Learning To Drive A Truck From Youtube

Is it not a crock to learn how to run a dump truck transmission from youtube? Shouldn't truck schools teach you everything? A class-B program, they do their testing/ learning on school buses, doesn't teach you how to drive a manual transmission like those on dump trucks, that's a CROCK! How are you supposed to drive a dump truck without the knowledge from truck school? I was told "you took too long" when I tried out for a job driving a dump truck. The transmission was unknown to me so I took longer because I tried to figure it out, also, because I'm short, I had to manually change the mirrors so I could see everything, so that took additional time too. You have to learn from youtube, so sad, these types of things are what I don't like about trucking schools, I don't know anything about the big companies like Schneider National or Swift Transportation, speaking specifically about local schools...thought I'd share this happening with you guys...thoughts, comments or suggestions please...

Shouldn't truck schools teach you everything? A class-B program, they do their testing/ learning on school buses, doesn't teach you how to drive a manual transmission like those on dump trucks, that's a CROCK!

Allen, I don't know where you've been, but we have long taught that trucking schools are merely an avenue that helps you obtain your CDL , and we've also always recommended that if you are going to a truck driving school that you want to go ahead and get your class A license, even if it is only a class B job that you are wanting to pursue.

It is very difficult to land a local job like a dump truck position without having first done a year minimum of OTR driving in a class A vehicle. We have always stressed that, and I don't know how you could have been around or conversations in here for much time at all without noticing how we teach these things - I mean we talk about this stuff every day. I'm sorry about the frustrating experience you've had, but you could have made it much easier on yourself by following our simple guidelines. YouTube is not going to get the job done for you. It takes Commitment to make a proper start in trucking and one of the ways you demonstrate that commitment is to start off right. The best way to get your trucking career started is to go through a 160 hour truck driving school which will provide you with a certificate of training and then get a job with one of the large companies who will train new drivers. Their is sooo much to learn at the beginning that there is no way the schools can cover it all. A truck driver will spend at least that first year constantly learning and developing his career while he is on the job. Going straight into a job like a dump truck is a really tough way to get this kind of thing started.

So, my best advice to you goes like this...

- Get your class A license and a training certificate indicating 160 hours of school. This can be done at a private school or Paid CDL Training Programs

- Go to one of the large carriers who hire newly licensed class A drivers and go through their training.

- Continue that job for one year, establishing some degree of experience.

Then you're golden, and you could go get just about any dump truck job you want to have. Some guys figure out a short cut to go through, but the ones who do it the way I just laid out for you are by far the most successful at this career, and they are able to do it without wasting any of their precious time on worthless YouTube videos. You will have to sort through about a thousand worthless videos just to find one that is truly helpful on there. Talk about a waste of time, I don't recommend YouTube for educating oneself at trucking.

You can train for hours watching you tube CDL type videos, but you can't just then get behind the wheel of a truck with a nine speed or a ten speed manual transmission and drive with passable skill unless you are "A MacGyver" of sorts. You just simply need time behind the wheel doing it and learning the gears and the clutch. You need practice. You need to learn to feel the gears and find the rhythem of the gears. If you took school training on an automatic transmission then you have missed a great deal because much is about "the transmission" and the clutch. You need to ask the trucking school, what type of transmissions they train on. If you attend a CDL school that uses school buses with automatic transmissions and trains drivers to become school bus drivers then that is not the right school for you if you want to get in and drive a manual transmission dump truck unless you are certain that you will be driving only an automatic transmission.

The steps are: First you get your permit, then you get your class A, then you get your job, then the job trains you or it's called your job training, and then they hand you the keys to the truck.

Beware of you tube! Many of the you tube videos are wrong and or are some person's opinion. You don't want to learn somebody's mistakes!

Beware of you tube! Many of the you tube videos are wrong and or are some person's opinion. You don't want to learn somebody's mistakes!

You ain't kiddin. Every knucklehead who couldn't hack it in trucking or doesn't get how the industry works goes there to "teach" everyone how much they've learned about trucking. In reality, the only thing that most of them know is what doesn't work or how not to do things but they never realize that they're the problem, not their teachers or their company or the industry itself.