Starting my Trucking Career

why is that even a thing? Why would a driver even take a job like that? if no1 takes the job then the industry would get better.

 

sounds like a system similar to a auto mechanic.. they pay you for the hours the job is usually completed and not actual hours

That would be horrible

 

Honestly there's a lot of bad drivers out here, that's why companies can pay garbage wages.

 

yeah that is true. These pay structures are confusing....

 

Do your training time and look for a smaller company that treats and pays drivers really well.

You can also look into leasing on to a company like Landstar. Your truck, their trailers and loads. Gives you a chance to see if you want to go all in or not.

Also Roehl used to have a really good lease program. Not a ripoff like Prime and so many others. Heard from a few guys they were pretty happy. Easy to walk away from if it goes sideways unlike buying a truck.

 

23+ years class A driver here . Not working now because of vision problems . I drove for 3 companies in that time frame from 1993 till 2016 . Home every night except when I hauled groceries for a large supermarket company. 14 hr nights that job sucked . Different start times every shift , paid $64000 give or take a few thousand. If you can find a day job driving , home every night for $40-50000 that is the way to go but most companies run the crap out of you . Good Luck

 

there is a local company here that hauls wood chips and starts at 20/h mon-fri

Calportand is another company (cement truck) pay 20 starting then 26/h after training and they work 70 hours a week in the summer.

I would love to get on locally and there are a lot more companies, but they all want experience (I dont blame them)

I will eventually get into one. just a matter of time.

 

If I buy my own truck I will contract it to a mon-fri position here locally that hauls wood chips,building materials,paper. that is a long time from now though. I want experience first

 

There is a food company I used to work for in the 90s that now takes people with a class A permit and they train you . $16/ hr They have at least 60 accidents a year because of inexperienced drivers .This company also grosses over $100 million a year and I think they are self insured. Oh yea, you also unload the truck by hand with a hand cart , thousands of pounds a day up and down stairs and shit . I did it for nine years and have herniated discs in my neck and a bad shoulder

 

ouch lol, There is a food company here (Unfi) start at 22/h but they want experience maybe my location it is harder? I know at my age i am already more of a liability to smaller companies which makes it harder.

 

UNFI is out here too. New Hampshire , I used to do drop and hooks at that place .

 

I heard they are a good company to work for and great benefits

 

Could be . The one I went to was pretty small , only had about 20 docks .

 

Good point. If you'd asked me ten years ago I probably would have said the technology is fifty years out, but seeing the leaps and bounds companies have been making in the past five years I think that the technology will be showing up much sooner than many had anticipated. I think the biggest hurdle autonomous vehicles will face is public perception. Every driverless car crash gets loads of press, but we just take human-caused crashes as a matter of course. Driverless cars will never be perfect or accident free, but that's not the point. They just have to be safer and cause fewer accidents than people (which is, honestly, a pretty low bar).

Very good point about the people needed to design, build and fix those systems. Now that's a career my kid should be looking into--once he's out of diapers.

 

Yeah I feel it will be here soon but mainly as another tool for drivers to use (at least OTR)

I have a feeling with 1.7 million workers getting phased out once it goes into full swing the government would and I think should provide some type of program to train into those jobs for maintaining them and operating them. Who knows what will happen though.

 

Screw dedicated and OTR, go towards the LTL (Less than Truck Load) companies; XPO Logistics Freight, SAIA, YRC, ABF, Old Dominion, FedEx Freight, UPS Freight, Oak Harbor, and others.

I started in LTL at 23 just out of a trucking school.

I've worked for XPO (Formally Con-Way Freight) for four years. They work off seniority, but are none Union. Which I'd recommend for you if you plan on only a short term in the trucking industry.

XPO is home everynight or day (Depends if you work days or nights) worse is you'll run to one terminal and back in a day or night. May do P&D which is city work dropping off freight to multiple businesses and picking stuff up. 10hr days are normal, & city is hourly pay. So if you're stuck in traffic, you're getting paid.

There is a XPO Logisitcs Freight location in Portland, & they need drivers. Starting pay is $21.80 (?) & tops out at $27.26 (I believe) after three years. Time & a half after 8 in a day. So you work 10hrs on monday & vacation rest of the week. You're paid 2hrs of OT. We work monday - friday (if you're night linehaul you'll return saturday morning). Being at the bottom of seniority you'll probabaly be on call, but there is no shortage of work. Expect 50hr weeks at least. That means 10hrs of OT!

Every LTL company pays and operates about the same. It's just which works out best for you. Some like YRC, & SAIA will have you out for a week or more at a time before they bring you in.


Also, don't trust a thing any trucking company says. Dedicated runs come and go like middle school relationships. Today you have your run, tomorrow... Looks like you're going to Utah.

 

Been there, done that! Not with the Great Pumpkin, though. Drove for Crete for 18 of my 35 years on the road...

 

Just stay away from swift

 

Seriously, it DOES take a certain type of personality and temperament to drive for 8-9 hours a day, and deal with the hassles of getting a 75' long , 80,000 pound rig through traffic without blowing your cool...not to mention shippers, receivers, dispatchers, and more driving you nuts at times. I had to learn it over time...

 

My dad drove for windixie for 25 years and coca cola for 10 and greyhound buses for a few too he just said he enjoyed driving and the scenery