Profile For J.D.

I've been exposed to a fair number of the situations with schools, well, AZ private; and then several company-sponsored around the west while researching where to use my CDL. Short answer is to echo Rob, that you should be fine.

Discussion: I’ve actually been surprised there hasn't been more school disruption beyond smaller class sizes and more distancing and masking, and mine was surprisingly lax...too much so for my comfort. The other local ones seem similar. We had a class come from NM to get tested and such at our school, but otherwise all seemed like normal MO. Of course it's against their interest to close if they don't have to and seeing as how they're deemed "essential businesses"...

As for DMV/MVDs that seems to vary somewhat by state. Even though my local ones were shut down to "drop-ins" (an employee screens 'em outside the front door), that seemed to actually shorten the wait times for the essential stuff that can't be handled online or over the phone, like of course CDLs.

(Cautionary tale: My permit test there was a piece of cake and all CDL legal stuff was smooth, but on the other hand, I had a messy record to deal with when it came to nearly everything else. This was due to having taken my eyes off the ball... Mostly I failed to set up accurate mail forwarding and didn't keep track of what was following me and accumulating as a result, as I moved from CA to NY then eventually to AZ to care for my dying father; a mess made worse by the different agencies having very differing data on me that proved difficult to sort out or change, much less explain. So I had to go to MVD quite a lot last year and spent hours listening to the same boring hold music that never changed over many months. Lesson learned: SO much easier said than done, but at least don't take BOTH eyes off the ball no matter the crisis, especially once you know you want to be a trucker--I decided after my dad died--.)

Dunno about the road-testing at MVDs, but a lot of the schools are allowed to do their own as long as it's not conducted by an instructor that worked with you prior. Calling and emailing around according to your interest and priorities should ensure you can nail down what you want. Good that you're getting on top of it here.

Well I'm sure glad, Anne, ya got the love you needed, in case there was any question! In my year here, hey, hard to believe anyone took any of that truly seriously. All I needed was for you to say that punctuation is supposed to be INside of the parentheses, to get a shrug-it-off chuckle from this language geek. (Say what?!) My response being, not so fast (it totally depends)! ...

and for perspective just ask Jammer whod rightly say who cares even though his nearly total lack of punctuation drives me half-crazy I read him anyway cuz I know I can be hard to read in my own way and besides we're all all over the atlas here anyway but that's what gives TT its rich flavor and texture Anne if you left methinks this site would practically crash and burn or freeze to death so don't even think about going anywhere cept OTR with yer hubster hey seriously I love your way with words especially when its possible to follow your mind-meanderings (!)

Fascinating discussion...with serious implications for TransAm newbies and maybe the general public on the roads... Obviously the key data point would be how long ago the company made the apparently radical change to their "training" approach. Then we'd know it's had time to really show up as a difference in their safety rating stats. Does anyone here know if it was a recent shift? Sounds like calling the company isn't likely to bring an answer to the question? If they're not even providing full disclosure (or maybe only when asked?) to their applicants, well that can't be a good sign. But if they're somehow pulling it off, jeez, what does that mean? IF it's a fact, that along with the experienced driver commentary above, it'd seem to suggest there might a "placebo effect" of sorts re: the industry standard and obvious conventional wisdom behind weeks of OTR training. In other words, is the need for it more myth than necessity? Or would it mostly show how adaptable humans are when the stakes are so super-high, that they can take on what would be TOO much stress for most in order to stay safe enough to succeed? (While maybe for others, the weeks of directly-supervised mentorship would be MORE stressful and result in slower learning, less overall safety, than going solo sooner than otherwise ideal?)

I'm curious what school that is in Phoenix, Baron, do you know...is it called "Phoenix" or "Southwest" or "Roadmaster"?

You've got some top-notch support that's already posted to your new training diary, Jason. I just wanted to add my encouragement for you to continue, and if you get too bogged down in the process to keep up, let TT know and they'll support that too. Will be reading about your journey, since I might be ending up at TransAm too. If I do, I'll do what I can to help out with the communication, though it sounds like it'll get tougher to find the time.

Yeah, I wasn't referring to driver reviews or YouTube...ya'll have warned us away from falling for that propaganda. Thanx always for the reminders, O.S. I for one would never dismiss your experience... You're clearly the kinda guy who could make it anywhere! It's just that if a company HAS been struggling, declining in recent times, sure seems like it COULD be a factor worth knowing about and considering in whether to go there.

I do a lot of research when I get into something big, and this career tops them all, so I've learned a lot since I got my CDL in the fall and have been looking for a "right" company myself. The 2017 thing is not as big a deal since there are companies that only look back 3 years. A rolling stop conviction less than a year ago is a lot tougher an obstacle to get past... Others here will hopefully know more about your options, if any (besides waiting a while), as I've seen in similar posts to yours. I have heard of one company via these posts; haven't really looked into that one myself, but you should shortly see what others have to say.

Believe it or not, I've been doing that stuff, Rob. Applied at that link last month, but in retrospect I'm not sure I heard back from anyone... Strange of course, but didn't seem totally suspicious cuz I did get one who contacted me, but maybe that was due to other effort elsewhere like a list I got on. A glitch? Maybe, so thanx, man, will try the link again. In the meantime, had also applied at several other companies and am now checking them out, winnowing down since I can't actually say yes to, show up and train at, more than one at a time.

I did want to add a qualifier to my last reply--- In bumping this back up, of course I do get the wisdom so well expressed by the TT moderators here. My take on what I've learned is basically, 'Don't cry over the milk you have in your coffee cup when you ordered half-n-half, if skim's all that's available for awhile. Do your best to enrich the experience while it's all you got.' BUT, IF you're not even there yet, and you have some breathing room and ability to screen milk delivery companies, and believe in checking out those with reputations both "good" and "bad" because you had reason to believe those reps were suspect, it seems prudent to drill down a little deeper into what's true here and now... If possible. That's all I'm trying to do... ...Onward! ..........

Wow, it sounds like Western Express is just about the most controversial company out there...which maybe I should NOT be seriously considering?! Anne, thanx for the tip, will next check out Freymiller for sure...yup, 'tis the weekend for me to be posting, fa-la-la-la... (But will be making my "final decision" by around New Year's Day, for sure!) Old School's experience there is admittedly old, and others' seem more cautionary tales than positive reviews... Have they really gone downhill or what? (wait, downhill sounds like it's a good thing, right?, unless that hill's too steep...;-) ............

Heath, re: your implied Q, "... i really like this company freymiller out of okc but they don't do the paid school you have to enter with a cdl then they do a 6-8 week driver otr training. so I'm looking into a cdl school and possible sources of funding for that."

See my reply to Mark C. in his "Lookin' At New Roads" thread this morning, same basic question to which I answered with what worked perfectly for me just several months ago. And if that's not an option, maybe a loan source outside of a trucking company, especially if the one you most want to work for doesn't offer CDL training, is a better way to go? No shortage of reports by those who end up regretting the company contract, which is in most cases just a choice-restrictive type of loan, right guys? But then there's the other conventional wisdom here, that the average company that offers its own training for its future employees will do a better job of educating you for the CDL and beyond...which makes sense, and the experts here know more than me, but they also say it isn't a universal truth. A lot of the company schools rush you through it, while a lot of the private ones do not, like the one I went to. Seems to me they all tend to be far from ideal (mine couldn't allow enough truck time per student) and are mostly just about getting you that license, which is a much easier hurdle than what follows.

Nice to have some time lately to feed back some of the basics of what I've learned at this great site mostly (and also elsewhere, especially in my early experience so far) over the past year-plus. Maybe take a little pressure off the moderators et al during their much-deserved holiday time off (hopefully?!), before I get immersed OTR shortly.............