How to get started in a driving career.

You've been given some good advice, just ask around. I'm not sure how much different the market is in Canada versus the United States, but I got hired as an over the road driver bride even finish CDL school, a company promise to hire me before I even graduated. This is not a difficult industry to break into.

I would recommend this, get your passport if you don't already have one, or Nexus, or an enhanced drivers license if your province offers them. The reason is, I see a whole lot of Canadian trucks in America, and my guesses if you have the ability to legally enter the United States, you can probably pick up more miles (more miles = more $$$) and it would make you more useful to most canadian carriers. I got my passport about halfway through my career with Schneider and it made me a little money doing some freight to Canada

 

I was faced with exactly the same problem when I started in 1976. I solved the problem by buying my own tractor and have been at it for 40 years. Hard to do now...

 

That 1st year means you'll work for peanuts.. gaining "valuable" experience... then you can be railroaded into inexperienced driver pay at a MEGA company that leaves you hung out to dry regularly.

There is money to be made in this industry.. you just have to catch lightning in a bottle... or be DARN good at makin' things happen.

 

That was not my experience at all, true the pay was low, but I did work for a megacarrier and I got to say my treatment was more than fair. And I did gain valuable experience, not valuable in quotations but valuable experience. And I rarely left Western Washington state before I went over the road, I got to meet many people and see a lot of exciting places, got exposed to the cultures of different regions of the country, that experience in and of itself is worth a lot more than the monetary pay I received

 

Uber is hiring owner ops with no experience $1.70/mile

 

My sage advice below. More people should take it because most wannabe truckers haven't got a clue what it means to be a truck driver. They think it's easy. They think there gonna be the king of the road. Reality soon sets in and they quit, wasting everyone's time and money.

"Before joining a school, prospective truckers should throw a dart at the lower 48 and then get in their 4 wheeler and go there. Must take a 30 minute break every 8 hrs. Must stop driving after 11 hrs and sleep 10 hrs in the back seat. Must park 14 hrs after you started your day regardless of what happened that day. Must drive through snow, wind and freezing rain. When they get to their destination, they must sit in a parking lot for 3 hrs. Then throw another dart and do it again. No choosing your destination, no time for sight seeing. Do that for 3 weeks and then go home for 2 days. Then ask yourself if you want to make a career out of that."

 

Well said!

 

I'd do that just to throw the #### dart! Ooh, what fun!!!

 

Don't forget to stop at the local "Choke and Puke" as so described by Sheriff Buford T Justice(Jackie Gleason) in Smokey and the Bandit...
And a chain drive wallet is always a good idea..

 

Wouldn't recommend doing that anyway even if you could afford it.