C1 Arkansas/Driver Solutions

I graduated friday from Arkansas state driving school and i thought id give those trying to sort through all the rumors some info. (god knows real information is rare and rumor abounds).
I went to AS sponsored by driver solutions and slated to start with pam. The entire first week. There were a lot of things i was very stressed about. some of them real. Some of them never a worry.

First - money - Drivers solutions tells you to take 150 or so above lodging (which i later found out they sponsor for pretty much anyone who asks). I was able to get the cash so i paid the 295 rather than financing 395. Mistake actually (broke sucks) One thing that was common at the school was poverty. People drove nice cars etc but as a rule we were all flat broke. The 150 lasted about a week for various reasons. DS provides 50 a week at the end of the first two weeks which helps an astounding amount. And at graduation you get 100 to transfer your cdl. The actual cost of the CDL (temporary) is 5 bucks for out of state students. You need 50 for the "revenue packet" to let yo utake the test though. Which pretty much eats up the first weeks $50. Its around that time everyone begins eating romane noodles heh. I borrowed another 100 to get through and ill tell you i literally barely made it. Id strongly suggest anyone going take lots of food, a cooler, a dvd player/game whatever (for the RARE free time), LOTS of tobacco if you smoke etc. Arkansans dont believe in income taxes etc but love sales tax. Everything i found in arkansas was outrageously overprices. For example cheap generic cigarettes - $40 a carton. Im not kidding. And take deep woods off. LOTS of it. You'll need it. IF you have gas (about a 5 mile trip to the school, back for lunch, back to school, back home each day), cigarettes etc and enough food for 3 weeks you should be fine with almost no money. You'll regret it if you go without cash though. Beg borrow or steal 100-300. If you cant come up with that (hey we've all had HARD times and most people in the school are at a bad point) id really suggest a school like schneiders that claim to provide everything ust about.

Next - lodging. Despite the horror stories from elsewhere the apartments we stayed at were easily as nice as any ive ever lived in. They were very clean and well maintained. 4 to an apartment with two bedrooms. It wasnt crowded at all and my roommates and i became close friends. In fact generally our entire class became pretty close. If you go to the school thats our picture you'll see on the wall as you enter (well most of us). I had expected it to be a nightmare as im 40 years old , a bit of a loner, and frankly dont like people much. But i actually had a blast.

Third - Stress. The stress level is through the roof. Approximately 1/3 of students dont make it to testing for various reasons. MOST of those students get booted or leave because of something they're hiding. Drug convictions/tests. Getting caught lying about criminal histories etc etc etc. A few , a very few leave for personal reasons (one roommates child was bitten by a snake the second day. I drove him to the amtrack station. I really hope it turned out ok but honestly we had no way to find out). A few more leave for paperwork problems they couldnt resolve there or quick enough. Verifications of various stuff, etc. Try to make certain you have lots of your info, phone #'s etc with you and to make SURE DS has as much info as possible. I provided a lot and took everything but i had to provide new numbers for family and friends because they couldnt seem to contact them. Remember this when you get there - other than the lodging you owe NOTHING if you leave before the first week is over (before you test for the permit). This is what my roommate (and a lot of people) stressed over most. DS and the companies dont seem to want to put any effort into confirming anything (ie doing their work) before you go. Make them.

Fourth- The training The instructors are EXCELLENT. Very patient. They Love to help people and thats not an understatement. The biggest problem i saw with hte instructors was that people wouldnt ask for help when they needed it. Jimmy, Rick, Steve etc etc showed me at various times how to do things in five minutes id worked all day on. And they were positively happy to help. The instructors have to be strict and sometimes loud on the range. But 2 minutes later youd ask them for help and theyd be smiling and talking you through it. I cant compliment them enough. (and remember, once again.. this from someone who doesnt like people so much).
The first week is , frankly, not that important. They try to teach you to be truck drivers, not just cdl-holders. You're expected to study every night for the test and if you arent an idiot you will. The smartest thing is to know the cdl manual (we discovered that the cdl manuals from every state we checked were Identical inside btw. Literally) front to back. If you Really want to make your life better, study the pretrip while you're at it. Knowing how to pretrip by heart and that you can ace the permit test will eliminate 50% of the stress of school. Go take your cdl permit test at home if you can. Its probably around 10 bucks. You cant use it at school. But if you can pass that one you can pass the arkansas one. You spend the first week touching on that, pretrip, logs, and general truck driving "stories" frankly. A lot thought those useless but i found they provided some very handy views and tricks to being an actual driver.
Second week - i consider second week to start the day after you pass your permit test. From that moment on you're focused on the range and the closer you get to the end the more you resent class time for taking you off the range. You get in a truck the next day for the first time ever to practice the 300 foot back. Heres the thing. They really tell you and show you nothing. You jump in a truck. look around. And give it a shot. Its freaking terrifying. It ROCKS. I was terrified the end of that day thinking id neverf do it. That weekend you spend all day both days on the range backing up and going forward. Perfect it. its the secret to driving (at least the test..). It also gets you comfortable in the trucks. At first the thought of getting in one every morning would make me anxious. Now i look forward to it. You back up and go forward for a few days and then your allowed to gear up and down. Practice your shifting. Its some of the only practice you really get before the road. 3 gears... After you get straight line backing (the actual test is 100 feet with wider pilons but straight backing, again, is the key to it all) you move on to turning, 100 foot back, 45 site side backing and the serpentine. The 45 was the thing that kicked everyones ass at first. Serpentine Is fairly easy if you ask for instructor help. 45 isnt that scary if you ask for help. Turns are easy.
Side note - they have one superten. I hate supertens. Why? They look just like a standard 10 speed if you dont know what your looking at. Lets just say a WHOLE lot of students were driving in 1/3/5 instead of 1/2/3 on the range in the bloody thing! My first road trip was in a super ten. I couldnt even downshift a ten yet! (you old hands know what im talking about)
The range is HOT!!! When i was there 100 degrees + every day. On asphalt so figure 130. Truck ac mostly doesnt work and when it does (barely) you ahve to keep the windows down anyway. Did i mention its HOT. And.. arkansas mosquitoes are stealth bombers. Many a morning i woke with an arm covered in bites... Bring COLD drinks. LOTS of them. Iced tea worked best for me. Id say a gallon a day just on the range. An hour after i was on the range all the ice in my insulated closed cooler would be melted. Did i mention it was hot? Get a hat and or bandanna.
You should get 40-55 hours on the range. Frankly the time depends on you. With the heat and well.. egos... some got quite a bit less. But the instructors were therre. The range was there. Those of us serious about it were there. 9 of the previous class failed. They thought they were truck drivers... guess not eh? Only 3 of ours did. One failed the pretrip for some foolish reason. Two frankly, were great people.. but just couldnt drive. If you fail you get to retest in 5 days btw. But dont expect a lot of help as the instructors have 3 new classes in progress.

ROAD TRIPS- Road trips are HORRIFYING. And Awesome! My third road trip i knew i could drive. I knew i could be a truck driver. First two trips- not so much. My problem is nerves. Over being tested rather than driving really. Every instructor mentioned it. That i drove fine but my nerves were gonna kick my ass. On road trip 4 i nailed it. I was comfortable and the instructor actually cut my time short and said i was fine and let the next guy drive. Each trip is about 1.5 hours through every kind of driving. From 2 lanes literally 8" wider than the truck to 4 lane interstate to "city traffic" (well arkansas city anyway). The biggest problems people had were downshifting, turn signals (remembering to turn them off), and well.. with one or two stupidity. Ever been in the sleeper of a tractor at 60mph and had someone pull over onto the shoulder , with 100 feet before a top sign.. without slowing down? With another tractor 80 feet behind you? I have. Me, the other student in the back left hand and foot prints permanently embaddeed in that tractor. I hear m yfriend in the tractor behind us left permanent imprints in the steering wheel.

The trucks- the trucks are $&!+. Literally. If my company gave me one of those id call safety, red tag the truck , and if they even hiccuped id quit on the spot. But .. upside- compared to those rags driving a company truck will be a dream. (note the road trucks arent that bad.. Btw. Learn which trucks are good and which are bad so you take your cdl test in a decent truck. Its the difference between passing and failing.

CDL DAY - Let me say this. Nerves failed at least one student. We'd all seen him do all the range maneuvers over.. and over. He couldnt do it on test day. He choked hard, knocked over barrels (incursions) and just couldnt do it. Pullups from god (good in real life. BAD on test). But when we passed? When I passed the pretrip (big worry for me though i got a perfect score /end brag) i was elated. So wsa everyone who did. The BIG fear was the range test. The feeling when the instructor shook your hand was awesome. ON the road trip noone was that worried. But a little. When the instructor shook your hand and said something like "congratulations driver".. Wow. Better than graduating anything ive done. I was Elated. Ill treasure my cdl more than any diploma certification or degree i ever get. I know im not a truck driver yet. Star picks me up tonight actually i think. But its a big milestone and im proud to be able to consider myself a student of you guys now.

Companies - Short and sweet. Pam started off with the most prehires. By the end they had three. A pam driver came and talked to us during school. He said that of something like 9 or more students who went to pam. ONE lasted a month. Thats DURING training. Yikes. Positive about pam: The bonus. Their autos are NICE. We took a trip to the company and checked htem out. Three speeds. Forward neutral reverse. You still use the clutch to shift but no shifter to deal with. No gear grinding , missed gears ,or frantically trying to downshift. You get the right rpm, doubleclutch and the truck does its thing. All the real drivers (one with 50+ years) who gave us road trips said they LOVED the ones they tried. Common quote "it takes the work out of it. Whats not to love?". The reasons people were moved from pam: Work history etc. Mostly that. They had a problem with mine suddenly 2 days before graduation ( i no longer cared. I was set already to get my cdl. Their loss and i WANTED to switch to star but hadnt asked because i didnt want the paperwork nightmare to fug things up). That happened to all but 3 pam hires, and even one of them moved to the pam chocktaw division.

USA Truck - This was at the start probably the second biggest group. At the end by FAR the biggest. All of the class other than 2 cash students, 3 pam drivers, and 2 stars. You see their trucks in arkansas and tennessee occasionally and there seem to be slightly more of them than Pam. I believe they drive 10 speeds. They are i guess the "standard". Average pay. Average benefits. ETc etc.

Star - Im honestly EXCITED that i got moved to star. I was considering asking either star, Roehl, or a local company to buy my contract from pam. Star picked me up and im jazzed. Star guarantees 3 weekends a month home. Backed up by paying you if you dont make it. Ive heard nothing but good about star from its employees and those employees say they take care of their drivers. They pay pretty much what the other training companies do. They have FAntastic benefits. They flat out blow away the other companies benefits. Insurance. Safety bonuses etc etc etc. Now i dont know.. i could be fired tomorrow (i get picked up tomorrow night hopefully. The tornado pretty much threw a monkey wrench in about everything in the us right now i think). But i know that im positively jazzed that ill be going to work with star. I dont know how the miles will be considering their hometime guarantee (not an empty "promise" like most companies. Read their site etc). It's not so much getting the hometime that i look forward to. Its the Opportunity to get it. Make sense? If ALL you care about is money (thats not my thing) you might honestly be best doing pam or USA, theyre bigger i think.

Logs/trip planning etc. In school you do get training in these. But if you read the forums you know that even the old pros have some problems here. Thank goodness for the trip planning. Pro drivers dont mention it enough but i finally understand that trip planning is probably one of the most important parts of driving. They teach you to trip plan and then stress over and over how important it is and suggest you practice a lot more. And that you get evreything you can to help (i'll use the atlas AND gps etc AND the phone to call the reciever! AT least i hope im that smart). On logging they teach you as much as they can. And teach you some *cough* tricks. Remember - how you log doesnt determine how much your forced to work.. it determines how much Opportunity to drive you have to Drive if you want to. They also pound safety into your head. Over and over and over. And that you NEVER drive tired or after drinking. You can look up some pics on the net if you like if you dont get that through yoru head.

Pace- the schools first two days are slow. Relaxed. Everyones stressed beyond words over various things. You dont actually learn much. Then it picks up a bit. Then saturday hits and everything Dramatically speeds up. Then the next friday. The pace triples. You will be tired. You WILL be hot. YOu will be sweaty and grungy. YOu will be irritated around week 3 and dying to go home. You will be scared to death over the tests. You will never have nough time to sleep. You will go to the gonoh..er the apartments.. and either do one of two things. Hang out with the bullshitting crowd outside all night.. or study and go to bed. Interesting factoid. The class before was pretty much full of partiers. LOTS of people failed. The instructors were considering failing the WHOLE class over range safety in fact. VERY few of our class hung out past 8. My roomies and i werein bed by 9 or earlier every night. Only 3 of us failed. Comprende? STUDY. Then go to Bed. You can party at home or later. You're there to become a tgruck driver. Not to bullshit with people you'll never see again. And ps there aint $&!+ to do in newport arkansas.


I hope this wasnt too wordy and i hope it actually helped. If anyone wants to ask anything that isnt here ill be happy to help when i hit a truck stop with wifi (new laptop woot!). Just keep the faith, know you can do it, pray a bit, work hard, and be legit. And if you drink more than a 6 pack a week , lied about your criminal record, have outstanding traffic/criminal complaints, or do drugs AT ALL.. dont waste your valuable time and money. They WILL find out and your ass is finding a way home..And thanks to everyone here who helped, gave advice, provided info to me and other newbies. Im jazzed over driving and cant wait. I do dread a bit the longer (8 week) trainee time with star. But i cant freakin wait to get behind the wheel. PS did i mention that star drives 13 speed peterbilts? hehe. Ill leave the freightshakers to you pam and usa guys hehe. Now to figure out how the hell you shift a 13 speed....

[lenutt]

Hey, amigo sometimes the big trucks are not the quickest answer. It is if you want speeding tickets, but to make money maybe not. But I always say to each his own. If that is what you want to do get after it because you only live once and if you miss it you will always wonder what it was like.