Highspeeds, when you say "here," are you talking about your current employer or the XPO terminal you used to work at? For XPO, the 7wk school has replaced both the 12wk and 9wk schools. They get the same amount of training hours as before, just longer days.
As to the new cameras, it's too soon to say for sure, but here is what I know. The cameras will still be tripped via accelerometers measuring forces, but the 12 second clip will be 10 seconds instead.
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Fly-by-night, is that picture from one of your loads? That's representing a corrosive hazard in a bulk or bulk containers and it's just as legal as a single Class 8 placard with white UN numbers in the middle. The problem is that UN2794 represents lead acid batteries and unless one of them is large enough to contain more than 119 gallons of acid, the placarding is improper and the orange numbers should not be displayed, but you already know that. If it is correctly placarded, the size of the numbers could possibly get a driver lit up because it appears to me that the font is too small to completely fill the orange field.
To your second comment. If you're talking about driver mentors as in the drivers that do the ride-alongs, you're right, they still receive their regular pay for taking a student or new hire. But also, at least where I work, we always have enough volunteers who are content doing the work with nothing extra expected in return. Teaching is a labor of love for most folks.