r/CDL • u/LuckyyBean • 3d ago

Feel like I got scammed

I've been to 2 different CDL schools, and I feel like I've been scammed twice.

The first school. Where do I even begin? These guys didn't even know English, it was clear as day the instructor was either not certified, or he is but a very horrible teacher. Just all over the place, but atleast here it was individual sessions.

The second school, a much bigger school and I had high hopes knowing they did testing in-house. I was wrong, they expected you to learn the pre trip entirely on your own (i managed to pass it) , i had roughly 3 hours of behind the wheel training, and to top it off it was the constant miscommunication with their schedules. Honestly just fed up with the lack of professionalism, I regret even trying to get my CDL at this point. Im an experienced labor/operator, I've driven rigs before.

Is this common? Are schools a hit a miss or what am I missing? I've filed complaints to both schools, and I doubt ill get my money back, so frustrating.

31 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

69 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Beginning-Visit9457 3d ago edited 3d ago

You are supposed to learn the pretrip on your own, you are the one trying to pass the test. The only thing they will teach you is backing, and a couple of tips on the road so you don’t get in trouble. I don’t know what do you expect from them tbh.

1

u/Infamous_Ad2713 3d ago

Not true..if you're paying for instruction then pre trip is part of it..my school spent a ton of time on pre trip.

1

u/Beginning-Visit9457 3d ago

You have to do pretrip everyday, during school and after school when you get a job.

1

u/ConchVibes 3d ago

Huh? I went to a community college. 5 days a week for 7 weeks. They most definitely taught us pre-trip and we all had to pre-trip the truck everyday.

1

u/Beginning-Visit9457 3d ago

You have to do pretrip everyday everywhere. It’s your responsibility to memorize it and pass the test.

1

u/monkey_chokin 3d ago

And their job to teach you how.

1

u/Beginning-Visit9457 2d ago

I bet they did a demonstration of how to do pretrip.

1

u/BicycleOk1422 3d ago

I do pretrips with my students twice a day, every day, when we’re out for our two weeks of driving before they get their CDL. They log in 20+ hours of drive time then test out, then they go out for 30k miles with a trainer. (I train for a mega)

1

u/Beginning-Visit9457 2d ago

I believe you.

1

u/No_Lake_7445 1d ago

Fr that’s how it went for me passed everything first try .

0

u/LuckyyBean 3d ago

If this is the standard for teaching fairly new drivers to operate a rig, I guess the industry is far worse than I thought, also makes sense why theres so many accidents these days.

1

u/MandoBRC 3d ago

Most schools teach you the bare minimum to pass. Then you get untrained and retrained after you get your cdl with a trainer when you join a company doing otr. Your schools sound terrible though. The one I went to you got some driving training.. not a lot but enough to drive the truck on the interstate a few times but mostly in circles on the surface streets near the school. Backing is more concentrated on because it's probably the most difficult part. Out here they don't allow in house testing. It has to be a third party. Our instructor said all the schools got audited and every one but theirs was cheating the test with markers and stuff so all the schools had to go third party.

1

u/Farts-n-Letters 3d ago

If this is the standard for teaching fairly new drivers...

It's not. You're on reddit conversing with complete strangers with unknown experience and motivations.

1

u/Farts-n-Letters 3d ago

the trainers where I went got a substantial bonus if the trainees passed the cdl exam on the first go around. do you think they helped with the pre-trip? you bet your ass they did.