For newbies wanting home time

Look at Regional, Choosing the right carrier With lanes running by your house can get you home during the week and home for the weekend.

 

I dont't think I've seen a lot of threads here "encouraging" people to go get their CDL with the specific idea of only getting a local gig right out of school but have seen a few stating they did get one. It's gonna happen or it's not and if it doesn't then don't be surprised and be prepared for something different. As far as making more money OTR vs local well.............not in my experience and not from what I've seen. There are exceptions to everything. Some grads will get a local job but most wont.

 

It's been proven more than a few times. It's a crock for someone inexperienced to tell everyone the way things gotta happen.

 

You didn't, but the person who started the thread said exactly that which is of course a lie. And you have very vocally agreed with the OP in as much as you have said multiple times that it is better to lie to people entering the industry than to tell them the truth.

Show me one person in this thread who is encouraging anyone to do that. Just show me one. Show me one person in this thread that is saying ANYTHING which would lead any rational person to think being able to get local work with no experience is easy or likely. Please show me just one. No one is saying that. Not one person.

 

I went local with my fresh cdl a couple years back , instead of being lumped in with " rookie/noobies" I was lumped in with dockworkers moving up and dispatcher/office workers moving over , when the runs were slow they expected me to work on the dock , and it wasn't light work either. Think I put more miles on the yard goat in my first couple months than I did a tractor. So needless to say I spent a lot of time thinking about dues and maybe I should have just went over the road and got it out of the way really quickly so I had TONS of options in a few years vs. not very many at all , funny thing is after driving local for the same company for over 2.5 years if you still havent went over the road you still don't have over the road experience, and you are still not qualified for a bunch of jobs like cool regional dedicated home all the time runs.

I should mention my time machine is broke and I can't get those 2.5 years back and just have went over the road and now had way way more options. Sounds a little gloomy but I do love driving and am really looking forward to going otr soon!

 

I am going to with your work on the thread here, right at the moment I would be lucky to get a job as a Bowling Lane Attendant so when some poster says what they consider to be advice I preen the thread for job-leads and worry about how I am going to find familiarity with rules & regs - Master FMCSA Interpreter - okay, for me even reading the rules ( be they from any agency with authority ) is "lucky strike means fines and tobacco" while I worry because some "instructor" in a training facility wants to "explain" (interpret) statutory and case law .....

can we imagine what would happen in a Level II inspection if the reason for a stuck TPV was "...and have issues at home that want to ho local to be at home everynight..." ...??

If only they - as students - could be shown the charcoal Crown Vic's that TX / DPS has @ Kenedy / Karnes City ==> they do not even have light-bars because those are supervisors for the one-a-minute marked cruisers ...... and while I am feathering the throttle in my C-1500 on US-181 in Kenedy ( a city in Karnes County Texas ) in the middle of lunch-hour, someone in another P.U. blows past my driver-window running W.O.T. up the suicide lane, blowing gravel

so where ever newbies can get any idea of what "dues" are I neither know nor care, that keeps them busy while I make safe turns into yards, finding operations managers, so that I can weasel past some "experienced" driver moaning about dispatchers ......

life can be brutal ~ the patch even moreso .....

 

Local or OTR... IMHO, a job is a job. I spent three weeks/$3600 at my driving school, and ended up with a job. I had a coworker that has a four-year chemistry degree and another friend with some three-year radiation medical degree. One washes cars, the other one makes coffee for a living. It is tough out there even with some diploma to your name. As long as people eat or need stuff, there will always be a demand for someone to deliver the goods. It doesn't matter if ya spent the night in a sleeper, hotel, or own bed. If you draw a paycheck, you are luckier than some people I know.

 

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