USXPRESS newbie review and RANT!!!!

You are making 25$ an hour? Yes you are nuts to do this.

 

Yeah that's what I'm making for working in Manhattan, but I have to pay for my suits cleaned and train ticket out of that and I was looking for a change. I appreciate your input and I am beginning to think you may be right.

 

Try TMC

 

Well think of it like this. Unless you want to drive a truck in NYC you're going to get paid at roughly the same rate as a guy like me who lives in Alabama with a cost of living about half what yours is. Unless you're willing to move away from the area you're going to have a hard time living off of what a new trucker makes. First year guys make about 800 a week before taxes IF they are lucky. You'd have to have an in in your area to make the kind of money you'd need to survive in NYC. Not trying to bust balls or anything just giving a bit of a reality check.

 

No, you're not nuts, it's a good idea.Get a job so you can travel and see the country while making a decent living. A company like Calex Logistics will probably hire you at graduation from cdl school. They run lots of produce loads out of California and back to NYC & Boston.

Stop and take a break in Reno, Nevada and sometimes even Las Vegas:

Several of us used to run I-80 out there a lot and we'd usually stop for a 10 hr. break in Reno or West Wendover, Nevada. Plenty of truck parking available and a good place to shower and get a good meal and take a nap before heading back to the East Coast.

 

Make that 40.

 

That's because the USA doesn't focus on the economy or jobs or the citizens.

 

An extra .02 for hazmat? Wow so if you drive 3000 miles a week you get an extra $60 for delivering something that can kill you or literally vaporize you into a single molecule if something goes wrong. In my opinion hazmat haulers should be getting paid big bucks for high level of danger.

 

Arkansas had 25 dollar electric bill for a goodly amount of power when I first moved here. My last maryland electric bill was 250 a month. 140 or so in total each month covered the basic needs of the house here in Arkansas including water etc. (Adding sewer line doubled it since then, sewer was about 8500 dollars to install.)

If I stayed in Maryland with its 400,000 colonial mansions on 1/4 acres and 50K cars etc I would have been BK a long time ago. Even the basic needs of my father's house, when combined with about 4000 dollars a year annually in oil (for two fills required, one for winter and the other to keep system good in summer etc) and property taxes is about twice my current income.

When wife and I teamed we put our house to sleep with suspended services. Gas was still being hooked up but pressure was reduced to about 2 pounds on the house side of the meter rather than the usual 5 or 6 from 98 pounds more or less. that's just enough to run the pilot light for the heater. And when we are gone for months the gas meter would be shut off using the emergency storm shut off tool on hand so it wont count any more gas to that pilot light.

I thing we had reduced the utilites by 2001 to around 28 dollars a month from 140 by special arrangement with all of the companies. The house was reduced to a 1840's type living with just firewood for the dutch stove and bring in water from the town's supply daily in two 5 gallon buckets for everything. AIr conditioning was out of the question. We did not stay long enough to have a problem with heat in between loads. That was what the tractor was for so we burned some company fuel staying cool at night resting.

 

@Startover. Training pay is good at Calex. $100 a for everyday your out. You get paid even if you have to take a 34 hr reset. Trucks max out at 68 mph. I wish I stuck it out there but I listened to the wrong people and jumped ship. Once you go solo I think you start at 32 cpm and go to 36 cpm after six months.