


The driver had been following the rules, Town Administrator Mike Samson said, but as the day wore on and the intensity of the storm picked up, the decision was made to allow the driver to work on his own. In the haste to get town roads cleared, a town employee who was in the process of obtaining his commercial driver’s license, or CDL, was allowed behind the wheel of a plow truck by himself.Īs a trainee, he should have had a CDL holder in the cab with him while he drove. On a Friday in late February, a major snowstorm had the road crew in Canaan scrambling. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. “It’s hard work, but they give you what you need to get it done.” (Valley News - James M. “Driving’s just a small part of this job,” he said. Edmondson, photographed at Casella’s facility in Hartford, Vt., on Friday, May 27, 2022, now drives a 30-mile route with 400 stops daily. After a month with the company, he had completed a two-week course at Casella’s training center in Rutland and earned his Class B CDL for single-vehicle trucks. Send requests to Edmondson, who moved to Lebanon from Chattanooga, Tenn., a year ago and after working at several jobs in the area, responded to an ad for a job requiring a commercial driver’s license at Casella.

Students are required to do the equivalent of 30 miles a day on the simulator during the four to five week CDL program. Ryan Rivet, of Chester, middle, laughs with driving instructor Scott West, left, and Northeast Driver Training owner Todd West as he grinds the gears on a shifting simulator at the school in Chester, Vt., on Thursday, May 27, 2022.

Send requests to Valley News photographs - James M. "It's a big career change for me," said Davis, who is looking for higher pay than his current warehouse job. "He's not going to be a hard one to teach because he's never driven a standard transmission before," West said of Davis on his first day in the cab, because it can be hard to break car habits on a truck's 10-speed transmission. Sonny Davis, of Claremont, N.H., practices backing a tractor-trailer under the guidance of driving instructor Scott West while working on his Class A commercial driver's license at Northeast Driver Training in Chester, Vt., on Thursday, May 27, 2022.
