Uber is getting bad, and my other job doesn't pay enough. I like driving and visiting new places. Does trucking pay OK? Can it be a career, or at least a career for the next 5 years? I have a good driving record and Should I become a truck driver? If yes, then kindly show me the steps to becone a truck driver.
Is trucking a career?
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It's a harder job than most think. It's very common to not last three months. Sometimes due to homesickness and other times due to getting fired due to too many accidents. When starting out you will likely get tickets and/or an accident. It's tougher than just driving a normal car because you face all sorts of more dangerous situations such as backing into tight alley and crossing four lanes of traffic to do so. Sometimes you HAVE to break the law to get it done so you are always taking a risk.
Most advice I have heard is to go to a community college or technical school and get your training there as opposed to a company school. It tends to be only $1000 or so and you are free to go to whichever company you want.
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I think $15-25 fairly common if I remember correctly. Information technology, law enforcement... If you have to work another 20 years, will your occupation still be relevant (might be hard for some of us to truck into our 60s unless we didn't have any other skills)? I'm working on this myself at the moment. Like day driving but not consistent enough year round
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$15-$15 for a biiig truck. You kidding? $15 is for 2 Axle cars. Trucks must be paying $300 on George Washing bridge
Get your licence, you will always have work, trucks, buses, limo Bus, cement mixer etc etc
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Straight trucks are good too.
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One of the more interesting changes, in my opinion, is vlogs. In other words, preventing drivers from cheating with their logbooks.
And companies demanding that they cheat.
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Just drive for the cartel. 1 in 10 loads get caught so you have a 90% chance. I’ll be watching the national news to see if you made it. We will call you the little engine that could.
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we had a guy here in colorado that didn't know how to brake properly a few months ago ran into a bunch of cars stuck in traffic under a bridge. killed a bunch of people i think some cars blew up under the bridge. here's a clip of a guy who avoided getting killed, he was live streaming at the time. it's 2 minutes long and it's insane!
on the other hand i've heard cdl's are in high demand still here. i think safeway is offering a $12k signing bonus for your first year. i remember hearing that the guys who drove union in hollywood for movies/tv shows etc. had it made. big $$$ and sat around all day doing jack, lol.
i had thought about trucking myself. i would have loved to long haul and see america. i've been to less than a dozen states and lived in just 4. i have a kid now so no longhauling for me. i had friend when i was in high school whos dad was a trucker. he made bank! they lived in a nice big house but their dad was never around.
on the other hand i've heard cdl's are in high demand still here. i think safeway is offering a $12k signing bonus for your first year. i remember hearing that the guys who drove union in hollywood for movies/tv shows etc. had it made. big $$$ and sat around all day doing jack, lol.
i had thought about trucking myself. i would have loved to long haul and see america. i've been to less than a dozen states and lived in just 4. i have a kid now so no longhauling for me. i had friend when i was in high school whos dad was a trucker. he made bank! they lived in a nice big house but their dad was never around.
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Looks like he was simply traveling too fast for conditions. Slow traffic means slow truck. Perhaps he was more concerned with getting to a shipper or a truck stop before his 11 was up.
Once a FedEx set of doubles smoked his brakes coming down Cabbage Hill (otherwise known as Deadman Pass in Oregon) because he thought I was going too slow so he shot past me and couldn't recover the rest of the way down the mountain.
You'll lose about 2,000 feet of elevation in six miles and twist through a double hair pin turn at a 6-percent downgrade. On an average 78 percent of the Cabbage Hill crashes involve out-of-state motor carriers! A stretch near the crash site is ominously named Deadman Pass, as indicated on the road sign at Exit 228.
There's a big sign at the top of the mountain that tells truckers what gear to be in for the weight of the load. I had 73,000 lbs. So that meant 6th gear for me...too bad so sad. 🤷‍♀
FedEx smoked his brakes all the way down the mountain and shut down traffic for the rest of us, both trucks and cars. We couldn't see the winding mountain roadway anymore. One wrong turn and its a 2000 ft drop to the bottom of the mountain.
Finally the smoke cleared and we all made it to the bottom There was FedEx dumb ass standing there with a fire extinguisher while his rear trailer was fully engulfed in flames.
Oh and the best part, there's a police weigh station a mile down the road where the cops could watch this dumb ass.
Here's a video from a trucker coming down Cabbage Hill..
(OMG that beautiful sound of that engine🥴❤🎵🎶.....)
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OMG. OMFG. I have missed my true calling.
I remember back a lot of years ago. I was commuting an hour each way, for six months. I remember thinking that I was enjoying the driving a lot more than the job itself. I wondered if I should start driving for a living.
Unfortunately, you know now that I didn't. In my late 60s now, I don't want to do ANY job full time.
I pulled the plug on full time work in early 2018, about 20 months ago. I've wondered since then, given the shortage of drivers, if there's a way to get a deal working part time. A long trip here, a few days off, a couple of long trips after that, etc.
I'm not concerned about the up front cost for training. I can handle that. There must be somebody out there who wants to hire a driver to manage their peaks and valleys of workload.
Any thoughts on that? (Seriously intended.)
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Sorry, saw this but forgot to reply.
Yes there's part time work but this time of year. This is the time when trucking companies are trying to reduce hours to ration out evenly to keep their current drivers. Most trucking companies won't be bringing in new drivers until April and May.
You'd be looking at position as a Linehaul driver. They are drivers who drive on a local route and are home daily. You would want a job where there is "No Touch Freight" or the freight not very difficult to handle like solid pallets of products and you are using an electric pallet jack.
Stay away from LTL and companies like Pepsi and Coke, unless you love lumping freight.
Notice the lift gate in the back.
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New rates, starting today:
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I will drive a truck and I will remain healthy. I will have healthy food in my fridge. No junk food, all vegetables and fruits and fish. And no bread and rice. And I will also work out reguarly, like everyday.
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Okay, but a tax write off means the toll amount isn't taxed, but the cost is still there. E.g, truck driver gets paid $200, but spent $50 on tolls. They are only taxed for $150, but they would have still made more if the toll was cheaper or not there at all. Although I guess the toll amount might be factored into the customer's rate, which could be cheaper if there was no (or reduced) toll.
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Do truck drivers receive 1099's too?
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Trucking companies and truckers set up accounts. They get a reduced toll than the standard posted one. Truckers who go through a certain area often (like on a set route) will set up an account. I know most truckers who work the northeast tri-state runs, have accounts set up either by the company or themselves as Owner-Ops.
Company truckers get fully reimbursed at the end of the trip or on payday soon as they turn in the receipts to dispatch.
Owner ops save the receipts as cost of business and write it off as a business expense.
Doubtful OP will be an Owner-Op. That means you buy your own truck, and broker your own loads. In order to be profitable at this you have to really know the trucker game and be a very experienced driver. Customers aren't going to put their freight in the hands of an inexperienced noob with no concept of driving cross country runs safely and on time. Likewise insurance companies will be hard to come by.
Then there's Per Diem:
Per diem is a daily allowance you give employees to cover travel-related business expenses. Per diem means "for each day." You give employees a fixed amount of money to cover daily living expenses, including lodging, meals, and incidental expenses.
Truckers who use per diem sign up for that pay bracket at the time of hire. I never signed up for per diem. I never went through the amount of money daily they portioned out on per diem at my company.
Yes but I've always filed 1040 because I worked for companies. I would never buy my own truck.
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[QUOTE="Lissetti, post: 5730979,
I would never buy my own truck.
[/QUOTE]
But why not?
I would never buy my own truck.
[/QUOTE]
But why not?
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Because cross country trucking is a dying career.
This is the new Trucker.
![INTERMODAL-550.jpg]( "INTERMODAL-550.jpg")
Also, your truck has to be fitted out with the latest in FMSCA regulations, and these trucks costs start at $150k. That's just for the cab, not the trailer too. You don't know how to broker freight, a trucking broker will most likely not take a risk on you, and you have no idea if you should accept that load of vats of peppermint oil coming from Los Angles going to Maryland and it has to be there in 3 days.
Or how about that load of Lays potato chips coming from Sacramento going to Nebraska. Should you take hwy 80 or 40?
Likewise when I have to sit at the port or the rail waiting in line to get in to get my load, my 3 hour wait is paid for. I'm on the clock. You don't get paid until you get that load and are moving. Miles equals money for you but I as a company driver get paid 3 ways. Load, miles, and hourly.
Oh and you are also responsible for the cost of maintenance and repair of your truck. It breaks down, you pay for everything. The tow, the repair and you lose the load you were under as another trucker is hired by the customer to come get their freight.
This is the new Trucker.
Also, your truck has to be fitted out with the latest in FMSCA regulations, and these trucks costs start at $150k. That's just for the cab, not the trailer too. You don't know how to broker freight, a trucking broker will most likely not take a risk on you, and you have no idea if you should accept that load of vats of peppermint oil coming from Los Angles going to Maryland and it has to be there in 3 days.
Or how about that load of Lays potato chips coming from Sacramento going to Nebraska. Should you take hwy 80 or 40?
Likewise when I have to sit at the port or the rail waiting in line to get in to get my load, my 3 hour wait is paid for. I'm on the clock. You don't get paid until you get that load and are moving. Miles equals money for you but I as a company driver get paid 3 ways. Load, miles, and hourly.
Oh and you are also responsible for the cost of maintenance and repair of your truck. It breaks down, you pay for everything. The tow, the repair and you lose the load you were under as another trucker is hired by the customer to come get their freight.
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What can we do to minimize the effects of those diesel fumes? Any masks?
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