Newbie Team Driver Wannabees - Can We Do This?

You could skip the lease step and still be successful. Technically though it is just kind of in between company and actual owner operator. When you are leasing you are actually a company driver who makes the truck payment. You have some freedoms of an owner operator but still have to follow a lot of the companies policies and such. You don't own or lease the trailer and though companies will tell you that you don't have to take a load it really isn't smart to refuse one. Companies like JCT won't even let you do that. You must take what they assign you. Also if they don't like what you are doing at anytime they can take the truck back and send you packing! My wife and I terminated our lease with JCT and they put on our DAC that we were fired! How can fire you somebody who doesn't work for you? So for the most part you are kind of a glorified company driver under contract, paying for the use of the truck.

It does help prepare you a little better for actually owning your own truck and the opportunity for you to make more money is also there. I think the biggest factor is that anyone can sign on the dotted line for no money upfront and drive away a brand new truck for a few months. I say a "few months" because that is usually how long it takes before they are buried in truck payments and haven't been paid in awhile! The drivers who have put in some time and have saved a little money and are business savvy, and also don't have to go home can usually be successful. Helps to be a trainer. Brings in those extra miles of which all get paid to the truck and not to the trainee. Teams are the most successful, especially husband/wife teams because all the miles are paid to the truck and go to one homestead. This is why I don't usually hesitate to recommend leasing to husband/wife teams. You have to be pretty slack, have no understanding of trucking and/or a need to have home time all the time to not make it out there. A good husband/wife team can do very well leasing!

 

Training with a guy is actually a better risk than training with a female. For starters they have a bigger pool of men to choose from and there are many more reasons i can expand into if needed. It works out time wise as well as knowledge wise to have someone other than your husband train you. Lot of reasons there also such as stress, knowledge gaps etc... And forget spending a bunch of money for schooling, look at a community college. Spend the least money possible getting the CDL so you are not under pressure to stay with it if you don't like it. It is almost impossible to tell who will like it and do a good job until they do it. Last but not least as you mentioned health. Unhealthy job.

 

Professionals usually realize that trucking is not a good fit right off the bat and give up on the idea. In this economy the recruiter probably fields a hundred potentials going through the "what if" scenario before signing one up/

 

Over the years I have seen more problems with females and female trainers than with males training. You get a good experienced driver that has a family to support and you have a trainer. The training departments know how to match people. (USX and some others I'm familiar with). I gave a couple of reasons in my other post but having a bigger knowledge pool and stress are two big ones. Best to get some training done before you start stressing each other. The roads in this country are falling apart and sleeping in a moving truck is bad enough but sleeping behind a new driver is the pits. An experienced trainer gets a feel for who is safe to trust and who not to and even then it doesn't work out 100% of the time.
When you see some of the people you will be dealing with on a daily basis you will understand company policy against firearms.

 

We actually plan to get on with Con-Way Truckload, but if for some strange reason that does not work out, USX is our next choice. Feel free to PM me the info, just in case. We'd rather have all the ammo we can when it comes time to really pull that trigger. Have a driver referral at Con-Way TL, so hoping that will help in some fashion. I appreciate the offer. Your time before training is dwindling rapidly; getting nervous?