Say What?

Question: Are new drivers today receiving adequate training?

Charlie Chasteen, 55, Toledo, OH 
Professional experience: 30 years   
“No. Absolutely not. There’s no way you can learn to drive a truck in four or six weeks or however many weeks they’re training kids these days. Even worse, these young kids come out on the road and don’t learn anything because they don’t listen. If you try to give them constructive criticism, they tell you to get lost.”

Leonard Martin, 41, San Antonio, TX  
Professional driving experience: 20 years 
“No. I don’t think they’ve received the training they need to be out here running down the highway at 70 miles per hour with 80,000 pounds next to my family or anyone else’s family. I think a better effort needs to be put into training programs industry-wide. You can’t tell me you can learn everything you need to know in three weeks.”

Bill Hausley, 48, Seneca, MO 
Professional driving experience: 25 years    
“No, they’re not getting good training. There’s no way in this world that a driver can actually learn how to do this job and be a safe operator of an 80,000-pound vehicle in two or three weeks. It would be like taking someone who has never been on a bulldozer before, giving them a week or two of classes and telling them to go out there and grade this piece of land. They’re going to hurt themselves or somebody else.”

Milton Smith, 45, Jackson Center, OH  
Professional driving experience: 17 years 
“A guy who comes fresh out of school has no idea what‘s going to happen to him out here. During his training, he probably drove some royal route somewhere. Now he’s going to go to Atlanta or Chicago, and he has no idea what to do. I think new drivers should have at least a year of training just because of the different driving conditions they will encounter, particularly in the winter. I went to driving school and they didn’t help me at all. They got me a license. That’s it. And that’s what’s going on now. I think the government or the industry doesn’t want this to be a profession. They want it to be a job that anybody can do, and that’s not true and it’s not right.”