Ryan
Buford,#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Tue, May 07, 2013
Daly's Truck Driving School has been Training Drivers in the Atlanta Area since 1992. We have graduated and Licensed over 10,000 people since that start date. Our business is to facilitate employment for entry level drivers into the driving industry.
Unfortunatley, It is impossible to make everyone completley happy when your dealing with that many people. I will try to clarify some of this complaint and in doing so will agree with most of what is being said but also state the facts about the misunderstanding that this particular student had with the process.
The companies that hire Daly's Truck Driving School Students are mainly large corportations and include the top 10 size companies in the USA. We work regularly with about 20 companies but our students have no obligation to go to any of the companies we work with but rather can choose to go anywhere they want. We simply allow companies to come in at lunch time bring pizza and if the student wants to hear what the company has to offer they can sit in and listen.
If they are not interested they have no obligation to apply for a job with that company. These are recruiters for companies not Daly's recruiters. We do not accept any kick back from any of these companies and short of having the companies speak to the students over lunch we have no additional relationship with the company. We simply create the employment opportunity for the student and then get out of the way of their individual decision as to where the go to work.
Daly's Truck Driving School is licensed and monitored by the Georgia Department of Driver Services. Our curriculum is 172.8 hour as defined in our syllabus. This is exactly what the State is monitoring. They check every student we train to ensure that this hours requirement is met. Our program is 17 days which breaks down to roughly 10 hours a day. Two of these days are test days at the state one is for the permit and one is for the road test. This is explained in detail in the syllabus and catalogue we hand out on day one to every student.
The entry level driving requirement for CDL driver Training as mandated by the Federal Government is 160 hours currently. Our program meets and exceeds these requirements. This is why companies hire our students if we did not meet this mandate they would not.
Daly's uses a 4 to 1 ratio in training this is much lower ratio then most schools. Some of our competition goes as high as 8 to 1 ratios in training. This does in fact result in 15 minutes of each hour where you are actually driving the truck. If you choose to then not observe your classmates doing the manuevers that is a mistake. You can learn a lot from watching someone else making a mistake or doing a maneuver correctly. So if it is the opinion of this student that training should be longer I would suggest he advocate with the federal govt. to increase this entry level driving requirement to include more hours. But the truth is we are simply helping to get the minimum requirements to get you to go to work for a company.
During school we cover the whistle blower protection act which tells a student who to contact and what to do if your company tries to get you to drive illegally. This is not something you have to do and there are hotlines that are in place to stop this from happening.
This complaint should serve as a good warning. Trucking is a difficult job and industry and is an unconventional job choice. The hours are long and the away time is difficult but there are almost no other jobs you can get into that in 17 days of training you can be making 38-40 k your first year. Yes according to the American Trucking Association first year drivers make between 38- 40 k thier first year driving over the road. Your average mileage is between 2800 and 3000 miles a week. Pay rate is average .30 cents a mile.
I advise any person to research this industry before you get into it. If you have family issues and they won't understand the required time away and more importantly you can't handle this I would recommend rethinking this career. But if you can make it thru a year and get that under your belt the local jobs become available and your options really open up. The average pay go up to 50 k a year and you have a choice to stay over the road or come back to a local more conventional job.
www.dtruckschool.com our website can help answer any other questions about government grants to pay for your schooling. If this is something your interested let us help you get into a new career.
Thanks,
Ryan Daly
Daly's Truck Driving School