Victor
Columbus,#2Author of original report
Mon, April 15, 2013
Firstly I am not a failed student. I have my Cdl-A. I was only here for hours and refresher. The main problem with this school is disorganization. There is no measure of time in truck on road or in range doing maneuvers. First lets talk about their on road training; if you dont already have experience with a manual transmission, it is unlikely you will learn it here. Instead of taking the time to teach that, they throw these people right in traffic! Then they yell and get impatient with the student the entire time.
Worse than that, one trainer that's fat and bald with a goatee actually told a student going across railroad tracks to shift while going over them, and when he did, the trainer laughed and said it was a joke! This is just ine example. The double clutching they want you to do, they as trainers don't do! The one I was withfloated gears and barely ever touched the clutch. Way to teach! There is no understanding that the trucks are all old and broken down and each ones clutch is different as are the rpms, making it very difficult to learn! This is not to say that its all the trainers' fault. Some are good Joe, Mike for example.
However they often times do not have the time to train you because you get called to the office for an hour or there's a thunderstorm so you are wasting time sitting inside. Under normal circumstances you get placed on the training range in groups of up to ten each tall ing turns in one truck practicing off-set parking, parallel parking etc. It will take each student at LEAST 15 minutes, so once you get your turn youll be waiting 150miminutes (2.5 hours) not including lunch to get your second turn. So if you're lucky, MAYBE you'll get 45 training minutes per day on the range if you dont go on the road, if you do go on the road you may get half that on the range or none at all.
Bottom line is there is very little personal accountability on the school or trainers part. The ones that dont make it, they just blame the student then put him in debt! Ive been to a reputable school before and this is nothing like that! All of this pales in what will be the bane of your existence here and that is pre-trip! They have hands down the most inefficient pre trip training i have ever seen! They go through it with you once and that is all. You are never supervised doing it again. 107 points and its got to be verbatim! Oh yeah, they have Freightliners and Volvos here, you never know what truck youll be tested on and each one is different so have fun with that!