Question About "Driver Mills"

Well you can go ahead and play the "poor me" card and try to make me out like I'm some awful Neanderthal for telling you to leave this topic to people who actually understand it but you're not fooling me a bit.

Your first question here was "What do you think of driver mills?" so you made my point exactly. You don't know anything about the subject matter so you took some rhetoric and you're looking to stir up a hornet's nest so you can get followers to read your writing. I mean, why else would they read what you have to say, right? You're not a trucker. You don't understand trucking. You don't intend on being a trucker. So you have nothing of value to offer.

You're hoping to take the valuable life experiences and opinions of others and turn it into something you can make a living off of. Simple as that. So don't try to play me.

I went to a private school and started working at a company. I went with a trainer for 4 weeks and have been on my own for 2 weeks. I still don't understand half of the stuff i learned in school and with the trainer. I don't think anyone could write about trucking and tell the truth without living it. The more I actually drive and do the job, the more I understand. One other thing, I don't think anyone knows everything. I think we are all learning something new everyday.

Jake,...I have been following this for a couple of days, been very busy but I now have some time to respond to it. I too like to write. However I write about subjects that I am passionate about. Trucking for one captured my interest during the formidable years and has had a grip on me ever since. I can get jacked-up rather quickly on trucking subjects. Can you?

So with that said where is your passion for trucking? What is it about trucking that trips your trigger? Without some kind of spark (or as others have indicated the need for experience), how can you write about anything that captures the minds and interest of the people who frequent this forum? How can you hold your audience without the passion...? We all have the same basic bond that ties us together,...truck driving!

We have some really good writers here already; Errol, Old School, Pat, 6-String, Persian Conversion, Rainy, and many others. I read their work every day, and can do so without any doubt they know what they are talking about. They are highly credible, many experts in their specific areas of specialization. Brett for instance has written a book called Becoming A Truck Driver: The Raw Truth About Truck Driving. I am not sure if you have read it yet,...in his text you will find the basics of this business and what it takes to enter trucking and be successful. In all subjects regarding trucking, credibility is key and without first hand experience or some level of genuine passion, not sure how you can get past it. Unlike other industries, trucking has a uniqueness that completely sets it apart from all other mainstream businesses. Read Brett's book and you will begin to understand that.

Of course I'll never be able to understand the culture of trucking 100% - that would be incredible foolhardy to think so.

Get your CDL and drive for 1 year, and you will have a much better understanding. In fact, you can even blog your experiences. This would go a lot further than writing from the sidelines.

There is clearly no such thing as CDL Mills, yet just about any truck driver can tell you all about them!

This is a strange thread to me. Are you saying there are not schools providing intensive, impersonal, CDL training, for a profit, to a large number of students? Isn't that what is meant by "CDL mill?"

Are you guys opposed to all types of investigative journalism? Or just when it's focused on our industry?

This is a strange thread to me. Are you saying there are not schools providing intensive, impersonal, CDL training, for a profit, to a large number of students? Isn't that what is meant by "CDL mill?"

Paul, It seems strange to you because your research into trucking has been much like anyone else's who starts poking around on the internet and trying to sift through all the "stuff" that is out there. Unfortunately most people's ideas or opinions about the trucking career are tainted by a barrage of misinformation that seems legitimate when they come across it. After all it comes from truckers on the internet, and for the most part they all seem to agree with each other in their tirades concerning the problems in the industry and the problematic companies out there that are mistreating their drivers.

Jake has come to us expressing an interest in writing articles about trucking. Then the next thing we know he is wanting to know about "CDL Mills." That is something he came across in his research. We are fully aware that he will come across many other such things as an outsider, who is looking in - it is easy to come up with all kinds hot button issues that supposedly effect truckers. When you just start looking for some fodder to satisfy your desire to write about trucking you can find a million rabbit trails that lead nowhere, and a few more articles about them is the last thing we need.

Let's just take the "CDL Mills" for an example. I made what to many people would sound like a ridiculous statement when I said this:

There is clearly no such thing as CDL Mills, yet just about any truck driver can tell you all about them!

You obviously stumbled over my statement when you decided to provide us with what you thought was a legitimate definition of a "CDL Mill," as you posed this question.

Are you saying there are not schools providing intensive, impersonal, CDL training, for a profit, to a large number of students? Isn't that what is meant by "CDL mill?"

The very term "CDL Mill" is always used in a derogatory manner, as if the schools that are referred to are doing something unethical, or they are cheating their students and making a ton of money while they are at it. You yourself threw in there in your question that they were doing this "for a profit," as if profiting in a business endeavor was somehow intrinsically wrong. Think about that would you? Businesses have got to make a profit, or else they will cease to be able to serve the people who need them.

And no, we are not saying that there are not schools providing intensive training for their students. What we are saying is this: That is simply how it is done. Schools are short, usually about four weeks. What has to be covered is intensive. There is a chance that some folks might not make it - that is not the fault of the school. I have witnessed a lot of failures in this business, and everyone of them was due to the fact that the person who failed was not up to the task. It had nothing to do with the school being impersonal or intensive. Truck driving is not for everyone. There are a lot of young people in our country today with high dollar degrees and tons of student debt who can't seem to find a job. Do you ever hear anyone blaming that on the Universities? Yet when truck drivers fail, there is this trend to want to blame it on the "Mills" that keep turning them out. It is a bogus train of thought. This job is not rocket science, but it does take some special people to handle all that come with it. CDL schools don't create special people, that is something that comes from within the individual.

There is a big demand for professional drivers. The industry does not have the time to wait for people to approach this like they are getting an associates degree through a trade school. If you want to know the truth, most of the truck drivers who started these derogatory comments about "CDL Mills" never went to a truck driving school in their lives - that's the truth, they got what we used to call a chauffeurs license, and then got it "grandfathered" in a few years back when they finally came up with a few standards for a Commercial Drivers License. These same drivers have forgotten how bad they were at this stuff when they first began. It really takes a few years to get proficient at this business, and for some reason most of the drivers with decades of experience think that these new youngsters coming out of these schools ought to be up to speed with them when they hit the road. After all they did "go to school." When they see them struggling at backing in to a spot at the truck stop or at a receiver, they start blaming these schools who "aren't teaching them anything they need to know."

Continued...

The standards are not that stringent to get a CDL. Everything you need to know and accomplish can be done in a matter of a few weeks. One Hundred and Sixty hours is pretty much the industry standard these days for the minimum hours required of a combination of classroom and actual in truck training. So, how is it that folks want to call these schools "mills" when they are doing exactly what the state and the insurance underwriters are wanting them to do? How is it considered a bad thing to teach these people the basics of how to get your CDL in a timely manner so that they can get out there quickly and find some gainful employment?

CDL schools are cheap in my opinion. What other career is there where you can spend less than 5,000 dollars for your education, have a ton of people wanting to hire you, and jump right into training for your position immediately after you've gotten licensed? Then you will start out making good money for a blue collar job, and if you are the type who is motivated you can really do well at this.

Can you see our point? Researching trucking on the internet will never get you what little bit of common sense I just shared with you. What is important here is that I can share the truth with you because I have been exposed to it as a truck driver. I could never have come to the conclusions that I have by searching the internet trucking forums.

I found it comical that you thought we were somehow against investigative journalism. What we are against is the never ending propagation of madness when it comes to trucking. That is why we labor everyday in this busy forum to dispel the myths and squash out the outrageous misinformation that abounds in our industry. The last thing we want to see is some Johnny come lately jump in here and keep feeding the folks who seem to hunger for drama, and latch onto every new criticism of trucking companies or schools as if it were some national scandal that needs to be solved.

...and the reason I just read Old School's work start to finish and didn't doze off is because he is the real deal and every trucker on this forum knows it. You cannot fake or research your way to genuine credibility.

Like I replied to this thread the other day, we already have good writers here who know their business and as if it were scripted, we were just witness to one of the best.