Category Archives: Truck Driving School

Trucking Website Comparisons

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In reviewing nine major Trucking Company web pages* many creative ideas were discovered.  Some ideas are the same and some ideas are not.  To begin with, Con-Way, CR England, and Swift Trucking were the only three companies reviewed that had video.  And Heartland Express, JB Hunt, and Schneider National were the only three companies that had live chat.  CR England Trucking is the only web page that gave information on their truck driving school.  And, no companies reviewed had blogging, a new idea that has not been utilized by the trucking companies as of yet.

Great ideas discovered are the following:

  • Con-Way – Images were the most modern of all others.  Fewer pictures of trucks and more pictures of lifestyles. I would have liked to see a few more advertisements for their trucking jobs with training.
  • Covenant Transport – is the only web page with Facebook and Twitter links.
  • CR England – the only web page that showed they have a trucking school.
  • Heartland Express – has “Live Apply Now/Chat with a Recruiter” button on all links, making it easier and more tempting for the job applicant to apply.
  • JB Hunt – when clicking on links, it changes images to match the link.  That was really eye catching for me.
  • Landstar – Kept the same theme on each link from the home page, creating a smooth transition between each page.
  • Prime Trucking – Has a cleaner look than other web pages with a big font that makes it easier reading.
  • Schneider National – Had a great idea under the Drivers tab.  Drivers talk to you on a white background.  Very creative!
  • Swift Transportation – Has a Spanish link, which is great to draw in more drivers.

Great ideas out there!

*Analyzed:

Con-Way Trucking

http://www.con-way.com/en/

Covenant Transport

http://www.covenanttransport.com/

CR England

http://crengland.com/

Heartland Express

http://www.heartlandexpress.com/

JB Hunt

http://www.jbhunt.com/

Landstar

http://www.landstar.com/

Prime

http://ww2.primeinc.com/index.html

Schneider National

http://www.schneider.com/index.htm

Swift Transportation

http://www.swifttruckingjobs.com/

Tips for Safety on The Road

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Women, just like men, need to use common sense when thinking about safety on the road and driving alone.  Women, however, have more to worry about.  It isn’t biased to say that women do not have the strength that men do.  We have to be careful.  With this stated, trucking is a great career for women and we should never be steered away from what we love. Not even because we are not as strong as our counterpart.  We just need to be realistic and be smart in driving across the country.

I found a great list of “do’s” for precaution from an article on jobmonkey.com.  Check it out!

  • “Stay away from remote rest areas, especially at night
  • Keep the doors of your rig locked at all times
  • Never advertise that you’re traveling alone, even on the radio
  • Stay off back roads or short cuts
  • Try parking close to the main door of any truck stops you’re at
  • ALWAYS carry a cell phone with you”

Another great idea found is to put a flannel shirt on the backrest of the passenger seat, making the thought that you have a big husky (and mean looking) passenger with you.  I thought that was a very creative idea.  Keep your head up and be aware of your surroundings is another wonderful thought.

Trucking is a wonderful lifestyle for people who love to travel and see the country.  Just be careful so that you don’t need to have anything bad happen to you.

http://www.jobmonkey.com/truckdriving/women-in-trucking.html

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=65490461&blogId=416202996

Trucking Company Helps Veterans Find Jobs

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State of Washington Office of the Governor sent a letter to Mauricio Kenny, a Disabled Veterans Outreach Program Representative, thanking her for a message she received from Kathy McCurty explaining the efforts for creating “free training and employment opportunities for qualified veterans” in the State of Washington.

It was a great letter that I think you will appreciate:

“Dear Mauricio:

I truly enjoy receiving messages like the one I received from Kathy McCurty about your efforts to create free training and employment opportunities for qualified veterans in our state.

I appreciate your professional approach to assisting many of our state’s veterans with training and obtaining new career paths through the Veterans Recruiting program.  I was pleased to hear that many have registered for training while others have already been hired.  During these challenging economic times, it is important for our veterans to have the opportunity to develop skills that will get them back into the workforce and earning living wages to support their families and their communities.

Like Kathy, I value your obvious commitment to exceptional service and your willingness to go the extra mile.  Thank you for the terrific job you do.  You are the kind of employee I am proud to have as a colleague in state service.

Great job, Mauricio!

Sincerely,

Christine O. Gregoire

Governor”

After reading this letter, I looked into what Veterans Recruiting is.  Veterans Recruiting is a program from CR England, Inc. that helps veterans start a new life going to school to become a truck driver.  With a huge waiver of fees, they can start their new life to become a part of the working force.  Once graduated, these new drivers are guaranteed a job with the biggest refrigerated trucking company in North America.

It sounds like to me that there are people and corporations out there that want to pay back our military for placing their lives on the line for us.  I salute C.R. England, Inc. and how they say thank you.

MRM/Driving Behavior As One

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Check this out!  Qualcomm and GreenRoad are working together and they have created a device that actually monitors “safety and driving behavior.”  Called the MRM/Driving Behavior Solution, it is the first in existence of one mechanism that sends feedback information about mobile resource management and driving behavior management from one source of data.  Very cool indeed!

Do you know what this means?  It means that fleet owners have a more simplified process of gathering information from their trucks and save money as well.  As the article states;

“Qualcomm’s Service Fleet Manager mobile resource management system uses GPS technology to give fleets visibility into their assets and provide an immediate snapshot of critical vehicle information through a web-based interface.”

Earthtimes.org wrote an article about the MRM/Driving Behavior Solution, and interviewed Norman Ellis.  He is quoted as saying:

“Mobile resource management and driver safety are vital issues to every local service fleet,” said Norman Ellis, vice president of sales, services and marketing at Qualcomm Enterprise Services.  “GreenRoad’s unique driving behavior service offers a different dimension to our mobile resource management offering, enabling our customers to obtain more value from each of the two services.  We are proud to work with GreenRoad and offer the first combined mobile resource management and driving behavior service.”

If one of a fleet owner’s Truck drivers take a risk that could hurt people or their truck, the information is instantly sent back to the office so that someone is aware and can take immediate action.  This is a wonderful program that may save lives.

Save money and have more access to truck information to protect from hazardous driving and mechanical problems.  That’s a win-win for me!

http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=69729&news_category_id=52

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/qualcomm-and-greenroad-to-provide,1205165.shtml

Read This Before You Get Ripped Off!

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This article originally came from a truck driving school blog

Here is the short and sweet abbreviated version to save you some time reading the entire article-

The quick and dirty truck driving school list:

  1. Check out the facility.- Since we are talking ablaut your neighborhood truck driving school here, you should make your decision in person. Go and see what the school has to offer. Is the facility clean? Are the employers happy to help you?
  2. Look at the training equipment.- Make sure the school doesn’t have a bunch of old rust buckets for training. After you get your license your going to want to work for someone so you better make sure you learn on current equipment because large professional trucking companies usually don’t have old trucks in their fleet.
  3. Ask your neighbors. – By this we mean ask people in the community or at the local truck stop to see what people are saying. Ask about the training program specifics. Ask what they think about drivers that attend that school. Are they safe or are they dangerous truck drivers.
  4. Check with work force service.- See I the truck driving school has tried to work with job service to get unemployed people training. Usually a quality school will have some sort of relationship with work force services or the division of labor. Even if they just have flyers or job postings it shows they are somewhat organized.

By following the items on the list above you can steer clear of the truck driving schools that could potentially rip you off.  Good Luck-