Never drive for a company that starts you out below .40 cents a mile!

Okay i'll bite, where are these carriers that take students and will pay them at least .36 cpm? As a student myself I've found it difficult to shift through the huge pile of carriers to find the diamonds in the rough. Unfortunately these bottom feeder companies advertise a lot more effectively than the much better companies, which is why we come across them first when deciding which company to drive for. I don't think any graduate finishes school to purposely drive for the least amount of money they can.

The fact that many carriers don't post their actual payrates on their websites makes narrowing carrier choices more difficult. I'm in a 20 week course currently, so I have time to shift through carriers before I make a final decision, but someone in a CDL mill doesn't have that luxury. I'd like very much to start off making .40cpm right out of school, but the ones that pay that well doesn't advertise it as well as the ones that don't.

 

Hey, I heard Stevens has great training, so I’m willing to work for .21 a mile.

 

I have drove for .25 and made over 1200 a week (years ago), and then go to a better paying (per mile) job and sit in the truckstop.

 

BTW this should be stickied for new people who check out the forums.

 

^Agreed, UKJ.

 

Lets look at it this way. I'm at orientation. Just completed it. Truck ready. Load pu tomorrow up to 2:00 pm. Was given a choice another motel night, sleep in the truck. Either option will pay at the orientation rate. I'm being paid for tomorrow because I couldn't leave today. New program. If you empty out and they have no load ready for dispatch you switch over to hourly pay 16.75 per hour while they look for another load. Same deal with detention pay. After 2 hours it switches over to hourly pay. You get that even if they don't collect it from a shp/rcvr. If they don't collect they bite it and pay you anyway. They will drop customers who do not pay for our detention time. Plus there are other reason you're paid hourly. Its usually has to do with you not moving to collect cpm. Now the region and runs, I'm set up to do, the average driver runs about 2700 miles every week. Between one or two companies moving freight back and forth to the same general area.

The whole point? Going to make the average yearly pay at the top of the driver average. 45 or so a year. Top company driver here made 60 thousand a year. Thats with little home time and bonuses.

The other point is it starts at 40 cpm. Most of the loads go to Dallas, San Marcos and San Antonio. I live 15 miles east of I-35 and 24 miles west of US75. No matter which way I come to Dallas area I'll be going by the house a several times a week. Home time very easy. So you see 40 cpm, plus hourly pay, plus bonuses, place routes, regions, and home time makes perfectly good sense to take 40 cpm in my case.

 

A reefer company out of Terrell TX was going to give me 48 cpm. Running meat loads out of west TX to New Jersey and the northeast. Keep that money its not worth it at any price in my opinion.