How is the trucking trade?

Go get laid
Get good grades in school
Look at other skilled trades like welding or diesel mechanic or electrician or plumber or millwright or hvac there's so many of them. Consider trucking as something you can easily get into at any stage of life. If college or university is your thing, consider the end career opportunities. Do not go for some diploma that has no jobs at the end. Be an accountant. An engineer. A pharmacist. A doctor. A lawyer. Not a "general arts degree". Or a "women's studies" expert. These have few to zero options career wise. If you're going to be in debt for probably 50-100k, make it a positive return on investment. Realize all these people that "follow their dreams" have good intentions, then expect someone else to cover the bill for their decision to take stupid courses? Their own fault. Idiots.

Trucking is an easy way to make like 50k a year with a short time of training relative to other fields. Consider what you would do if you're 40 and have been trucking for 20 years and now suddenly can't work due to injury or accident(no insurance to drive anymore) or whatever. Now what? Go back and try to learn to be other tradesman listed above for 4 or 5 years at entry level pay while likely trying to pay for all the costs of a wife and kids? Good luck with that. You are more likely to ask how to drive for Carolina cargo for 15 cents a mile so you can keep the rent paid.

Trucking can be a great career. Trucking can eat you alive. Have a wise plan young man.

Edited to add.
I should say this I'm writing this as a 31 year old who started trucking at 19. I do still mostly enjoy it, but I do it a little differently than most. I can't fathom driving for someone else ever again. My only other career prospects are either expand my company, or work as a dispatcher or some office job should I decide I won't or can't run my own show any longer.

 

I originally wanted to buy a logging truck straight out of highschool. My parents talked me out of it. Told me to I should go and complete an apprenticeship, then go trucking if I still wanted to. Got the license, lost the desire to drive truck. Got no interest in working for free.

 

Your friend will discover HUGE insurance Cost to have you in there with a permit CDL. Hopefully it will work out. School will run you thousands of dollars to get a CDL then you will learn by then how difficult newbies can get work for a variety of reasons again circling back to insurance.

15 and 18 are worlds apart and so is 18 to 21. There is no point in trying to tell you about that, just go chase your favorite girl and have a good time for now. All the other stuff will fall into place later in your life. If you do get a car license at some point MAKE SURE your record is perfect. Then when it comes time to finish CDL school and get hired you have nothing that will hurt you.

Trucking is a very easy way to spend a large fortune to make a small one. Not everyone can or will do it.

 

It's not a bad job if you like driving. Running local will limit your job opportunity and maybe pay. I never did real local work. Driving local usually means driving older truck I would say just because they don't put lots of miles on the truck in general. So they keep them longer.

Driving OTR(Over The Road) you do more driving. So you get paid by the miles. Like you might get $0.35 cents per mile and you can drive about 120,000 miles a year. You basically work 70 hours a week. That is the legal limit and you sleep in the truck. They are nice today vs the old days. You get free private shower every day if you buy 50 gallons of diesel. Health insurance is $50 a week.

They are changing the requirements to get a CDL in 2020 I believe. They are setting up a basic level of training. Today their no training requirements but the kinda is not real because almost nobody would hire someone without some real training. Plus the insurance company would never insure that driver.

The way it works today is you can get free training from a trucking company that hires new drivers. In return you have sign a contract to work for them like 1 year or two years. They usually pay less per mile and most are pretty bad on the way they treat drivers. You can also pay yourself but it like $6,000+ and your still a new driver without any experience. So I can be hard to find someone to hire you.

Once you get some experience you can make 50k-60k+ a year. Food service drivers make good money. They do short runs home everyday. They deliver to fast food places and restaurants. They have hand unload the truck. That's a lot of work, that's why they get paid so much and get home everyday.

 

I've been driving just over twenty years. Started when I was young and dumb. Now I'm flat stuck. Be doing this job up until lunchtime the day they plant my corpse in the dirt.

I am out of options. No schooling to speak of other than my high school diploma, and too old to compete with you younger folks in starting a new career doing something else. It gets significantly harder to get an entry level job in any field (other than trucking, of course) as you get older.

Being older means more financial pain. Health starts to decline, and a lifetime of setting up a life means more responsibility. I've got the so-called "grown up" bills to deal with. A household to support, bills to pay. I can no longer afford to live on entry level pay.

Fortunately, I still generally enjoy my job. But if I didn't I would be one truly miserable individual at this point.

So my advice to you is to find a trade you enjoy, and build a life you want. Trucking will be here forever, most likely. And there are plenty of drivers here who stepped into trucking as a second career later in life who are very successful.

Go be a plumber, a mechanic, a lawyer. Something useful to you and your community. Enjoy your life now when you are young. That is something I missed out on. Be a trucker for your retirement. We'll still be here.

 

I draw a steady 75k per year regardless of how much I work.
It's more of doing trucking how I think it ought to be done. Scheduling my own life. Not wondering when I'll be home next. Where I like to run. All of it. I've had years I only worked 186 days. And others I worked probably 330.

 

I have been an observer of this forum since Aug 24, 2014. This is my first post. I tried to send you a PM but the site has a 7 post minimum before you can send PM's.

That being said you have stated you are getting your AMT license. I assume what you meant was an A&P license. I worked for American Airlines at the Tulsa Maintenance Base (TULE) for over a decade.

A topped out A&P (aircraft mechanic) at American Airlines makes about $93,000 a year working a straight 40 hour week. They have insurance (health, dental, vision) and a 401K match plan. You also have flight benefits (mostly standby) for the cost of taxes for the first 4 years. After the 5th year you fly for free.

Probably the easiest way to get into the position is to take an Aircraft Cleaner position at TULE then transfer to mechanic (lots of choices of location but Tulsa has comfortable working conditions and a low cost of living).

There are of course other Airlines besides American but that is the only one I have any expertise in.

Not trying to influence your decisions about your future but I had information to contribute that I thought you would find useful.

Maybe I will make another post in 5 or so years.

 

I don't recommend it as a career choice for a young man. Industry has declined in North America, and the trucking industry has been run down to a point where truck drivers are very much like seasonal/immigrant farm workers instead of the middle class wage earners they used to be. Governments have exempted truck drivers from many of the labour protections that most other workers enjoy - hence my farm workers comment. Ask yourself if you want to work 70 hours a week for minimum or below minimum wage with no overtime. And believe me, 70 hours a week leaves no time for dating or having fun with your friends. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's true.

Having said that, you might think about getting your licence and maybe driving for farms or construction companies during the summer. Maybe trucking is on your bucket list. If so you'll be able to squeeze it in at some point during your life. Just don't make it your A plan.