Universal Truck Driving School

If you’re looking to get your class A license do yourself a favor and read this review, I’m only giving one star because I can’t do zero stars. Let me start by saying I did obtain my license at the first try after completing this course. The instructors at this school don’t care if you’re learning or no, the guy that’s always at the yard his name is bolivar, he just tells you what to do and throws in a truck after showing you maybe one time. He can barely speak any English so if you don’t speak Spanish good luck learning the inspection because the papers the school gives you are super incomplete. The instructor that takes you to drive out on the street (whose name I cant remember) is the most nonchalant person I’ve ever met. The first time I’m driving a truck on the street he was yelling at me to honk at people that were «cutting me off» according to him, and saying I’m not a trucker and wasn’t born to do this, he made nervous and I’m pretty composed I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I was a shy type of person. The third instructor, the oe that takes the truck to the dmv just goes and sits there until he has to go home, when I took my test there were other students from other schools with their instructors giving them advice, mine just sat there eating a sandwich. Overall this school is very unprofessional and it only caters to Spanish speakers, if i ever passed my test it was by my own merit because I wrote my own inspection paper so I could study it since I couldn’t understand a word bolivar says, and the guy that took me to the streets didn’t tell me some critical things that would have caused me to fail at the dmv. Getting your cdl is an investment, universal is a cheaper school but you really do get what you pay for, if you have no experience at all with trucks don’t come here.
PD: this review is only about the school in LA, my friend went to the upland one and his experience wasn’t as bad apparently, but its run by the same people so be careful.
By the way I forgot to mention the place where you do your training is very small and there’s all kinds of other trucks going in and out all day that a lot of times get in your way and can waste like 15 minutes off of your training which of course they don’t let you make up at the end. Lastly the trucks are in very poor conditions and they break down all the time.

Es la peor escuela que puede uno ir no te ensenian nada es una perdida de tiempo .yo les aconsejo por experiencia propia q no se inscriban en esta escuela…

I’d recommend Simon as an instructor from this place. Not only is he patient, a little strict but he teaches you exactly what you need to know and what you need to improve in. Anyone that’s a beginner or even have a little experience in driving, Simon will encourage you to do your best.

I would give Negative stars if I could.
Anyway stay away from this school. It Doesn’t teach you all the necessary skills that you need for the test. The amount of hours that you need to practice is more than the hours they give you to prepare.
So in the end, you will end up failing the test and have to come back again to the dmv. Also you need to remember about the free brush up class they offer if you fail because if you don’t remember, they will try to squeeze some more money out of you.
Also their truck is 6 gears, which most truck are 10 gears and up at other schools. So if you want to learn how to drive a proper truck in a proper school, just stay away from this school and look for the school that don’t have the fixed amount of hours for the class. look for the school that give you unlimited hours and unlimited dmv appointments. Even it might cost a little more .
From my experience their differences in fees from the cheapest school that have fixed hour of training and the school that give you unlimited hours it’s only $ 500-​$ 600 and you won’t have to worry if you are not confident enough to take the exam. So good luck guys and stay away from cheap deals.