An 80,000 Pound Thank You!

Hello Everyone, I'm making this post for two reasons. First, I graduated trucking school Friday with a Class A CDL fully endorsed! Second, I can not express a big enough thank you to all the mods, members, and managers of Truckingtruth.com! Two weeks of classroom and two weeks split between the road and range is not enough time to learn everything, but thanks to this site I graduated the top of my class and was extremely proficient in everything from the DMV written tests, to range maneuvers, and even driving and double clutching! Thank you, everyone. Here's to a long lasting relationship, career, and all the friends I will make along the way!

Best Regards, Jason E.

Congrats Jason! How was AIT? I'm planning to attend that school at the beginning of the year. I'm sure I past you a few times as I always saw the AIT truck driving down Craig road, or near Nellis. How were the instructors?

Hey that's awesome - congrats Jason!

Congrats Jason! How was AIT? I'm planning to attend that school at the beginning of the year. I'm sure I past you a few times as I always saw the AIT truck driving down Craig road, or near Nellis. How were the instructors?

Mark, To be completely honest, I wouldn't recommend AIT to my worst enemy. They treat you as another check walking through the door and that's about it. Unfortunately, like many things, the recruiters will make promises that won't hold up once you're enrolled and getting into it. For me, I was promised that I would get to choose between the road/range class that went 5:30-14:00 or 14:30-23:00. I specifically spoke to the head of training (Mrs. T) way in advance to request this because I had doctors appointments and procedures that would cost me range time to attend. She said she would "try".

Shortly after, I found out I was placed in the morning class. That was my first strike. No big deal, I guess I'll have to miss a little bit. When I asked how I could make up this time I would miss because of my doctor visit and procedure I was basically told too bad, there's nothing I can do. Pretty sure there's an ADA violation there from a school receiving federal funds! I'm debating if it's worth complaining.

When we finally got broken up into our groups of three and put out on the range, things only got worse. I had to learn to drive and be proficient enough to drive in FIVE different trucks with three different transmissions in less than 10 days, because we kept having breakdowns. Those trucks being two freightliner, one international, a Volvo, and a KW. Even a prostar day cab. Everything was so broken down the school actually rented a day cab just so we could do maneuvers.

We started in a blue freightliner which had a check engine light on, but we were told to drive it anyways. It fell apart real quick when the night class came in. So the next morning, they put us in the black freightliner. This one had two engine light, a regen, and they abs light was on, but we were told to just drive it as well, it'd be fine. We'll, shortly after this truck broke down. Then they put us in the international, but somebody showed up late for their DMV test so they just yanked it from our group and gave it to that guy. For whatever reason, they felt it was right sticking my group with the broken trucks and sitting in the break room. All said and done, my group got about half the drive time they should have, because of Thanksgiving and the truck failures.

Oh, and if you have a complaint? Forget it. Mrs. T is an ex military drill sergeant that everyone is afraid to speak up to because they'll get "yelled" at. I'm pretty sure it's their jobs they're afraid of losing. Not being afraid I went to confront her about the joke of a process they use to get you your HAZMAT endorsement. I too got yelled at and then she began yelling at her secretary asking why I was still there and why was I standing in front of her door.

My instructor who I'll abbreviate as Mr. A was an inflated ego arsehole. He thought he knew everything there was to know. If you asked a question he would mock you and try to make you look stupid, or go on a long winded speech about some story on his life that nobody cares to hear, as if we had unlimited range time. I was scolded for reminding a fellow student while driving that he left his blinker on. He consistently talked crap behind the back of whoever was in the truck to the two people that were observing. My classmates and I confirmed this with each other. Mr. A believed I was a drug addict or some punk 21 year old skater kid up to no good. I don't want to be a part of an organization that treats it's students that way, but I was almost done and had already paid a large chunk of money so I stuck it out.

The office staff still uses paper for everything and is running the most disorganized operation I've ever seen. You can talk to them about something and go back ten minutes later and they have no idea who you are or what you're talking about.

I won't even go into the break room that had the stench of vomit for three straight weeks, so bad that I couldn't even eat my meals in there. There's also the small but irritating issue of the bathroom never having towels or soap. If you wanted soap or no vomit stench you had to go upstairs to the staff restroom, they had private restrooms but technically students aren't allowed to use those. Ha! Go figure.

All said and done, I'd say you should check out Southwest truck driver training, or absolutely ANYWHERE ELSE but AIT. At AIT the employees all have super trucker type attitude problems and will dance around your questions. You'll be lucky to get an answer, or a license.

Hope that helps!

Note: I left out names but you'll know who they are if you go there. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Congrats!