UPDATE FOR OHIO-trucking Companies That Offer Free, Or Nearly Free, Truck Driving Schools And CDL Training
Topic 744 | Page 1
Hey there Joe-
Thanks for posting this. I am a resident of Columbus, OH and will be monitoring this thread for info. I'm a 19 year old college kid looking for something to do, so trucking in Ohio might be the ticket if I can find CDL training for college kid pricing! lol
I'll try and do some research to see if I can offer any assistance.
Cheers,
-Ian
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.
Ian, the minimal age to work as a professional driver is age 21.
Joe, I'm assuming you're going to do OTR (over the road). If so, then your location absolutely has no impact on which company you work for. I work for a company based in Utah and I live in California. If you live in Ohio and choose to go to a company sponsored school in a different state then they'll purchase a Greyhound ride for you and provide you with a hotel. Again, your location makes no difference. I say you should look into all the companies.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
Over The Road:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
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.
Welcome aboard Joe!
I believe Knight only offers training for students in certain states, not nationwide. And Schneider is now going through private schools instead of running their own.
And Daniel made an excellent point - location means nothing. Ignore it altogether. In 15 years of driving I never once worked for a company that was headquartered or even had a terminal in my home state. Those Company-Sponsored Training Programs will indeed pay for your transportation to their facility (almost all of them will anyhow) and put you up in a hotel during training. So I would apply to all of those programs and get a dialogue going with the various recruiters. Each program has several unique features so compare them thoroughly. But don't worry about location at all. As long as they hire from your home state, that's all that matters.
And Ian, you'll want to wait until you're 21 to go to truck driving school. Even though you can get your CDL at 18, nobody will hire you until you're at least 21, and often times older than that. And you don't want to get your license and not use it for a while. If you graduate from school and don't use your license for even 3 or 6 months, most companies will make you take some sort of a refresher course before they'll hire you. So plan on waiting until you're 21.
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.
Company-sponsored Training:
A Company-Sponsored Training Program is a school that is owned and operated by a trucking company.
The schooling often requires little or no money up front. Instead of paying up-front tuition you will sign an agreement to work for the company for a specified amount of time after graduation, usually around a year, at a slightly lower rate of pay in order to pay for the training.
If you choose to quit working for the company before your year is up, they will normally require you to pay back a prorated amount of money for the schooling. The amount you pay back will be comparable to what you would have paid if you went to an independently owned school.
Company-sponsored training can be an excellent way to get your career underway if you can't afford the tuition up front for private schooling.
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
Thanks Ian, Daniel and Brett for your reply's.
I should have been more clear in my post (what and why).
Two things.
#1. I am looking for a "close to home company" that offers training for my CDL so I can "slip seat" 7/7 or 14/7 etc. or work a regional/dedicated route home weekends. From what I have read it is a good idea to keep your car on the lot that is fairly close to home.
Some companies even have a limit of how far you can live from their facilities. Schneider has a 60 mile limit from their Seville OH location. However, this is for a dedicated route leaving Mondays home either Thursday or Friday.
Roehl offers 7 on 7 off and I was told I could also work full time home weekends for a position that runs from a facility 10 miles from my home.
I know how important it is (Thanks to Brett making it VERY CLEAR) to stay ONE FULL YEAR with the company you start with. I figured I may as well try my best to start with the one that I really would like to stay with in the first place. I am not looking for OTR long term but will if needed until the position I want is open.
#2. My goal is to find a company paid training CDL or one that is @ $3000 up front so I can train and work for them right away.
Why should I pay $5,500 - 9,000 to get my CDL local when I can pay $2,800 with no commitment to stay with that company etc?
I was hoping to get a larger list of companies offering CDL training similar to Roehl and near the price they charge. The listings here are great and very complete but several are out of date (no fault to this site) just companies change policies all the time etc. I was hoping that some here may know of more companies offering CDL training.
Thanks again for your help,
Joe
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.
Dedicated Route:
A driver or carrier who transports cargo between regular, prescribed routes. Normally it means a driver will be dedicated to working for one particular customer like Walmart or Home Depot and they will only haul freight for that customer. You'll often hear drivers say something like, "I'm on the Walmart dedicated account."
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.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
Joe,
There are schools that will allow you to finance the price and then you could look into a company that reimburses you that money. That is the route I took. Just throwing it out there.
OWI:
Operating While Intoxicated
Joe,
I am in Cincinanati and I am attending Napier Truck Driver Training, that is a private instiution. There is one here in Cincinnati, if the local thing doesn't work out, the company is called Millis Transfer. They were my backup option if my funding fell through for the private school. They have a nice program, but if that is something that might interest you check it out.
In reference to the local thing, if you want to be home every night, a buddy of mine use to drive for Pepsi before he went into their shop, but he said you can drive for them, they will train you, and you don't even need a cdl. I was going to do that, but they are not hiring in the Cincinnati area. I don't remember if they are hiring in your neck of the woods, but that is an awesome job, at least from what my friend tells me. Good luck in your search.
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.
I was hoping to get a larger list of companies offering CDL training similar to Roehl and near the price they charge
The only compainies that offer CDL training that I know of that isn't listed is Celadon. They just opened a brand new school and I haven't gotten their information yet. But I don't know of any others. If you know of any that aren't on my list, please let me know and I'll add them. But there's not very many that offer it.
If you're looking to be home a lot, Roehl has the best home time options I've ever seen.
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.
Just a side note, I am a retired individual with 4 years of TT experience and was thinking about coming back into trucking and in my research I found Millis transfer to be on top of my list after some research. They offer what looks like some better than good training and they only train for their company. And they pay you when you are with the trainer. And they offer a per diem pay as well as straight pay. The per diem allows you to have 3 weeks vacation in the first year of working which is unheard of with most companies. And they have a training center in Ohio near Cincinnati (Trenton).They are listed on Trucking Truth's site.
I was hoping to get a larger list of companies offering CDL training similar to Roehl and near the price they charge
The only compainies that offer CDL training that I know of that isn't listed is Celadon. They just opened a brand new school and I haven't gotten their information yet. But I don't know of any others. If you know of any that aren't on my list, please let me know and I'll add them. But there's not very many that offer it.
If you're looking to be home a lot, Roehl has the best home time options I've ever seen.
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.
Per Diem:
Getting paid per diem means getting a portion of your salary paid to you without taxes taken out. It's technically classified as a meal and expense reimbursement.
Truck drivers and others who travel for a living get large tax deductions for meal expenses. The Government set up per diem pay as a way to reimburse some of the taxes you pay with each paycheck instead of making you wait until tax filing season.
Getting per diem pay means a driver will get a larger paycheck each week but a smaller tax return at tax time.
We have a ton of information on our wiki page on per diem pay
Hye Joe I was wondering if you found anything in ohio that worked for you if so please let me know I am trying to get into a place this month
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Hello All,
I'm interested in companies that offer paid CDL training.
I am a pilot for over 23 years and looking to start my next career in trucking. After researching online and reading posts here etc. I plan to train and stay at the company I start with for at least 1 year. I realize it's important to gain experience and to "pay my dues" knowing that every company has a learning curve and good/bad in them all.
I live in Ohio near Akron/Cleveland and was hoping to start with a company that offers CDL training and has terminals close to home. A few of my top choices - Knight Transportation Paid Training -100miles from home, Schneider-5miles from home and Roehl Transport CDL Training -10miles from home). In no special order.
After seeing them listed under companies that offer free or nearly free CDL training here I called each one to find out more.
Knight Transportation does not offer CDL training with their squire division and recommended that I go to a private school for training. Upon completion, I could attend orientation in Columbus and then driver training for 28 days with a trainer.
Schneider's recruiter said the same thing. They would offer a pre-hire letter and I could work from their Seville, OH location which would be ideal but no more company CDL training.
Roehl located in WI would offer the training as it is listed here and seems to be one of the lowest priced options at $2,800.
Are there any other companies that offer CDL training for OHIO?
Thanks in advance for any help or advise.
joeoh89@yahoo.com
CDL:
Commercial Driver's License (CDL)
A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:
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.
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.
OWI:
Operating While Intoxicated