The Allstate Commercial Driver Training School, based in Seymour, wants to open a satellite campus in Bristol but is assuring neighbors that it won’t be flooding local streets with 18-wheelers.
The company next month will publicly present its plan for a campus in the Southeast Bristol Business Park, not far from ESPN’s headquarters.
Allstate is eying two lots in the park that make up about 3.2 acres. The company would put up a roughly 10,000-square foot building, but use most of the land for a large paved lot where student drivers could practice turning, braking, backing and other skills with a tractor trailer.
Only after mastering the fundamentals would trainee drivers be on public roads, the company said.
“Once the student has demonstrated their ability to back up and maneuver the truck within our training fields, we will take them out for on-road training with an experienced instructor who has their own brake to use if necessary,” Allstate said in a memo to the city’s zoning commission.
“We are proud of our excellent safety record and do not have any on-road at fault accidents or infractions. Of course we avoid residential streets and stay on main roads and interstate highways.”
Chris Maiorano, the assistant school director, told local officials that he has worked with Allstate in several locations during his 20-year career.
“I know it is critical for us to operate in a location where we will fit in with the neighborhood and have easy access to main streets and highways,” he wrote. “We are a low-traffic, low-impact operation despite a ‘big truck’ first impression. Our student traffic is evenly paced throughout the day so we never have all of our students arriving or departing at the same time. No “rush hour,” so to speak. Most people will not even realize we are there.”
Allstate’s plan is to do one-on-one training with a limited number of students to prepare them for the CDL exam. A commercial driver’s license is needed to operate tractor trailers, and the long-haul trucking industry has been complaining for years of a nationwide driver shortage.
Business Park Road in Bristol, where Allstate Commercial Driver Training School wants to open a small campus. (Courtesy of City of Bristol)
Allstate’s website paints an optimistic picture of the career opportunities in the business.
“The transportation industry is the backbone of America moving 10B+ tons of freight every year and is rapidly growing. The demand for safe and reliable entry level drivers is high with driver’s salaries seeing unprecedented jumps in recent years.
“It’s a driver’s market with new drivers making on average $62K per year and local, regional and over-the-road companies offering competitive mileage or hourly pay, benefit packages including medical, dental, life insurance and 401K, paid time off, and increased or daily home time for inexperienced and veteran CDL drivers,” it says.
There’s been severe controversy within the industry in recent years about the need for additional drivers. The American Trucking Associations has reported nationwide shortages of 50,000 to 80,000 drivers in recent years, citing an aging workforce, surging over-the-road freight hauling, and a reluctance by younger workers to spend extended time on the highway and away from home.
But other organizations, such as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, contends that industry giants have driven down pay, forcing drivers to work longer hours for less money. Those groups also claim there is no driver shortage, just an increasingly high rate of disillusioned novices quitting.
“The trucking industry has suffered from an overcapacity of truck drivers, which has helped drive the longest running freight recession in decades,” the organization said this week in a letter to Congress. “To be clear, there is no ‘driver shortage’ in trucking. Instead, there is tremendous driver turnover as under-trained drivers are put into a new job they are unprepared for.”
Allstate’s proposal goes to a hearing by the Zoning Commission in November.
