Are employment opportunities in trucking incredibly strong right now?

Agreed, China is the best poster on here. I second the call for a book or a guide for newbies.

I think a career in trucking is a good decision, I have made my living off of it for 8 years. I have always been well paid and just landed a job that pays better than I could have imagined. I'm not only drinking the Kool Aid, I'm chugging it.

 

This has never been a 'good' job, unless you are totally unskilled and not able to make a living doing anything else.

GOOD trucking jobs still aren't advertised. They don't need to recruit. They don't need to put signs up on the highway.

If you stay in the this industry long enough, some of the poor conditions become to seem normal, or acceptable. That does not mean they are not poor working conditions any longer, it just means you adjusted your parameters. (Or are too scared to go back into the real non-trucking world again)

These are lousy jobs, which is one reason many new people don't stick around too long. WTF did I get into?

This is not really something new. Yeah, the tightening regulations squeeze a small percentage of drivers out of the business, not as many as you would think, though.

Does anyone remember when the 'CDL' law was coming, in the early 90's? You had drivers peeing themselves going down the road over the prospect of having to take some tests. The industry predicted driver shortages, and disaster.
Some drivers who were totally uneducated or illiterate left trucking over fear of faking the tests, or failed them.
In reality, not much changed. It's much harder to have multiple drivers licenses, thats about.
Wages are flat, or worse. The drivers are no better off, and probably we are putting in more hours for our paychecks.
(Due to a combination of not being able to run illegally easily, and electronic logs/communication)

We still must have some illiterate drivers since too many can't seem to read 'no trucks', 'trucks use left/right lane' and 'weigh station one mile ahead', and so on.

 

I was on track to make $50k at my first driving job over 8 years ago. I agree the job does have a high level of responsibilities but the money makes up for it. You could be a dialysis technician where if you press one wrong button on the machine your patient could die. All for $12 an hour! Let's get real this is the easiest job in the world. Yes it can be tiring and many things are crappy about this profession like being gone from home a lot but could you imagine stocking shelves at Publix or standing on your legs eight hours a day behind the counter at McDonald's after sitting on your a ss holding a steering wheel for six years? I can't.

 

It's really going to be what you make of it. For a company driver, the pay is actually decent. I don't know what some of these people expect. Around me, it seems like the typical local job is about 19-21/hr, and some companies even pay overtime. If you gross under 1k/week, around here, you're just not working. Your OTR jobs are a little tougher, it's business, you have to earn the consistent great miles. If you can average 2,500/week at even just 40cpm, that's a 1k gross. And not unrealistic to get those miles, maybe not at first, but when you're on time all the time, at a good company, you'll get miles. And then there's those rare jobs, I got lucky with mine, I get decent pay, but no overtime, no benefits at all, so there is a sacrifice to my pay, but my mother is a nurse and I make more an hour than she does. The ability to make money is there, you just have to find it and get it. These good companies aren't going to find you and call you, you have to talk to drivers, and find these companies.

The hours definitely suck, but that's just part of the job. Some days will be up to 14 hours, some will barely be anything, but there's lots of drivers who do an 8 hour day and go home.

Ultimately, you're pulling a trailer. It's the same principle as a small uhaul trailer, or a camper hooked to the bed of your pickup, just bigger and heavier (but don't tell truck drivers that, there's this profound difference that I still haven't discovered). Lots of drivers like to over-complicate the job. I'm guessing so they feel like they're on the same level as doctors.

But yeah, the DOT and FMCSA are kind of pushing a lot of drivers out, but in all fairness, they're pushing out the drivers who are causing all the rules. People were taking drugs to stay awake to drive entire 24 hour shifts. Some drivers, I see at least one a day, take "be a bully" to the extreme, and they're changing lanes NOW. If you're next to them, you better get out of the way. And there is a stigma that comes with being a truck driver. Lots don't get any exercise at all, and a lot feel "I'm on the road, I won't get caught cheating", if driving is hard, you're not going to do a good job hiding that secret.

 

Hyperbole (/haɪˈpɜrbəliː/ hy-PUR-bə-lee;[SUP][1][/SUP] Greek: ὑπερβολή hyperbolē, "exaggeration") is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP]
Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech.[SUP][4][/SUP] An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton."[SUP][5][/SUP] Hyperbole makes the point that the bag was very heavy, though it probably does not weigh a ton.[SUP][6][/SUP]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole

 

$1000/mo. into savings x 30 years = $360,000. I guess "well paid" depends on perspective.

 

Not following, where did you get the 1,000?

 

I saw a video on You Tube from a veteran truck driver who talked about this issue. He made some good points. He pointed out that dangerous jobs like crabbing in the arctic are very well paying jobs, therefore they do not have trouble filling those positions. But they do have trouble filling dangerous jobs like trucking. This is because the pay isn't as good. He predicts that eventually trucking companies will have to start paying by the hour to get all the vacant positions filled. He may not be too far from wrong.

 

I think we all are in a position of power right now, unfortunately, it doesn't seem like pay and\or rates match that level of power because there always seems to someone willing to move freight for less just to keep the wheels turning, and someone willing to drive for 20 CPM less. We never seem to be able to band together enough to make any difference.

 

I think he's just using that as an example. A lot of guys can put away 1,000/mo or more if they don't have many expenses or any mouths to feed.