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player ready...“Turn the wheel to the right until you bump the curb,” truck-driving teacher Don Anderson told Dr. David Sam as the Elgin Community College president sat behind the wheel of a moving semi-trailer truck Wednesday. “And don’t forget to keep checking your right-side mirror.”
When the semi’s half-mile-long drive through a suburban street was over, Sam had successfully avoided crushing any automobiles, knocking over any bike riders or even breaking any traffic laws. But even if he had, the suffering would have been merely fictional, because Sam was trying out a new $99,000 driving simulator that will be used for ECC’s truck-driving and fire science students starting in mid-September.
Anderson, director of the truck-driving program at ECC, said that new students now will be learning the basics of driving on the simulator before they take to the streets of the Elgin area on one of the 12 real semis and three real firetrucks that the college owns. And, in terms of the job market, he said this couldn’t be coming at a better time.
“There’s a tremendous shortage of truck drivers,”: Anderson said. “We get calls every day from trucking companies, asking if I know of any drivers looking for work, if I can send graduates their way.”
He said the shortage of trained drivers is being caused by a “a perfect storm” of three factors: A large number of baby-boomer truck drivers are retiring. The economy is picking up and with it the flow of merchandise via truck. And new federal rules that rate drivers based on how many crashes, tickets and violations they have experienced tempt companies to lay off their more dangerous drivers lest the companies be held legally liable for any future crashes they cause.
“Typical starting pay for a driver is now about $50,000,” Anderson said. About 80 students a year finish the ECC program.
The ECC program takes just one semester and costs about $4,000 in tuition and fees.
“We’re talking about being able to change a life in 16 weeks,” said Ileo Lott, ECC’s dean of sustainability and business and career technology.
The simulator, made in Salt Lake City by L3 Driver Training Solutions, seats the student in a chair intended to reproduce the look and feel of a truck cab. The windshield displays an animated moving picture of the street ahead. Side windows include mirrors that show what a driver on that street would see to his rear.
The machine emitted a throaty growl as Sam started the diesel engine. It delivered bumps and vibrations to his feet as his vehicle rolled down the simulated street of a suburban industrial park. The president had to steer around two road-construction barricades.
“That right-side mirror is hard to see,” Sam said.
“We tell students not to just keep looking forward,” Anderson said. “You should check both mirrors every few seconds to see what’s happening to the sides of your truck.”
After learning about trucking laws in the classroom and using the simulator to learn the basics of driving, students still will move on to driving the college’s 12 real semis. But Anderson said the simulator will reduce wear and fuel usage on the real trucks, which the college buys on the used-truck market for an average of $40,000 per tractor and $5,000 per trailer.
“And if a new driver is looking down, trying to figure out what he needs to be doing in the cab, he’s not paying as much attention to the traffic around him, so it will improve safety for people on the real streets,” he said.
Advanced students then can return to the simulator to practice driving in heavy snow, ice, fog and other conditions that would cause instructors to cancel real-life driving lessons. “We can even practice mountain driving,” Anderson said. “There aren’t too many mountains in Elgin.”
Besides truck drivers and firefighters, Anderson said, the simulator might be used to train snowplow drivers who work for the area’s cities and villages.
Carl DeCarlo, coordinator for the college’s fire science training, said he expects fire departments from all over the Fox Valley to send existing firefighters to practice driving under dangerous conditions. The college also has three real fire engines that were donated to the college after serving with the Elgin, Hampshire and Streamwood fire departments.
Harriet Happel, office coordinator in the college’s career-tech division, said the simulator was paid for with a Perkins Grant, which uses federal money distributed by the state to encourage career and technical education programs. She said the grant program especially aims to encourage career training for “nontraditional” students. And in truck driving, Happel said, that means trying to recruit more women.
Unlike so many fields that get left behind by changing taste and technology, Sam said, “trucking is one industry that will never go out of fashion. There will always be a need for people who can drive a truck.” .
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