A few years ago, government of Ontario set some rules about truck transmissions and they flow like this: if a candidate passes their Class A truck driving road test on a truck with standard transmission, they are allowed to drive any truck with any type of transmission but if a candidate passes their drive test on a truck with an automatic transmission their license will be restricted and they can only drive a truck equipped with automatic transmission.

This rule is fair and the sole purpose of this rule is to make our roads safer. The MTO website states, “The introduction of a manual transmission restriction is designed to ensure that commercial truck drivers are fully tested and demonstrate proficiency in the types of vehicles that they will drive once licensed.”

Now, when new candidates for Class A license complete their Mandatory Entry Level Training (M-E-L-T), they sometimes struggle to pick between the automatic transmission and standard transmission.

Choosing the Right Transmission for Your Trucking Career: Automatic vs. Standard

Here are a few suggestions to help take the right decision in terms for transmission: Frist of all, let’s be clear that automatic transmission is the future. The majority of the mainstream trucking companies only buy automatic trucks and if you plan to go into long-haul trucking or even work for a common carrier, automatic transmission is the pick.

But, If you want to have more fun with trucking and you enjoy being in control of the gears and in the near future, you want to be an owner-operator, you should for the standard transmission.

Now, there are a few more factors you should bring into consideration, for example: with manual transmission, you have a larger job pool to fish in. But, if your license have auto transmission restriction on it, you can’t apply to the companies that still have some standard transmission tractors.

Also, when I comes to truck driving schools, not all schools offer truck training with a standard transmission. So, if you plan to get a restriction-free license, make sure you look for the school that actually offers training on standard transmission.