Limousine Drivers

[1stLadyDriver]

Try posting your job ads online. There are free online website where you could such as adsglobe.com and the likes.

[ausultimate]

hire someone and train them properly,pay them good and treat them with respect and you will have a "chauffeur" for life

Yup. Try to clone yourself - the only way is to be extremely picky about who you hire and then train them in the way you want them.

[ausultimate]

Im glad this came up, never thought of it.

It may be me, and it may be the area, but I've had horrible experiences with school bus drivers. On the whole, they know how to drive, for the most part, but the customer service part of it is completely alien. You don't have to be nice to your passengers when they're school kids and a lot of them aren't nice to the ones who are paying them. YMMV.

[Pyro]

Most school bus drivers are hard on gas , then hard on brakes. Most are hard to retrain

[Karl]

If that's true that they are "hard to retrain", then the problem is with whoever is doing the training.

[brandon1]

Most school bus drivers are hard on gas , then hard on brakes. Most are hard to retrain

Some of my best and most senior drivers are school bus drivers.

[Digger]

I have an EMT, two seasoned chauffuers that worked for other companies before and three certified CDL instuctors. I love the crew that I have right now, the EMT is very picky about keeping the vehicles super-clean, the two seasoned guys already knew how important a clean vehicle is and my instructors know all of the legal stuff about over-the-road stuff.

[Pyro]

Why do you want to put the blame on trainer Karl and not the person that has been doing the same thing for 20 years. Most school routs have a time factor built in to get done. Kids are not to be drinking on bus , like Brides in Wedding Gowns drinking beverages. You dont want to spill something on Brides . School buses average about 190 HP egines and it takes more throttle to get them moving. A V-10 Ford has lots of power and half the weight. Not all are hard to train but most need time to be easy on throttle & brakes

[edwinslimo]

It looks like everyone responding to this thread has never driven in new york or boston.Years ago I was doing a wedding and a 100K sports car cut four feet in front of my bumper without using a turn signal and guess what someone drink spilled.I had a boss that forever complained about how his drivers used to much gas and brake.One day he bought a new white 10 at US coachwork on long island and was driving back to massachusetts and he said he almost crashed the car twice.Thats why we use so muck brake,so you dont crash the cars in New York.Then after you use to much brake as to not almost crash the car you must then use to much gas so the car behind you wont rear end you.

[Pyro]

I drove new trucks from manufacturer to dealers for a few years Most were 3 way ,but some were 4way piggy back. The east was always an adventure. Tough to keep a safe distance with out someone moving into that space. Most people do not understand how tough a drivers job is .

[Cedar Mill Limousine]

I don't care what they have done in the past - everyone is different. We have 5 phenomenal chauffeurs: a school bus driver, an independent seller of Shaklee, a commercial print ad salesman, a plumbing supply store manager, and a supervisor at a commercial emergency cleaning company. I firmly believe it all comes down to the personality of the person. Some people are born with a service personality. As far as the driving part of it - I have had some good bus drivers and bad bus drivers in my school career - everyone is different.

[Cedar Mill Limousine]

If that's true that they are "hard to retrain", then the problem is with whoever is doing the training.

I would agree that training is key. Most companies are too lazy (or "busy") to spend the time to train (not just run through the basics quick in a hour test drive).

[edwinslimo]

Just saw article on MSN live that the city of scranton,PA is cutting all civil servents such as both police and firefighters pay to minimum wage

[Bigdan]

It looks like everyone responding to this thread has never driven in new york or boston.Years ago I was doing a wedding and a 100K sports car cut four feet in front of my bumper without using a turn signal and guess what someone drink spilled.I had a boss that forever complained about how his drivers used to much gas and brake.One day he bought a new white 10 at US coachwork on long island and was driving back to massachusetts and he said he almost crashed the car twice.Thats why we use so muck brake,so you dont crash the cars in New York.Then after you use to much brake as to not almost crash the car you must then use to much gas so the car behind you wont rear end you.

I hear ya but I get that kinda treatment everywhere. I heard a driver got fired from his company simply on the grounds that his on board computer said he was being hard on the brakes regardless of the circumstances.

[Limo Scene]

This is another great thread that shows the wide variety of opinions on a single subject. I have numerous school bus drivers that work for me and I can't lump them into a single group and say they are all the same. I have one that would attempt to change a tire on one of our buses and totally is committed to vehicle conditions but isn't the best educated so when his mouth opens he says things that are grammatically incorrect but is a fantastically safe driver. Yet, another one of my school bus drivers (who left the school system to work here full time) wouldn't clean a glass with fingerprints on it because it is "not her job to clean but to drive". I know you are asking yourself, "why is she still there"? Because she drives a fixed route Monday through Friday, her passengers love her and she gets the job done because it what she is used to. I can also send her to Dodger Stadium, Disneyland etc. as long as it is Point A to Point B and return. Then there are the cops.....I have to ask myself sometimes, why do they have a gun and badge? People are people......some are winners and some are losers.

Just FYI, I did post a list of about 100 interview questions you could use to weed out the dorks. It is at www.LCTmag.com under my most recent blog. Hope you can use it!