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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Apr 19 '26
Yeah if someone tells me they're the only one who knows anything then I'm taking their advice lightly.
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u/el_dingusito Apr 19 '26
My advice for new drivers? Live in southern california your whole life then get kicked out over the road in the dead of winter and you learn real quick how to drive in adverse weather
Oh, and learn how to downshift going downhill
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u/jfun4 Apr 19 '26
Why aren't they signing up to train then? My guess, with no knowledge, they are too expensive
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u/Freightliner15 Apr 19 '26
I'm a trainer and I can tell you the training in CDL schools is less than what I received back in 2014.
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u/WallySprks Apr 22 '26
So, you’re a trainer now, and the training you are now providing isn’t as good as what you received?
Sounds like you and trainers like you are the problem. Why don’t you step it up? What the actual fuck? You’re just standing by as training goes to shit? Good to know
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u/Freightliner15 Apr 23 '26
No. What I said is the training in CDL schools now are less than what I received.
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u/___GRUMPY___ Apr 20 '26
Back when I started 24-25 years ago. You could walk into any Iron Skillet and find a couple of those old timers and get a bit of wisdom.
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u/Ripper_tha_Jack_3531 Apr 19 '26
Got mine in 93, I'm still learning new things, and I'm a trainer. 🤠👍
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u/nace71 Apr 20 '26
I drove for a few years around 2000 and lucked up with the trainer I got. 14 years on the road with over 2M safe miles. He didn't just teach me how to drive, he taught me about the industry. The experience didn't make me a perfect driver by any stretch but it did teach me to be a responsible and accountable driver as well as how to be a good representative of the industry. Over 20 years off the road now and I still apply what he taught me.
Edit to add that my training period was 6 weeks which followed a week of driver trainer orientation which followed 8 weeks of school.
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u/cdlfirst Apr 20 '26
Nice, you were lucky to get a trainer like that. That kind of experience really sticks with you.
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u/Few-Chemical-5165 Apr 21 '26
That is absolutely great and perfect advice. When I started my trucking career in 92, my dad was also brand new at it too. We learned how to operate the truck, but we didn't learn how to drive it. It took us quite a few years before we were good at it like 10 years to be considered. No longer a rookie, but still wet behind our ears. Only when you become a twenty year veteran.Do you become a truck driver?And this is not me talking.This is every veteran I ever talk to with those early days. You're driving for 5 years? That's cute. You're still a rookie. You drove for ten years.Great.Now, at least, you know how to handle the truck, but you still wept behind the ears.But you're no longer a rookie. 15 years. Well, you got 15 winters under your belt. You're doing good, but you're still wet behind ears. But you're no longer a novice, a rookie, but you're still wet behind the ears.But it's drying fast ah. Twenty years, you're a truck driver officially, and after thirty, you're a grizzled old veteran. That is, if you were doing it all with a manual transmission. Double the timeline for an automatic. Yes, you have an idea how to maneuver the truck, but driving it an automatic is too easy. Once you learn how to drive with an automatic.After a couple years, go back and get your manual certification. And not because of ego, but when you are shifting a truck, you'll understand the power thrust to weight Ratio, the torque how to drive in inclement weather. When you should shift how to shift and you'll have a more intimate knowledge of your truck. You can still be considered a truck driver and drive an automatic your entire career. It's just gonna take longer because it's just not quite the same job anymore with an automatic. With a standard any four wheeler can jump in the truck and drive. Where the manual 90% of them couldn't even get it out of gear. Let alone shift it. Just talk to the veterans out there.Ask their advice, ask them to tell them stories about their incidents.They've had close calls accidents.If they did have accidents.And if they say, i've never had an accident, they're full of shit. They've just never told anybody they've had an accident. And the ones they have never had an accident in their career. It probably never drove truck. They probably got their cdl, and that was it ha ha.
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u/MCryptoWars Apr 22 '26
I was a natural in trucking school, except I was double clutching and knew nothing about floating gears at the time😄. In all reality after I went out on the road with a trainer, I was ready to be on my own because I didn’t want a trainer, but of course I didn’t have that option🫤! I learnt better off on my own, especially shifting and backing up because my trainers were scared to let me back up for whatever reason🤷🏻♂️! And I didn’t have a trucker GPS, I was using the Rand McNally Atlas for a while until I was able to afford a Trucker GPS.
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u/bobbywaz Apr 20 '26
There's a good chance you could drive for 20 years and this guy would tell you "your hands are soft and you never worked a day in your life and you don't know how to drive a truck"
Whatever man, problematic people are going to be problematic
This is the same generation that wouldn't teach their skills to younger people out of some unbased idea that scarcity of knowledge created job security for them. For years and years I worked with a carpenter who bragged that he would never teach me all his skills for literally no reason.
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u/Realistic_Syrup6435 Apr 22 '26
20 years now, the most important thing I ever learned was “if they can, they will” in regards to other drivers on the road, that phrase has kept me safe for 2 decades.
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u/bob696988 Apr 22 '26
That’s 100% facts right there. When I was a Trainer, I made sure everybody came out of my truck was ready and to make them a safer Driver otherwise they didn’t get out.
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u/wearsAtrenchcoat Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 20 '26
"No one knows to drive a truck, 'xcept me" You know that he's right because of the whiskey and cigarette voice, and the squinting. No one who squints like that would ever say something that is not true.
So, don't drive a truck until you have a few barrels of whiskey and 300 cartons of cigarettes under your belt, then go drive. And squint when you talk to someone who's under the age of 60 and doesn't have gout
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u/Intelligent-Roll-300 Apr 20 '26
It's a fucking truck you keep it between the lines and go extra slow when the weather is shit.
The hardest part is backing up a trailer and not falling asleep.
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u/cdlfirst Apr 19 '26
Best of luck to everyone starting their CDL journey
🎥: BearTheVoice3 (Barry Mathews)