LOOOOOONG Overdue Update

I in no way referenced that I was offended by the post rainy and in fact was kept informed about Miss M's situation with her trainer by another student at the time.

I also know the ex-trainer that you are referring and was aware of the issues he/she was having with being a trainer. I think circumstances with the gender issue may have had a impact on why it may have taken them awhile to remove this driver as a trainer. Basically making sure they had enough solid evidence before they relieved them from training. Personally I think prime was a little worried about fallout afterward but I don't know as fact.

Every student fills out a questionnaire after training . I know for fact my students were called during and after training because they have told me so. Prime has never once told me what they've said. And to be honest I really don't worry about it. One of them wanted to tell me but I preferred them not. Why you slipped through the cracks I don't have a clue.

Rainy if you read some of my way older posts you will know I also had problems with my first trainer, in fact he was fired on the practice pad while I was testing out! So I don't take it personally. I have students call me for advice everyday when they go solo and I wasn't even their instructor! You have to pay it forward.

So if I sounded defensive I am sorry you thought so.

It's cool... I was afraid I offended a good trainer. That is why i keep reiterating that i have met great drivers... trainers and non trainers who have helped me.

And I agree about the transgender issue. I think I wrote that earlier....they were afraid of a lawsuit im sure. I flipped out when she wrote on Facebook that she was suicidal!!! Hello... she's driving a 80k pound vehicle...and with a student. Major lawsuits there if in ANY accident.

One of the problems with training is that NONE of these trainers think they are bad. So they never try to improve. Her and her friend BOTH tried to tell me they were the top trainers at prime hahhahahah.... then I found out about the top 10 awards dinner. On the flip side I know really good trainers who vent to me about their students and then I give feedback from the students perspective... guess what... doing that puts a different spin on things and sometimes helps the trainer either deal with or explain things in a different way. Good trainers have patience, speak with respect, and might even go out of their comfort zone to help the student. I saw one trainer that when the student couldn't understand the backing ...he pulled another trainer on the pad to explain it. THAT is a good trainer who didn't let ego get it the way.

Wow about your trainer getting fired on the pad!!! Thw calling during training.. I was never called. That is a fleet manager thing. We were told to call the FM once a week in psd... the FM basically h8ffed and made me feel like a burden. This trainers FM was nice but I honestly think he was just tired of her and in some ways intimidated by her. It was her friends FM who really took it hard when I got back to sprimo after 2 weeks with him he kept asking how he didn't know that driver was so bad. But I took pics of the truck. I should have recorded his yelling but didn't think of it at the time.

I kinda like brett idea of the cameras

Ok this is awesome. This is demonstrating my points and exposing the flaws exactly as I knew it would.

Brian, a trainer at Prime who always seems to have an awesome attitude and good intentions said:

Everything Brett mentioned about tracking instructors Prime is already doing. I know for fact my students were called during and after training because they have told me so. Prime has never once told me what they've said.

Rainy, a recent student at Prime completely contradicted those points:

My PSD trainer told me that Prime told him who said what about him. When I upgraded to solo no one asked..so I wrote a six page letter detailing all that happened and provided photos to back up my statements.

So how good is the system working, Brian? It's terrible. Let's be honest, it's a meat grinder. A company this size brings in all the students they possibly can, they recruit all of the trainers they possibly can, they mix everyone together in one big soup, and keep their fingers crossed that enough good students survive the process to keep the seats filled and not too many lawsuits get filed or careers ruined. That is the God's honest truth about it. It's purely a numbers game with a fatally flawed system in place that fails to weed out bad trainers or protect students.

Brian, you also said:

Anything serious happens during training that may opens the door to litigation, so having them air out grievances on this type of platform will ultimately be used against them in court. I doubt that these large companies legal depts. would approve of such a system. Keeping it in house won't expose them like this could.

So in layman's terms you're saying Prime knows there are a lot of serious problems going on that have not been solved so they'd like to sweep everything under the rug so they won't be held accountable for their failing system. And I agree. That's exactly what they would like to do. Scary, isn't it? Ask Rainy how scary it is. Ask Miss Miyoshi how scary it is.

Things need to change.

Brian also said:

I also know the ex-trainer that you are referring and was aware of the issues he/she was having with being a trainer.

And yet what did you or anyone else do about it? Nothing. Was it your place to do anything about it? Well you and this trainer were peers working at the same company doing the same job so I would say you should have at least tried to protect the students if you knew what was going on. I know you have a great attitude and you care about your students but maybe you knew it was too risky to stand up and say anything about it because there isn't a culture of accountability and professionalism in the offices right now. Maybe it's a culture of "shove everything under the rug to protect the company's image or else".

There's always a tug of war going on between open accountability versus "circling the wagons" protectionism. There are never easy answers and the process of change is always difficult. But not nearly enough is being done to protect students and hold trainers accountable. That's painfully obvious and has been for a very long time. There's a lot we can do about it.

Another example........Brian said:

They also evaluate the performance of the lease operators business and driving record to make sure they are above the standards.

Rainy said:

And that [lease operator] is putting more pressure on already stressed out students which can lead to accidents This trainers truck was old and had over 800k miles on it. Sometimes I couldn't get it in gear. She'd yell... then tell me each time I shifted wrong I costed her a penny in fuel. One time she said "why are u grinding my gears" and my nasty attitude shot back "why are u a trainer if you don't expect students to grind gears".

Turned out that her gears were old and stripped. I was mad at myself for not getting things right , but all my shifting problems went away when I got in her friends pete... then my own truck.

Both her truck and her friends truck had mechanical problems they never fixed. His were blatant DOT violations.

So once again Prime is doing a great job of making sure everything is done to the highest standards, right? Obviously not. We already know that Prime and other carriers put students with struggling lease operators to help them get their businesses back in order. There's no denying that and no one is even trying to. That's a very bad situation for training. You have a stressed out and failing business owner who is now responsible for training a student? Come on. That's going to end badly more times than not.

And Brian let me be clear - you seem like a stand up guy with a great attitude and great intentions. But at the same time you're defending your company and their processes when they're clearly failing these students and you're doing nothing to fix problems that you admittedly know exist. There is clearly a culture of "sweep it under the rug" going on here.

Here's another idea. Why not do undercover type of "students" on thw accused bad trucks.

Many of our dispatchers have cdl or have been on the road at some point. Or have drivers who are willing to go in the teuck for a couple weeks and evaluate the situation.

I have yet another idea for improving the situation. I think students should be rotated through a variety of different trainers. I would say at least once every week to ten days a student should be moved to a different trainer. Here are several benefits to this system:

1) First of all, it's nearly impossible to find any two people who can co-exist in basically a walk-in closet on wheels for months at a time. Come on! It's a miracle people aren't being killed in their sleep. You can't shove two strangers together in a tiny space during a stressful time and expect they're going to like each other for long.

So reason #1 - people are more likely to get along better when it's only for short periods of time

2) Everyone has different ways of accomplishing the same thing. For instance, trip planning. Some people run hard early in the run to get near the consignee before taking breaks. Others like to pace themselves throughout the trip. Some people prefer running during the day, others at night. Some people like to run for long periods of time and take longer breaks, others like to break up the day into shorter periods of driving with shorter, more frequent breaks.

So reason #2 - a student will learn a variety of methods and styles if they're exposed to a variety of trainers

3) Everyone has different ways of teaching and explaining things. Everyone has experienced a time where they had trouble learning something until someone came along and worded the explanation just the right way that it clicked in their brain. Or you've tried and tried to do something but couldn't get it until someone came along and showed you a different approach that worked better for you and suddenly it all fell into place. We all have different ways of teaching and learning. We all process information differently. Some people respond to yelling and direct challenges. Others crumble if you do that and need more of a nurturing approach. Instead of trying to force one student to learn everything a certain way from one trainer with a certain style and certain explanations, let's mix it up so the student can experience all different ways of doing things using different styles of teaching.

So reason #3 - a student is more likely to learn everything after being exposed to a variety of styles and types of teachers

4) Accountability. Right now you're sticking one student with one trainer for the long haul. The trainer will evaluate the student and the student will evaluate the trainer. Unfortunately when one says the other is not up to par you have a "he said/she said" scenario with no way to really verify what's going on. If you rotate different students through different trainers you will now get opinions from a variety of different students about each trainer and a variety of different trainers about each student and patterns will emerge. When a student or a trainer begin to get consistent reviews about their performance being verified by different sources it's far more likely you're getting an honest and realistic view into that person's performance.

So reason #4 - you will get better information from several different sources on each student and each trainer's performance

5) Some trainers will teach certain things really well but skip others entirely. Maybe they just forgot. Maybe they just don't do certain things certain ways. But it's far more likely that a student will be exposed to all different aspects of training with far fewer holes in the curriculum if they're taught by a variety of trainers.

So reason #5 - it is less likely that a student will have holes in their training if they're exposed to a variety of trainers

But little to nothing is done to determine a basic skills profile as part of the prequalification. Are we pushing people through the system that have no real shot at success? Perhaps maybe...that's what I am getting at.

Excellent thoughts. The easy answer is clearly yes, we are trying to push people through the process that probably don't belong out there.

First of all there are a lot of people in today's economy that are desperately looking for a career that pays a living wage to support their families. Trucking is one of the few opportunities left that requires little in the way of time and money to get your training and start earning a living wage. So on the one hand a lot of people are trying to push themselves through the process out of necessity even though they probably don't belong out there and often times don't want to be out there.

On the flip side is the sheer size of the companies themselves. The largest companies are turning over thousands of drivers every single year. Thousands. They have to keep those seats filled and so by necessity they are at times hoping to get at least a few good months out of people who probably don't belong out there and almost certainly will not be around for long. That's the 'necessary evil' aspect of running a huge company in today's trucking climate. There simply are not thousands of qualified prospects to be found each year so you make do with what you have.

Now if a company has the luxury of being choosy I think it would take some advanced technology and methods for testing things like hand-eye coordination, attention span, peripheral vision, mental focus, and a person's overall acuity which is defined as "sharpness or keenness of thought, vision, or hearing" - I had to look that one up myself because I knew there was a word for it but I couldn't think of what it is.

That would help determine a person's likelihood that they have the physical and mental traits it would take to be a safe driver. But that sort of testing would probably be rather expensive and time consuming. It would also take some time to figure out how well it actually translates to safe driving.

Then you would have to figure out a way to test their personality to see if they can handle the lifestyle and expectations that come with being a professional driver. That would be far more difficult than testing their acuity and I think the results would vary wildly. Like how do you account for motivation? If you put a gun to the head of a guy who spent his life in a cubicle and told him, "Get out there and become a truck driver and stick with it for two years or I'll kill you" would he pull it off? Almost certainly. Would it make for a great reality show? Oh heck yeah! LoL! But seriously, without a high level of motivation will the transition from 25 years in a cubicle to life on the open road work out well? It's hard to say. I've watched many people make that transition and it was the best move they ever made in their lives. I've watched others crumble within days or weeks from trying to exist in such an alien environment.

Right now a common theory that is spreading through the industry is that there is no way to know if someone will be able to handle the rigors of life in this industry until you put them behind the wheel and send them out on the road. No level of thoroughness, nor any particular methods of preparation will ensure a person will be able to handle it and stick around for a while. That's why a lot of companies now take people off the street, get their permit, and send them on the road right away. They've found it's a waste of time and money to train people for weeks at a time, get them their CDL , and then send them on the road only to find out almost randomly who can hack it and who can't.

If you're a football fan you'll know that's the case with Quarterbacks coming out of college. Once every few years you'll find a Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck that straight out of college seem to be obvious candidates to become superstars in the NFL and they do not disappoint. But every single year you'll find examples of a JaMarcus Russell or a Johnny Manziel or a Ryan Leaf that were superstars in college and many believed would be superstars in the NFL but failed miserably.

At this point no one knows how to determine if someone will succeed or fail ahead of time and no one has found a proven method of preparation that will almost ensure the success of any candidate. So a lot of companies are simply getting new candidates out on the road as quickly as possible to see if they can hack it and intend to stick around before investing too much time, money, and resources into their training.

Right now a common theory that is spreading through the industry is that there is no way to know if someone will be able to handle the rigors of life in this industry until you put them behind the wheel and send them out on the road. No level or methods of preparation will ensure a person will be able to handle it and stick around for a while. That's why a lot of companies now take people off the street, get their permit, and send them on the road right away. They've found it's a waste of time and money to train people for weeks at a time, get them their CDL , and then send them on the road only to find out almost randomly who can hack it and who can't.

One way to separate the wusses from the Drivers is what I call "First Day A-hole". I've seen this in college classes. Before any schooling starts, the main instructor can get up and explain how hard it is - grinding gears, backing till you're cross eyed with frustration, loneliness on the road, little privacy - all the hard stuff. About 15% of the students will self-resign overnight. Give them a bus ride back home because it's cheaper & easier on everybody.

This is the best discussion I have read through in a long time on this site. Was glued to the screen all night catching up. I like Rainy and Brett's ideas put together. Rotate students thru trainer trucks every 7-10 days. Have a minimal set a teaching requirements, backing, city driving, elogs , etc so student can get different perspectives. As a failsafe throw in fellow trainers from different yards or dispatchers or fleet managers to evaluate trainers from a higher corporate level peerspective to make sure minimum standards are set and look for ways to improve. Great debate!

Prime encourages students to tell fleet managers about bad situations. But when you are on a truck it is different. And the FM have established relationships with the drivers.

My PSD trainer and I got along so well that when he did something I knew he was absolutely not supposed to i was not going to rat him out. It was something prime asked us to report. I didnt. He was still a great trainer and I wish he and I could have gone through all of my training together. But he took a local job.

I really don't think prime is sweeping anything under the rug. When something is brought to their attention it gets fixed. That is Prime's way. If the students don't speak up, prime won't know. But again... at what point does prime turn it ls back on a driver with years in their company for a newbie who has not proved themself yet?

I kinda think there should be a probationary period for trainers. People make crap up. But some things can be verified with the QC. For 3 ample in my case.. I could prove there was no time between her shift and mine for personal stuff like showers.

If I was at prime for 10 years and a student accused me of something and Prime just took their word, I'd feel betrayed. So have a point system or something. Yelling at students gets x number of points, failing to let a student back into docks is x points. That way it would take more than one student before the trainer is reprimanded and more likely there is a true issue. . After a certain number of points the trainer needs counseling and a refresher class for training. It would also allow people to have a bad day. What if I didn't feel well and snapped or lost patience with a student once... should that be the same as someone berating a stusent? No.

Brett idea of switching trainers is great. There are 3 learning styles...auditory, visual and hands on. Changing trainers will increase the chance of a student finding a trainer with his learning style. But thw bonus system would then be obliterated.

Again.. I want to point out that Prime is an awesome company. All companies have these issues. Prime has not only training liaisons but also a "female driver liaison". They really do try their best to make things good.

As far as brian doing anything about the situation.. well.. he "heard" which is not concrete evidence. It's hearsay. I called prime after talking to MM and they called her and fixed it in 30 mins. There was no sweeping under rug.

All of these companies have the same issues. And one thing I hate is when a newbie asks a question and rhe response is "didn't your trainer tell you...." uh.. no... or I wouldn't be asking the question. It makes the newbie feel bad. And it's already hard and embarrassing to ask a bunch of veteran drivers questions you should already know.

Brett wrote:

If you're a football fan you'll know that's the case with Quarterbacks coming out of college. Once every few years you'll find a Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck that straight out of college seem to be obvious candidates to become superstars in the NFL and they do not disappoint. But every single year you'll find examples of a JaMarcus Russell or a Johnny Manziel or a Ryan Leaf that were superstars in college and many believed would be superstars in the NFL but failed miserably.

I am a long time Eagles fan...how much time do you have? At least McNabb worked out, but never got Philly to the promised land.

Brett wrote this too:

At this point no one knows how to determine if someone will succeed or fail ahead of time and no one has found a proven method of preparation that will almost ensure the success of any candidate. So a lot of companies are simply getting new candidates out on the road as quickly as possible to see if they can hack it and intend to stick around before investing too much time, money, and resources into their training.

Perhaps I am overthinking this (Analytical/Analytical personality type, can't help myself)...trying to throw some science and logic at the problem. The above method although cost effective on the surface, may actually increase their costs in the long run. How many accidents are a result of a newbie being under a load for the first time and they panic? Too soon to tell...we'll see.

Goes back to providing a better "train the trainer" process and maybe being far more selective on who actually is certified to train. I do like the approach of rotating the trainer student mix though. Since everyone does learn differently, perhaps additional focus can be invested on student learning types which would then determine how to better teach a group of like-minded individuals.

Rainy comes up with a really good idea:

I kinda think there should be a probationary period for trainers. People make crap up. But some things can be verified with the QC. For 3 ample in my case.. I could prove there was no time between her shift and mine for personal stuff like showers.

This is good. I think a trainer, especially in the early stages of performing the role, should have a much higher level of accountability, for maybe their first 2-3 students. If it's consistently enforced, it might tighten up the quality. I still hold fast on the belief the students must be better briefed, formally on the expectations of training. And checked on by an objective manager void of any relationship with the trainers at least weekly if not bi-weekly, to determine if the training standards/goals are being met/achieved.

At some point I think the carriers need to wise-up and realize it's a case of pay now or pay a whole lot more later.

Skywalker concludes:

This is the best discussion I have read through in a long time on this site. Great debate!

Same here. There are a lot of genuinely smart people on this forum wiling to share their thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Fortunate to be a part of it.