In November I went to C1 truck driving in Ft. Worth, TX so I could obtain my CDL and team with my husband. We were supposed to work for Choctaw Express in Oklahoma City. The first few days went o.K. Because it was just paperwork, tests and studying for the CDL permit. No problem. After that, we went to the "yard". What a mess! 20 students standing around to learn the how to straight backing and 90 degree backing. What a joke! Mostly everyone was standing around with their hands in their pockets. There was no training to speak of. I don't know about the other students but I had never driven a clutch before, much less a big truck and all the instructors did was stand around and yell at you if you couldn't figure out how to do it. Like I said before, NO TRAINING. Once we were finally able to get into a truck and go out on the road, another big joke, with 3 other students in the truck, more yelling and not really showing you how to do it. Needless to say, I was very frustrated and humilitated by the whole experience. When I finally got my CDL, and I still don't have a clue how I passed, I was so happy just to leave that place! On the way home, I call Choctaw to see about going in for orientation. They schedule me and I ask, what about my husband? They tell me they could not accept him because, PAM, who owns Choctaw, apparantly would not hire him for health reasons. Of course, they didn't tell me this before I left C1 so we could see about finding another trucking company. Frustrated, again, I tell them I can't work for them if they will not hire my husband also, since we wanted to team drive.in the meantime, my husband and I get hired to drive for Covenant Transport. Because of the fact that I received little to no training at C1, I was not comfortable and neither was my husband, with my driving. Covenant knew that I was a student driver and he was my trainer. But, they still dispatched us as a team. My husband lost alot of sleep because of my lack of training and fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the road. No ticket, little damage to the truck and still Covenant terminated his employment. Now, we are unemployed and yet, I still owe C1 for "training". I will never use my CDL and feel because of the way we were treated by the trucking industry and particularly C1, that I should not have to pay them a dime. The whole experience was a joke and I guess I had to learn the hard way.
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