As evidenced in recent polling of readers here at OverdriveOnline.com, pre-CDL driver training is quite often conducted by — who else — the professionals doing the business of hauling today. Three-quarters of readers reported having trained a driver, many outside of a formal school-type setting.
Delaware-based Richard Wilson, among others, shares his experience with informal pre-CDL training in the Entry Level Driver Training podcast below. Find him via the website of his independent TCRG Consulting business.While the recent first meeting of the Entry Level Driver Training negotiated rulemaking committee touched on traditional informal (non-school-setting) types of training, it didn’t by and large make abundantly clear in discussion that statutory language written in the MAP-21 highway bill acknowledged reality in its inclusion of current trucking professionals in its examples of training providers. MAP-21, which directs FMCSA to establish training standards, specifically calls out “classroom and behind-the-wheel training” as what it’s after for pre-CDL training. Significantly, it also offers something of a definition of a qualified training provider to include not only “public or private driving schools” but also a “motor carrier or owner or operator” of a truck.
How such trainers might gain certification under the eventual rule, and how such certifications (and curricula) might be enforced, remains an open question. For more on the discussion surrounding a potential national registry of certified trainers, read the prior reporting from the first committee meeting.
Points of view on traditional approaches to training follow in conversations with owner-operator Cody Blankenship, ELDTAC committee member and owner-operator Bryan Spoon, and (principally) former operator/small fleet owner Richard Wilson of TCRG Consulting.
