School Or OJT?

Hello everyone. My name is Andy. I'm brand new to this forum. I have decided, at 55, to change my career. I have owned a painting contracting business for the last 25 years. I'm ready to give up all that glory to join the ranks of Americas Truckers. I have a couple of friends and relatives in that profession that I have sought out advice from. I was advised to study the CDL manual and get my written permit, and bypass the training schools to just drive with someone already on the road for my training. I have had some experience hooking up and transporting trailors, including backing into some pretty tight docks, quite a few years ago while doing shipping and warehousing. So, I'm looking for more advice. I can get some seat time with a local soundstage engineering company, with drivers that I used to play music with a few years ago. I'm thinking after that, I can go for my skills testing. Any advice?

I was advised to study the CDL manual and get my written permit, and bypass the training schools to just drive with someone already on the road for my training.

Andy, welcome to the forum!

Although your friends mean well I'm sure, unless you already have a promised job awaiting you, it will be very difficult for you to find a job with that training scenario. Andy, when your friends started their careers things were probably much different than they are now. One of the most important things for you to have when it comes to landing a job in this rewarding career is a training certificate indicating that you have received 160 hours of training. That certificate is even more important than the CDL itself when it gets right down to your hire-ability status. This is a requirement by the insurance carriers, not the trucking companies. If a potential employer can't get you insured there is no way they can hire you.

I recommend you re-think how you are going to get started. I have a friend in my hometown who came to me with this exact same question. I gave him the advice I give to you which is to go through one of the Truck Driving Schools or apply for acceptance in one of the Company-Sponsored Training programs. He ignored me and went with what his buddies at the volunteer fire department told him. He now has a nice shiny (albeit useless) CDL in his wallet, and six months later he is still at the factory job that he loathes because his job seeking scenario has turned out exactly as I warned him it would.

Trucking companies are hiring like crazy, but you have got to go through the right channels if you want to get in.

Take some time and read through our Truck Driver's Career Guide, follow the links in there and you will gain a lot of insight into this career.

Also, you can prepare for those written exams by using the free High Road Training Program here. It is a much more effective learning tool than trying to read that boring CDL manual.

Keep coming in here if you come up with some more questions, but please trust me on this one, your friends have led you down a rabbit trail that leads to nowhere.

Man, I'm always torn when Old School answers a question before me. It's awesome because everything he says is always dead on and I know the question will be thoroughly answered. But it renders me useless cuz I never have anything to add!

Andy, Old School is of course dead on again. He's right....your buddies likely got into trucking at a time when things were quite different. They also know that 98% of everything they know about trucking they learned on the road, not in school, and that will never change. But nowadays you're going to want to go through the regular training channels, either private schooling or company-sponsored schooling. Get the proper schooling and you'll have a great foundation for your career. You'll have that 160 hr certificate, your CDL , and assuming your background is pretty solid you'll have a long list of companies willing to hire you.

If the schooling was $100,000 and took 4 years I'm sure it would be worth trying to find a different route. But even the best of private schools will take you off the street and for $5,000 or less have that CDL in your hand in a month. That's an incredibly short period of schooling and you'll make that money back in no time. It's just not worth trying to circumvent the sure route to starting your career off right when it's that short and inexpensive, ya know what I mean?

Thanks for the advice. Actually, I do have a company that will hire me to ride along with their driver and learn their business while driving with my permit. This is how he received his training as well. However, I think I will still follow both of your advice and get into a local driver training school. Being the only one supporting my household, it's very hard to find a schedule i can work with and still make money to eat and pay my bills for the 4 weeks of training. I'm gonna make this work somehow. Thanks for your guidance. I really like this site.

Andy, If you have a look around at schools in your area, there may be one or more that offer night or weekend scheduling so you can keep your day job while training.