If you don't mind paying thousands of dollars to basically teach yourself how to drive a CMV with…read moresafety and mechanical issues, Drive 509 is the place for you! Every truck we got in had something wrong with it. ABS systems and parking brakes malfunctioning, lights burned out, broken steps, broken heaters/defrosters, wheels locking up on trailers, and the clutches almost gone on most of the trucks, just to name a few things! But the biggest issue for us by far was the lack of proper instruction and care. All of the questions we asked the owner, Jason, were either avoided, dismissed, or answered with, "you don't need to know that right now" or "you need to figure it out for yourself". Another real concern is they dont bother to have students perform important safety steps (such as an air brake test) before heading out on the road. When I aked why this isn't required
at 509 Jason said, "we do not have time for safety tests on drives". Yet, he makes every student take the time to fill out an accident report if they hit a cone. Ridiculous and utterly unhelpful! It is clear that making/saving money is the priority for Jason. He made it apparent that neither safety, nor the concerns of students matter to him. When our class tried to discuss with Jason our frustrations, struggles, and the lack of instruction leaving us feeling Ill-prepared for testing, he became angry, told us we were negative, threatened to kick us out of his school, and told us we were "spitting in his face" because this was his buisness that we were badmouthing. I feel like our concerns were pretty legitimate. Like the fact that our instructor had only been an instructor for two days and his inexperience made learning -even the basics- difficult. Despite being really nice, he gave us a lot of misinformation. We told this to Jason. His response: "he is a good CDL instructor because he teaches taiquan do". Jason, told us that he, himself, had not taught a class in over two years and that pass rates were down because of this. The mechanic told us, "good luck passing the B to A exam in only two weeks!! The pass rates are super low for you guys!", and then took us to a stripped out truck and laughed while he poorly explained where *some* of the components *should* have been. While we appreciated his humor and honesty, we told Jason that this made us uneasy because these are all things students are expected to know for their state test and we couldn't learn like that. Again, Jason was dismissive.
If you choose to come here, plan to learn basically everything on your own. Question what you are being told because not all of it is accurate, and be prepared to spend a fair bit of time standing in the cold/heat out in the yard, because there aren't enough trucks or instructors to go around.
Overall, my classmates and I agree that we found it to be an extremely poor and frustrating experience. Good luck! Maybe y'all can find some place better to do your training, because this place sucks!