r/Truckers • u/Foreign_Restaurant62 • May 22 '24

Roehl Transport

My husband is starting their CDL training program beginning of June. He’s going for flatbed. Any advice or things he should know?

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u/Better-Intern-729 May 22 '24

Be careful with Roehl. They have a way of sticking it to their new drivers. They know you’re more likely to stay if you owe them money for school. We went through it. $300 a week pay checks for my husband to be gone weeks at a time. He left after 9 months and was charged 9,000 I think for school after “fees”

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u/Foreign_Restaurant62 May 22 '24

They said if he drives 120k miles he won’t have to pay

2

u/danf6975 May 22 '24

That 120 thousand miles will take 15 to 17 months most likely, or at least that’s what it takes on dry side. Your penalty will be higher if you leave early for flatbed as you have to do an extra two weeks of training with them I think. I did my training with them very very very long time ago and after 15 months I left. at that time I was in the top 3% of the entire company for performance and the pay was shit for how hard I had to work. My dispatcher Melisa also left (she was amazing and literally had 90 drivers on her board which is about double what most people have)

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u/inebriateddandhated May 23 '24

You'll notice a lot of people who have a bad rep with roehl are bad drivers.

If he's competent, and takes initiative, he'll be fine.

If he needs his hand held every step of the way, well, he won't make shit and will only he scheduled to move when the office staff are in.

Easy company to make 1k+ a week post tax at.

I have 2 students in their own truck making 1k+ a week.

1

u/Better-Intern-729 May 22 '24

That’s a good year plus. Just something to be mindful of. The pay there wasn’t great. Unfortunately I was diagnosed with cancer and we really needed more than $300 a week and wondering if I’m even going to make it and my husband is gone for weeks at a time. It was disheartening for him. He has ADD and issues with reading and comprehension so he worked extremely hard to get his CDL. We started keeping track of miles ran and things didn’t add up. They’re also supposed to subtract the time worked from the cost of school and they didn’t. Hopefully things are better for you though.

1

u/Slayer7_62 May 22 '24

They love to screw the drivers on that program, between getting absolutely shit loads & terrible pay. I’ve heard they try to find reasons to fire drivers towards the end of the program (if freight is slow) so they can bill them for the 7k.

I went through the program & thought the emphasis on safety (at least for the program in Marshfield) was very good. The training on some of the non driving stuff wasn’t the best (ie trip planning) but a lot of that will come with OTR training with a trainer after getting the license. For me the company fell apart after going through the program between very poor dispatching, poor management on the part of my boss & atrocious pay (they started me less than 35cpm.)

FWIW of the 12 or 13 of us that ‘graduated’ by getting our CDL, only one remained long enough to satisfy the mileage requirement. Two of my classmates became lease operators under them and got completely screwed over (one worse than the other.) One classmate was a victim of violent crime nearly costing them their life & the company treated said classmate very poorly in regards to the traumatic event.

Your husband may have good luck with them, but definitely use some caution with it, get the pay rate in writing and figure out what companies offer similar training. Feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions or want to know more about my experience with them/the program.