become familiar with double clutching and downshifting. It was somewhat boring and tedious, but I think it did help me improve my downshifting. The instructor was very patient and soft spoken a big change from my last experience. On Tuesday we went on the regular highways, through busy city streets and onto the interstate. The instructor just let us drive and corrected if we made a bad shift and reminded us to keep up with where our trailer was. He was amazingly calm. I felt pretty confident with my shifting both up and down. I found I needed to think a little more about what my trailer was doing on traffic circles and on exit ramps. Wens and Thurs were spent in the field, working on straight line backing, offset backing and the 90 degree alley dock. I did pretty good straight line back the first morning, then after lunch I somehow forgot everything I had done correctly. On thurs I spent most of day working the offset, I got it with 2 pull-up about every other time. The Instructors explained how to do the maneuvers the watched as you attempted them. Most of the instructors were petty good though there was one newer one who knew what he was doing but needs to work on explaining it a little bit better. We also reviewed the pretrip again and there was a truck in the field set up for practicing that and there was an instructor there about half of the time to help you out with any questions.

Well Just finished the CDL Class at Roadmaster's. Week Three was 2 days of Road Driving and 3 days in the field working on Back ups. Week four was testing, Pretrip on Mon, Backing on Tues and Road test on Wens. Some good things about the school were: The instructors we all pretty Knowledgeable. would spend extra time to help you out , and they all seemed to enjoy their jobs. The down side was that they were short of instructors (another CDL School nearby had recently opened and taken several of their instructors). Several also had health issues, after spending a long time on the road in a truck and often had to miss school for health issues. I think one morning we were supposed to go out and drive but couldn't because an instructor was sick. They were good people but had legitimate medical issues (probably why they were instructing rather than driving). They handled all the paperwork necessary to get my GI bill benefits, I just brought in my DD214's their office and they did all the work I never had to worry about finances or deal with the VA or fill out tons of forms. They made sure you filled out job applications and had a good reputation with the employers they wanted you to apply too. The bad side of this was that they pushed a few companies that I am sure they got recruiting bonuses from. They would give you a number for some other companies but they pretty much made you fill out application for 5 main companies who actively recruited at the school. I had a great class to train with. My class had a mix of old an young students and everyone got along well and helped each other out.Some other classes there while we were there had a difficult person who brought their whole class down, Our class was always happy and had great morale. Now the areas that need Improvement. The salespeople at the school, While there was one good salesman who was very knowledgeable about VA programs and helped me out even though I wasn't his lead, some of the other sales people really had no idea what they were talking about. They would give people crazy expectations of what to expect I heard one telling students that they would get a truck to take home every night, get huge sign up bonuses and other things that may happen to experienced drivers but that are highly unlikely to happen for a fresh out of CDL school driver. They also give you a spiel about how the company you work for will repay your tuition, but don't tell them that it will take 3-5 years working with that company to pay off the bill. Some of the yard equipment was in pretty bad shape. There was on truck being used for backing practice with messed up unadjustable mirrors with leaking air and messed up brakes that was just about worthless for leaning how to do the maneuvers. Fortunately I only saw it one day when the regular truck was getting some repairs. Overall it was a good experience I still need to learn a lot and I am hoping to get a good trainer and perfect my driving skills over the next few months.