Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

To the guy with the small children, do not become a trucker, you will miss far too much of their growing up and those are the best days of your life. Central and the other starter companies will teach you to drive, and you have to start somewhere, but the pay is pathetic I mean really awful and not even close to being enough to compensate for the headaches and amount of responsibility you will have. You can work 1 full time & 1 part time job for minimum wage at home and be working less than you will at Central and probably make more money as well as saving money by not having the added expenses of the road. OTR trucking is a tough and lonely life when you are single with no kids, imagine hugging your family 10 times a year instead of 10 times a day for no real financial gain. Flip burgers if you have to, you'll be happier.

 

celtic has the brains and ladyk has the balls lol.anyways i have read alot of good things about central i want to get my cdl through them is a good idea or should i go through tn truck driving school

 

flip a quqrter heads central tails a local driving school.

 

Central has a Huge turnover rate like most otr trucking companies, 26 my 1st day, i'm the only 1 left 1 year later. Home time is what i see as the biggest problem, as for myself they get me home about every 3 months, 1/4 of a year. I was too be home Aug. 8th last year after 2 months otr, home time approved etc. never got there, my temp licence expired Aug. 28th, had to greyhound home, get my licence and greyhound back and yes my dm and bosses knew, it happens. I am at the stockton drop yard now, 1 guy cleaned out his truck yesterday, just leaving it, i told him stick it out for 2 more weeks, serve notice and do it right, will think about it i guess. Central will get you experience, get your licence locally, then go too central, you will go thru the same as everyone else but only owe them 6 months, just realize you will be not at home . Central makes money moving freight, i don't see anything there as personal, they want you otr as much as possible, and don't realize some times you have too get home, it dawned on me
a while back their " DRIVER IS GETTING UPSET METER" is broken, they just don't see it.
I finshed my one year 2 weeks ago, contract complete, did not lease a truck, great feeling !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The recruiter will not tell you about the 6 months commitment, be sure too ask, survive 6 months and you are that much further ahead. Good LUCK

 

I too highly recommend you look into something else. Yes most companies boast about home time but the fact is that if you aren't putting in at least 4-6 weeks it isn't worth it. With little ones at home, once again, I highly recommend something else!

Good luck....

 

gotta agree with john patrick and chompi with little ones it is not worth it . i myself had little ones when i started. at first i said ahhh no big deal boy was i wrong. the hardest thing i ever did was having to stay out for 18 weeks and never see my family cause central could not get me routed home.

 

I just upgraded today and am headed to the drop yard in Stockton to do a recovery. I myself have 2 children (4 & 6) and a fiancée. It's been hard, but I get pictures/videos of the kids daily. That makes it a little easier. The way I see it, is I'll drive for Central until that local job pops up and I have the experience for them to hire me. Doing this is doing better than sitting at home, applying for jobs, and HOPE I hear something back. I also get to do video chat on my iPhone about once a week. Yes...iPhone is jailbroken, so tethering is a great thing as well. This isn't want I truly want to do, it does interest me, just nervous. And to further go into detail, I don't know still what I truly want to be doing. I have my A+ cert for computer repair, now I have my CDL-A, both look good on a resume.

 

Good to hear N172, although I didn't think the IT industry was suffering as much as most other fields of work. I've been working on saving money to get back into that field but the security or network spec I started to get my BA but family and financial stuff took a crap on me. Trucking is hard on the home life I try to get home time once every month and half to see my daughter but still isn't enough. Though with a good DM you can run hard and make the finances easier on the family but it is a sacrafise. Steady off running hard prove to your DM that your reliable and most DMs will do what they can to get you home when you request it I've been lucky I haven't been late for a home time and haven't missed one yet on my way home again on the 14th with my DM probably means I'll be there the 13th. Run hard and your DM will notice and do what he/she can to get you
home on time.

 

Some local driving jobs want OTR driving experience. But many do not. Construction type jobs want construction type experience. I drove for many years local construction type jobs. mixers, Dumps, etc. I have had to train OTR drivers at these company's on many occasions. And it is a pain in the rear. And many of them just do not get it. It is a much different skill set than OTR driving.
Yard jockey jobs, line haul, and some other local jobs will want OTR though.

Getting local experience can be hard. And the pay is not not as good as OTR. Unless you get in with a LTL line haul spot.
I know allot of people say that you save a ton of money not having to live on the road. I just do not see it. I spend a max of 100 bucks a week on the road. This includes scales. If I was at home I would probably eat close to 70 dollars per week. So I save 30 bucks per week being home...
This is not worth the loss of several hundred dollars per week in income.

 

hey chrome. let's not forget the local jobs don't pay what they used too either. an average of $3 less then when I first started 13 years ago. it's the reason I went back on the road.