Wife And I Training Together

My wife and I are strongly considering taking the CDL class together in June of 2014 and then trying to obtain a trucker job where we would drive as a team. I see most companies require a period of hours or weeks with a trainer to drive before you can drive solo. Will we be able to train together, can three people work in a truck for this training period or do we have to each train separately?

Tom,

You will find that most company sponsored training programs will have you both train separately. Once you both are set to go solo, then you will be allowed to team.

I know Prime Inc (that is who I drive for) does it that way.

I remember hearing of 1 company that allows for you both to train together, but for the life of me I cannot remember which company that is.

Hope this helps.

Ernie

Tom, welcome to the forum!

I don't know of any company that will train you guys on the same truck. Now, I will tell you that some of these companies love to have husband and wife teams on board, especially some of the refrigerated companies.

It's hard enough having two people on a truck, and when you throw in a third one it just gets crazy difficult. We've had some others come through here with this same question about team training, but they always end up being separated during training. Your wife will, in most cases, train with a female trainer - sometimes it will be a male but she will have the option of waiting until a female trainer is available. One of the difficulties of husband and wife teams getting trained is that sometimes your training might not end at the same time and then one partner is waiting on the other to get finished.

Tom, the training period is by far one of the toughest hurdles to breaking into this industry, and we've got a ton of information on this site that can help you guys prepare for the journey. The two of you should read Brett's Book together. It's a great read and can easily be read through when you have an afternoon off.

There's a wealth of great information in the Truck Driving Blogs section, and I'm sure you can benefit from digging around in the Trucker's Career Guide.

I don't want to overload you with info but one other thing that will really help put you at the head of your class when you go to C.D.L. school is to work your way through our High Road Training Program it's guaranteed to put you on the cutting edge of all the knowledge you need to pass those state exams.

Good luck to both of you, and don't be shy about jumping in here with questions. We're glad to answer any and all of your concerns. You'll be treated with respect and we will always shoot straight with you. I know if you've been researching this field on the internet you've seen some "interesting" comments on line concerning truck driving. At Trucking Truth the name of the site says it all, we will tell you the truth and we won't sugar coat it, but we will do it with a positive outlook, because it is an honorable career to be associated with and we want to increase that awareness, especially with the new drivers that are just getting started.

My husband and I just finished training separately for CRST. It ws the hardest time in our lives for the both of us. But now we get to be together all the time. If you can make it (and I promise you there will be times when you just want to walk away and leave to get back to your spouse) it is worth it. If you need help through the time, send me a message and I will try to help. Though it may take me a moment to reply, I don't always have signal on my phone.

My husband and I found that the best thing was to have a phone conversation every night. If we were on different schedules then we left each other messages on the phone for the other person to hear when they got done driving or woke up. Sometimes those messages were all that stood between me and trying to strangle my trainer.

I hope you decide to do it, the money is great and from what I hear we make some of the lowest wages int he industry.

You have to be careful about what you consider a priority. The training period with the company, after you are hired is generally about 4 to 6 weeks. If you choose a company that let you and wife be together, you are probably giving up something.

1) There are only so many dollars per load available. If there is an extra grab on those dollars, your pay in training has to go down or your training is way longer.

2) There is only one trainer in the truck.So, for the trainer to give equal attention to both students, the training time is longer. That means it is longer until you start earning decent money.