RWIT Board Member Kenyette Godhigh-Bell
Making the right decisions about which CDL School and starter company to choose will define your experience in the first critical months as you enter the trucking industry. We understand that many people have a sense of urgency to get started but you need to know that trucking has a lot of bad companies who train people and use students as a cheap labor source, so they often do not care about your long-term career aspirations. That is why it is important you become knowledgeable to start with to avoid the schemes.
Here is your first tip: The worst companies for training are the top ranked companies in internet search engines so learn to dig deeper to read reviews and complaints from other drivers before wasting your precious time.
Here is how to do it: In your search engine type the name of the company followed by the word “complaints” and scroll down to find other drivers who have left reviews. Be aware that companies will make good reviews about themselves to bury their bad reviews, so you need to DIG DEEP and use your instincts to read between the lines.
What are you looking for? You are looking for comments about pay shaving, unsafe training, sexual assault and not getting you home time when you have requested to be off. These are red flags of a toxic workplace; a business model created to hire and churn drivers who are a low wage labor source who do not know any better.
The preferable path to becoming a truck driver is for you to go to a CDL School at a community college or technical school. In some cases, you can get a grant to pay for this if you check with your local unemployment office or the financial aid office at the community college.
RWIT Board Member Jess Graham
The least desirable path to entering trucking is a company sponsored training program. Why? Because they have lower quality training and are set up more like an indentured servitude operation where you sign a labor commitment to work for them a period to work off your debt, but the training is substandard and sometimes can be extremely dangerous. Abandoning this training can put you in a predicament because some of these companies will blacklist you from being hired elsewhere. Therefore, it is so important to choose correctly from day one. DO YOUR RESEARCH!
If your life situation requires that you must choose company sponsored training, then make sure you are going to a company that DOES NOT require team driving as phase of training. Make sure you ask that question when you call companies to talk to their recruiters. Remember that recruiters are salespeople, so they are going to steer you to where they get paid the most commission. You must know how to cut through the fluff to make the best decision for your life situation.
Starter Companies: Decent starter companies may require that you have a certificate of completion for a certain number of hours before they can offer you training. If you go to a substandard CDL school or “CDL Mill” as we call them, you may not have a certificate of completion for the number of hours you require to be hirable at the starter company you prefer. Therefore, you need to talk to these companies FIRST before you choose the CDL school and ask them, “How many hours are required on my CDL School certificate of completion”, do you hire from only certain CDL schools? You need to think about this because you should stay put at least for the first year and you don’t want to be stuck in a hellish situation for a year.
Here are a few starter companies we suggest you consider. This list is not comprehensive, there many choices but it is up to you to learn more about them, their hiring area.
Here are some starter companies to avoid:
CRST Van Expedited
CR England
Covenant Transport
US Xpress
PAM
Prime
We understand some people may not understand our recommendations, but we have been the receiver of sexual assault, sexual harassment
distress calls for over 10 years from the companies listed in the AVOID section. We urge women who are entering this industry as a solo driver to do their due diligence before signing any labor contracts or making a commitment to a company that requires team driving as a phase of training. Remember, you cannot be a safe truck driver if you are being terrorized in an unsafe living situation during your training and you need to stay put for 6 months to a year to be insurable for better paying trucking jobs. Being a truck driver requires a high level of safety consciousness and this begins with making well informed choices from seasoned drivers who will provide you authentic information as you get started.
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