Mega-Carrier CRST has just received approval from the FMCSA to allow trainers to not be in the passenger’s seat while their trainees are driving. In the approval notice, the FMCSA stated that when the trainer is not in the seat, there is “a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than,” when the trainer is in the seat and watching what’s going on.
In practice, this means that as soon as a trainee passes their skills test and earns their permit, CRST can effectively run them as a team driver with little or no oversight or additional training from the only CDL holder in the vehicle.
CRST is not the first carrier to be approved for the exemption. Last year, C.R. England trainers also got the go-ahead to be in their sleeper while permit-holders drove unsupervised.
In their applications for the exemptions, both carriers claimed that the current rule of requiring a trainer to ride in the seat next to their trainee was too “costly” and CRST claimed that “compliance with the CDL rule places them in a very difficult position.”
Permit holders must make their way back to their home states to obtain their CDLs, and until they do, the carrier either has to let them go home and then come back, or send them home as passengers in its trucks. According to the exemption notice, CRST can now send them home behind the wheel, “allowing more freight movement for CRST and compensation for the new driver.”
Safety and industry groups have issued comments opposing the exemption – even the public comments submitted to the FMCSA were overwhelmingly against granting the request. In fact, the exemption notice itself cites 56 comments, most of which were “from truck drivers, driver-trainers, and other individuals” who were opposed to the request.
Despite the deep opposition, the FMCSA and CRST believe “that the exemption would result in a level of safety that is equivalent to or greater than the level of safety provided under the rule.”
Source: fleetowner, truckersreport, ccj, truckersreport, overdrive, FMCSA, DOT
Ed says
Blind leading the blind…
Robert says
Why would a trainer want to be in the sleeper. Their life is at stake too!!
Ken Sawyer says
Proof that the fmcsa is not a safety organization. A permit holder in a car can’t drive alone but hey let a permit holder drive a truck. Most of them have less than 40 hrs behind the wheel I mean what could go wrong???
Stephen West says
Good comment.
JJ says
Very very well said driver. Yeah notice they claimed it’s to expensive, everything has come down to money these days…sickening….even safety as you just shared to….have a safe one today driver, and all of us have to watch out for even more stupidity on the road now
Terrance Sneed says
Too costly? How when you pay trainees 12-18cpm lol
Sean S Shaw says
I thought this was stupid a year ago, and think it worse now. CRST has a bad track record with their trainers already not having enough experience to actually train. Now they are basically being told they don’t have to train at all. A really safe call for the motoring public. This is what money can buy you.
duhfault says
What could go wrong? Statistically, nothing or better. Which makes sense if you think about it… the natural tendency of an untrained trainer is to teach the “tricks of the trade” to bring their trainee “up to speed” in the shortest time.
Your “permitted rookie truck steering agent” = “permitted rookie 4-wheeler” is a false equivalency. At age 21, we can presume a 4-wheeler has 1400 hours behind ‘a’ wheel… although we can also presume all of it was spent ingraining bad habits.
Stephen West says
Nonsense, why even have a trainer in a truck if this is the case.
Tim says
Many years ago while teaming with another newbie at a large company I was in the bunk when she somehow let the truck stop on a steep uphill freeway onramp (out in the middle of nowhere thankfully). She didn’t know what to do so she called back to me for help. I opened the curtain and told her to put the truck in 1st gear and leave it there until the truck got all the way up the hill.
Anthony Bellard Sr. says
And the deep pockets pull off another one. and will continue until someone with importance is hurt or dies from it. Then it will be repelled
Billy Gerard says
Sure it is! Trainers been driving for 4/5 months! Retarded people! I swear!
Michael says
Trainer been driving for 4-5 weeks. Fixed that for you.
Mario says
Hehe he
BW says
Excellent!!! Now, according to the FMCSA & they precedent they’ve set, I should be able to hire a driver, educate them just enough to pass the skills test, and turn ’em loose to make me some MONEY. Where’s my exemption ???
Chris says
W…T…F…
As the owner and director of a Truck Driving school, I can tell you that we work our A$$ off to make sure that a new driver is safe enough to go out with a Trainer in the FRONT SEAT. And that is after they even HAVE their license.
Sending out a student on just a permit with the licensed driver in the back is simply BS. Sending them out with NO ONE AT ALL IN THE TRUCK WITH THEM is Accessory to Murder.
Speaking of BS… The article is absolutely WRONG when it says that the student has to return to their home state to test. AAMVA (American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators) has what is called CSTIMS (Commercial Skills Test Information Management System) that allows a candidate to be tested in ANY state and have their results transmitted back to the home state for license issue.
This is simply an example of how the big guys can buy their way into any law they want.
U N B E L I E V A B L E
Mark says
That’s because the trainer isn’t much more experienced than the trainee. So what difference will it make, bunch of unsafe drivers behind the wheel anyway.
Kent says
This is insane, absolutely insane, corruption at its finest…..
MrYowler says
This is less a reflection on the quality of training that the students receive before getting their license, and more a reflection of the quality of the training provided by CR England and CRST trainers, while the trainee is driving.
Most such trainers are still inexperienced, themselves, so they have very little to offer in the way of helpful advice to their trainees. The FMCSA is right; safety does not substantially improve as a result of having two inexperienced drivers watching the road; only one of them can operate the controls, in any event, and the other isn’t getting adequate sleep for their shift.
The right answer, here, is to create some sensible standards for what qualifies someone to be a trainer – not to remove any pretense at training, at all. The FMCSA does love to complicate simple tasks with regulations – why not create some sort of trainer credentialling program – perhaps one that requires at least a certain number of miles/years of experience, safely driving the type of vehicle to be trained? If training companies were required to retain experienced drivers, in order to conduct over-the-road training, then the time during which the trainer is awake and supervising the trainee, might actually yield some useful training – and he carriers might have to place some actual value, on the retention of experienced drivers. Plus, the FMCSA would get a fresh opportunity to micromanage, and add bureaucratic complexity to the jobs of truck drivers – as they are so fond of doing.
Chesley says
This was something I forgot to address with my own comment. Trainers with six months or less behind the wheel. This is all a scam so the large trucking companies can get more drivers and damn safety!!
Mr. Curmudgeon says
Very well crafted discussion, MrYowler! The other component to the ‘level of safety present’ when the trainer’s back in the sleeper is a function of not having some megalomaniac screaming at the trainee when the trainee’s trying to manage a new skill set.
duhfault says
Interesting perspective, but the crashes tend to occur after “training”, and they more frequently occur to veterans well after the training is complete, when they revert to their plain ol’ 4-wheeler habits.
And once upon a time there was little to and/or no training, 4-wheeler or truck, and trucks were harder to drive in many respects including beating the occupant/s half to death every moment in motion.
Freddy Yeomans says
the trainers for these company has only been driving for two or three weeks
Bill l. says
I’m a trainer for a large mostly refrigerated company. I can’t imagine not staying out front with the student in that situation. The only good thing from that rule would be being allowed to go sit in the bunk make a sandwich and get my butt back up in that front seat. Overall very dangerous rule. My last student would’ve rolled the truck if I wasn’t upfront screaming at him to slow down into a turn.
Allen Martinez says
This is asinine. My Road Trainer at Schneider corrected a lot of things I did as a spanking new driver. Will the trainee remember to conduct his Guage, front, r/s mirror, front, gauge, l/s mirror? Will the trainee remember 10 second rule on passing? GOAL? ALL SMITH SYSTEM, ALL PROVEN METHODS TO WORK. Who will the trainee ask when they come to a situation an experienced driver can assist in? This is just stooopid!
Itwouldsurprizeyou says
Tell everyone you know to stay away from these carriers. while you at at it.. tell them to stay away from all trucks. I think all first year drivers ought to have yellow strips on front and rear of trucks to let the public know they don’t know what they are doing…. as in NASCAR…. but that would cost too much.
RM says
The yellow stripes for NASCAR mean that either the driver hasn’t competed in a full season before, or that the driver doesn’t have any/enough experience at a particular track with their vehicle. By that logic, every time you turn onto a road you haven’t traveled before, in the truck you are driving, you would have to stop and apply the yellow stripes to your truck.
HywayTraveler says
What BS! The FMSCA shows its true colors, and they are color blind. The Oligarchs ate truly running the country now. A motorcycle permit holder in many states, can only ride in daylight hours, no passengers, and no freeways. An automobile permit holder must have a licensed driver in the passenger seat at all times. But wait! At CRST and England, the trainer can be in the bunk, trying to sleep. Uh huh….great idea.
At least at Prime, you get a temporary Missouri license. The difference is that IT IS A LICENSE.
Chesley says
While I was a trainee with USA Truck, they like all the other large carriers only used trainees so that they could have cheep team drivers. And as the low man I was forced to drive nights after only a few hours sleep each night. I woke up on night driving across four lanes of traffic just barely missing another semi.
If you want to know why the FMCSA allows such dangerous behavior you only have to look at who the Presidents of the FMCSA are and have been. The large trucking companies own the FMCSA and there isn’t any oversight.
Beware motoring public!!
After a million miles behind the wheel I finally hung up my keys because it was just getting too dangerous out there with all of the poorly trained and untrained drivers!
Margo says
Chelsea, I’m with you. I used to enjoy and love my job. Now I believe it’s time to give it up. It’s just getting too dangerous out there. My grandchildren just wouldn’t understand if something happened to MawMaw out on the road by a “supposed-to-be-professional-driver”!
Matt says
The FMSCA is a joke. Period.
JJ 501 says
Will the trainee get paid same cpm as the co-driver if driving without the trainer on the passenger seat or still will get underpaid?
Kevin says
31/2 Million miles later no accidents no violations. I am done. time to sell the truck. This industry is not worth my professionalism anymore.
David boswell says
This is the most stupid idiotic thing I ever heard of. Why not Turn a 15 year old loose with a car if they have a driver’s permit. This is is going to bite the trucking industry in the ass. More companies are going to apply for this. Resulting in more accidents and in return. More unwanted regulations thrown at us the truckers. This just proves. That people in Washington have no clue.
mike says
if the trainee has a Certified Driver and Lumper card then it should be ok to turn him loose but a trainee with zero miles driven and 40 hours in a truck you are taking a hellava chance. I used to take drivers on deliveries out of massachusetts to Texas and back .Let them drive as long as they were legal . Any problems ,wake me,other than that don’t bother me but how much sleep can one actually get with a rookie behind the wheel. Some of them are still driving today but a few of them were to by boss man they had no business even trying to drive because thats what I told him.
K says
The FMCSA is correct about the trainee being safer behind wheel alone. Thirty years ago when I wanted to drive truck, I was tossed the keys and told to keep it between the lines and don’t hit anything. It made my extremely cautious and I had my eyes peeled to plan my next turn, position on road, docking. In 30 years I never had any accidents or hit one thing. It made me a better driver. Still, before I went out on my own, I was taught how to drive, had been trained in mountain driving and experienced every type of road and weather condition. I learned about city driving and how to read and understand paperwork and logs. I was trained for three years and experienced everything from how to handle breakdowns, do small repairs, change tires and tarp loads to reading and adjusting settings on a control panel and pulp temp loads. I was lucky to have good people around me to help me learn the right way to do things before I got behind the wheel.
duhfault says
~Same here. Raised on a farm, taught to respect and inspect and maintain equipment, as habit, long before I was 8 and allowed to ‘operate’ anything… by depression-era parents and grandparents.
But, I had my years of struggle in the operation department, I put 2 of 3 tricycle tractors on their sides before I was 13.
Margo says
Key word: BEFORE you got behind the wheel! Big truckers NY companies don’t train like that anymore.
old man says
I remember talking to a CRST trainer who was probably going to lose his job as his trainee took an exit without waking him. The trainee took a right turn taking out a light pole and severely damaging the trailer…so much for the FMSCA theory.
Jeff Pearson says
I dont know how to say it other than BULL SH#T… 99% of the time a trainee is driving down the road everything is fine.. its that 1% of the time that im worried about.. that 1% of the time when even a very seasoned driver has problems getting out of..that 1% of the time where that trainee wont have a clue or have been trained in ..that 1% of the time that with that totally unexperienced driver will hurt or kill people because they dont have the foggiest idea how to get out of the position that they shouldnt be in.. but are..
The department of labor says anybody that is an apprentice for less than 4 years is an unskilled worker..and trucking companies are turning out drivers in less than 30 days.. and some even making them a trainer..a trainer needs at LEAST 4-5 YEARS EXPERIENCE.. A trainee should be second seat for AT LEAST 9 MONTHS TO A YEAR..
This is why the trucking industry has nothing but a bad name to it.. they are getting anything that can sit in a seat..a chimp would work for some of these companies..and are giving minimal training..and a job where you will go broke working..so no wonder nobody is willing to make it a career.. and now they want driverless trucks..and they want regulations up the backside.. and this and that…so all the decent drivers and those that have made it a career are moving on..making hamburgers at mc donalds or what ever..but we will have very unskilled drivers and no person on person training… this is just like the arsonist driving out in the country.. and finding a nice dry wheat field..with matches in hand…it will be a major firestorm of anything and everything that can go wrong.. and the ATTORNEYS ARE GOING TO LOVE IT..
Margo says
Very well stated!
MpG says
A normal person hears “Trainees are safer without the trainers”, “Company X can’t make ends meet otherwise”, and “Company X needs to go out of state to find drivers”…
And they conclude that maybe the company is doing something wrong. Whereas the FMCSA decides to offer exemptions. Sometimes I think this is all a plot to make us decide that self-driving trucks couldn’t possibly be any worse…
duhfault says
Human-driving could hardly be more easily bested by self-driving tech.
Utterly atrocious statistics substantiate, what humans do is not accurately describable as “driving”.
duhfault says
[…there is “a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than,” when the trainer is in the seat and watching what’s going on.]
Duh. “Best safety lies in fear”. Rookies have a better road safety record than veterans, naturally. Rookies bump into stuff, veterans crash.
The rookie does not yet have enough miles to 1. Crash, or 2. Have lost “the fear”.
Cary says
Lobbyists were involved somewhere greasing the pockets of the FMCSA. This is very disturbing!!!
Toni gilbert says
I was going to make a comment but you all said it so well that I don’t think I needed to add to it.
Mike says
What the heck! Just do away with live trainers & install a video screen instructional system with a remote trainer on a computer handling 10 trucks at a time… Most CRST drivers aren’t paying attention to the road anyway!
Me says
Why even have a trainer, they’ve read the book, aced the smith system “lol” watched a bunch if videos filmed 40 years ago. Hell just give them the keys to an 80,000 lb bomb what could go wrong after all they have e-logs that’ll make them be a super safe driver.
D.W. Miller says
CRST is one of the worst “puppy mills” pushing out half qualified drivers. Oversight on these carriers needs to increase, they should not be getting a by…
Margo says
True… I was a driver for them and I saw so much illegal and unsafe crap there that I couldn’t wait to get away from them! I told my adult children if they ever see CRST on a truck or trailer on the highway, get as far away from them as possible or take the next exit off the highway!
Buddy says
It’s all a bunch of bull. It’s all about big company bottom line, to heck with safety or the welfare of anyone else on the road. As for CRST their drivers go down the road talking on their phones with their feet on the dash. They stay in the passing way to long and speed up when you try to pass them.
As for these so called trainers…most only have 6 months experience themselves…so how much can they know or teach.
crapola says
As a graduate from one of those puppy mill cdl schools 30 years ago, It is a miracle I survived alive ‘the first year. They literally turned me loose with no trainer, and i can still remember all the scrapes and bruises from that first year.
1. Scraped low bridge in Buffalo.
2. Knocked off two mirrors.
3. Mangled ladder on railroad track.
4. Smoked brakes in oregan.
5. And finally tore fuel tank off in Cincinnati, when I slid off road into guardrail during rain storm.
Last 29 years have been a bit better..
Wesley Cory says
Follow the $$$ and see who CRST paid off for a favorable ruling.
Banana Runner says
This is nothing new. CR England and CRST, among other large carriers, have always operated their training trucks this way. This is just a periodic renewal of the approval.
Derek Johnsen says
Glad I’m not sleeping in that bunk!
Dan says
Let the carnage begin. I can see it now. Trainee going downhill at night hits patch of black ice and notices his trailer lights are passing him while trainer is in bunk sleeping.
Robert says
I’m still trying to figure out how,”it’s too costly to have the trainer in the seat”. You have a student,trainee or newbie driving and you want to run them as a team? What experienced trainer would want to sleep while his trainee is driving? Oh wait a good example would be the you tube video of the truck going off the mountain with the trainee driving while the trainer is in the bunk. Yeah this is a great idea that took a great deal of brain farts to come up with and a bunch of fart smellers oops I mean smart fellers to agree with. Since the fmcsa folks loves this idea how about putting some of your children and grandchildren in the trucks with these students. How good would you idiots feel then?
V says
Yep.
And exactly how does a trainee not have a CDL? I had one. Sheesh, I had one before leaving for employment. Is this because of the way they train? Are they wanting to let these students to figure it out for themselves after they’ve gotten there license? If you can’t afford the costs don’t offer the service.
Margo says
Now this is a great comment!
??????????
Frank Michael Barnes says
Just had two students from CR ENGLAND. One was a good student. The other was the most difficult student I have ever had. They both upgraded and got their own truck. The difficult one is not driving at all at this time. We can all be thankful for that.
Alan Clelland says
I remember as a trainee being scared to death the trainer was gonna kill me while I was in the sleeper. Every night he drove first he turns the radio up then the windows go down “in the winter” then I hear the gravel in the wheel well. He couldn’t stay awake. After one week I called dispatch and refused to get back in the truck with him.
Username*Gordon A says
Lets see now. Question? if the trainer is in the bunk how does he train ???. How does he point out things the student needs to notice and be aware of? FMCSA lacks any truck driving skills and I bet that only 1 FMCSA member that thought up this BS has had a CDL or anyone in the family with one. A text book case of the blind leading the blind down the road to tragic accidents and so much more in the law suits and deaths department. . If this decision is an example of how the FMCSA thinks, There is going to be some serious changes made that will be useless once again.. Granted, some trainers shouldn’t be. But this worsens it 100%. I was a trainer at one time and I had 1 student that was good enough that I could sleep while they drove.1 in a 3 year period.
V says
Yep.
Phillip says
Problem is the trainer for big company’s have very little to no experience themselves. Both student and trainer teaching each other. Being self insured and having plenty of government funds through training of new Cdl. Holders Crst can be careless. Fmcsa works for them. Not the other way around.
V says
Yep.
Stephen Rodgers says
The idea that it would cost the company to get a new driver home to obtain his/her cdl is ignorant. When I started driving with a permit I was out with my trainer for 2 or 3 weeks then routed home to get my cdl. They had me deliver a load the morning I took the skills test.
Steve says
I trained with Gordon (before they became Heartland) and my trainer was a royal pain in the butt that wouldn’t shut up. But I learned a lot from him that I use every day driving. We didn’t team drive, he was in the passenger seat every second I drove, and we took our 10 hour breaks at the same time. It was a miserable month, but well worth it looking back. Team driving to train new drivers sucks, but letting a trainee drive unsupervised is suicide.
Kurt says
Yet nothing to try and retain older, safe and experienced drivers. FMCSA Keeps on lowering the bar for new drivers claiming no correlation to safety. BS, I see the correlation every day. It’s really just another step ushering in the era of driverless trucks. Watch for further cost savings by removing people.
V says
This almost as dumb as a swift driver.
Another Road Warrior says
In Oct 2006, once I received my CDL, and went on the truck with my trainer, I did most of the driving, and he (at 75 years old) spent most of the time in the sleeper.
Although students of the company I drove for, typically spend a month with a trainer, our dispatch inquired if I was ready to go solo on my 18th day. They had an abandoned truck they needed to be driven from New Mexico back to California.
Based on the comments, many don’t know that the permit test is a written test, that gives the school the ability to take you on the road with an instructor in the passenger seat. The skills test is an actual on the road driving test that gives the passing student an unrestricted CDL, where they can technically buy their own truck, get insurance, permits etc, and haul loads without a trainer. A trainer does teach what the school doesn’t, including how to confidently back a truck (part of the skills test), do paperwork, use the Qualcomm etc.
Most of driving a truck (in decent weather conditions) is setting the cruise control and maintaining lane control. The skill of driving a truck is mostly being observant, taking turns wide, and backing into the tight spots. Holding the wheel for 300 miles really doesn’t necessitate someone being in the passenger seat, but at the shipper / receiver, and the first / last 10 miles of a trip are when instruction from someone who knows how to teach (many trainers don’t) is when their presence and input are important.
Road Jouster says
When something goes wrong, and it will, CRST and the trainer should pay the consequences not the trainee! Another car of a company attempting to get more for less to increase it’s (the company) bottom line.
Bob Trehus says
Why not just tell the the permit holder to get in the truck and go… No wonder this industry has become so substandard. Semi trucks parked on the side of a 70ml. an hour freeway at night with no lights to boot. Foolish no sense idiots in charge of safety. Can they also smoke a joint..?
will says
Yea. Cr england has a x fleet program. Where 2 students with a 4 weeks with a trainer are placed on a truck together and they train them selves for the last 4 weeks, that was me with cr england but at 47 years old and my team mate who was 45, i thought we did ok. But looking at it from 3 years on the road. We were damn lucky we didn’t get into a accident just from lack of experience. It’s criminal we way these companies can just drop new drivers off the deep end and hope they make it.
Jeff kidd says
Ive trained students at crst,one of which woke me up screaming and crying on cabbage.He thought the truck,was on fire!i had to take control without an experienced trainer on board this wouldve most likely ended up much worse,per crst safety.this is insane!!!!!
Bruce Campbell says
“Well, the numbers show just as many accidents with a trainer as without. We can assume the trainers at CRST are top notch so the only logical conclusion is we don’t trainers!”
slacker says
My son was a newbie with C.R. England, with another student and trainer in the truck. He called me and asked how to use the Jake in the Smokey Mtns. I gave him instruction and two hours later the trainer woke and called me saying how good they did. I told him if he got my son hurt, I’d hunt him down and kill him. Three days later they got all these log violations and the trainer said he didn’t understand as they were rotating 4 hr. Driving shifts….who needs the 14?
Russ says
What is more costly. Proper training & care given to an employee to ensure everyone’s safety…, or paying thousands of dollars in a lawsuit after one of these companies poorly trained drivers kills an innocent family? FMCSA really needs to remove their heads from where the sun doesnt shine & regulate these trucking companies that mill out grossly under qualified & incompetent drivers. Schneider, CRST, CR England, V&S Midwest Carriers, Prime. All companies that talk the talk & put on a well fascaded front, but their safety standards when practiced out on the road are as good as horse manure.