Just say no — to driver-trainer jobs that are thinly disguised efforts to run a team operation on the cheap

How would you feel about this? You’ve got 20-plus years of driving experience with all manner of loads over all manner of roads, mountainous and otherwise, yet the company you’re looking to sign on with says you’ll have to go out with a driver trainer for the first couple of months. At half pay. Looks like a cheap team, right?

Also looks like a carrier you wouldn’t want to touch with a 10-foot pole.

Or how about this? You’re that same 20-year guy in that same situation, but this company proposes sending you out for a few weeks with a trainer who hasn’t even formed callouses yet. He’s got three years on the road, and that’s it. Looks like a cheap team again.

And another carrier to steer clear of.

Turn it around a bit so that you’re applying for the trainer job. The offer is that you’ll be taking rookies on real revenue runs, and you’ll get paid an extra 3 cents a mile for the privilege. Afraid to crawl in the bunk for a nap, for fear of the newbie doing something stupid, and you’ll get thirty bucks extra every thousand miles. Once more, it’s a cheap team scenario, so you walk away. Fast.

These are real examples culled from recent mail, by the way, though I wish I could say it was fiction. None of this will surprise you folks, of course, because this sort of thing comes up all the time. Hell, we’ve heard of companies where a guy with mere months on the road becomes the chief trainer. And it all goes to show that some carriers haven’t the foggiest idea how to treat people in general, or how to manage the training task in particular. You’d think it was rocket science.

When an owner-operator looks at life beyond the steering wheel, one of the most obvious next moves is to become a trainer. It’s an easier move than dispatcher or compliance manager, for sure, but as these examples show, it’s also fraught with danger and maybe exploitation.

Training is a noble role to play, and I’ve met many driver trainers over the years who take it very seriously and do it well. I had the good fortune to be taught by Merv Orr and his sons Jody and Rod, for example, at a school they used to run in Cambridge, Ont., 20 and more years ago. Merv took it very seriously indeed, so much so that he folded the school when he couldn’t compete with lesser operations offering cut-rate deals.

I’ve also met quite a few drivers and owner-ops who tried the trainer job and went back to just plain hauling freight. Some just weren’t built for it, I guess, but just as often they found that the fleets in question didn’t support the training ideal in the first place. What could be tougher than trying to do a job that your bosses don’t believe in?

The fact is that training persists in being seen as a cost, not an investment. I find it hard to believe, given that hiring a driver can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, that so many companies don’t look to protect that investment by having a dedicated trainer (or trainers plural) whose sole job is to ensure that the newbie gets it right. And that the veterans get follow-up training or refresher courses on some regular basis. Not a small cost, I readily admit, but surely one that pays off in better drivers, happier drivers, drivers who might stay put for more than a couple of months. And that’s not to mention more contented customers.

But how often have you run across this one? The ink dries on the rookie’s Class A or Class 1 licence, he or she shows up at the recruiting office, and before you know it the keys are handed over to a $100,000 tractor, a $25,000 trailer, and probably that much again in freight value, if not more. Go west, young driver, says dispatch. And by the way, you’re on your own.

Far be it from me to slam an industry I love, but this kind of crap does happen, as all of you know. And one funny but troubling example of it comes to me by way of the drivers at a sizeable Toronto fleet that often interlines with a big U.S. outfit that will go unnamed. Seems the local boys often make $20 when one of those Yankee trucks rolls into the yard — and its driver asks someone to back it into the dock for him. True story.

I’m also reminded of the owner-operator shutdowns of a dozen years ago and of my surprise when hearing one of the demands of the guys who held things up at Ontario/Michigan border crossings for quite a few days: they wanted rookies to be better trained. I was incredulous at first, but then I realized they really were that tired of sharing the road and the truckstop parking lots with people who couldn’t handle their rigs.

So where do we go? Well, we keep hammering away at the idea that training is worthwhile. And we don’t take driver-trainer jobs that are thinly disguised efforts to run a team operation on the cheap. Just say no.