Any great paying regional jobs for a CDL Grad?

You can take truck home since you would me more then 60 miles from terminal, I think that limit they have. Or drive the two hours and stay out 2-3 weeks or drive it every week. They have run from PA to Imlay City MI. I forget about the small drop yard they have in Walbridge OH that's basically in Toledo Ohio. That not to far from Detroit area

 

They have semi reginal I think they get home every weekend but but not sure how they define a weekend. I do regional and say weekends off but the twist is a weekend is really 34 hours. Then 34 hours is really only Sunday off. Because they can run the truck 14 hours on Saturday if you have the hours, and get you home late Saturday maybe 9pm or even 10pm. That's the downside of the job. That why many times I don't bother going home. If dispatch plans on only 34 hours off you get home Saturday 9pm you will be back at truck and rolling at 7am Monday. I find more easy to just stay on the road. You got 1 day to wash clothes, go get food if you want. Load it all back in truck and driving again. I find going back to truck Sunday and load it back up and sleeping in truck Sunday night work good. But that kinda pain also and makes home time less fun.

They even have 4 days on 4 days off deal. You have bring truck back to main yard for that deal and they put another driver in the truck for 4 days from my understanding. If more home time is important. I just run the reginal and made $62,000 that more then the minimum guaranteed pay of $52,000 for me at $1,000 a week. Plus I driving my second brand new truck, 2020 Freightliner Cascadia. They get the fridge from factory now and has 1,500w inverter with 4 120v plugs in the sleeper. TV mount on the wall spot for microwave. All docs brakes, LED headlights. They pay for SiriusXM radio. The new ELD tablets also have unlimited internet data. So you watch Netflix on you 34 reset if you want or surf the web when parked. Truck has Adaptive Cruse control and Collision avoidance, truck can apply the brakes to avoid rear end accident. I won't lie to you, their is a driver camera it only goes off if you brake hard. My other truck got hit at truck stop the camera got it because the truck never stopped and I was in the sleeper. It will not my favorite thing, it's ok as long as I'm making money.

 

All the newer Cascadia have fridge, the new style hoods. The my older truck was 17 it did not have factory fridge but it had LED headlights and disc brakes. No Adaptive Cruse control on 17s. The older trucks have light weight setup with a little smaller sleeper so they could not have a fridge. I think all the 18 and definitely the 19s truck have fridge and all the extras because they gave up on the lightweight spec trucks. They never used them to their capacity

You might take a $1,000 a week home. It might be a little hard. It depends on if you want to run the miles. You get 3 cents per mile bonus every week as long has you don't get any big log book violation.

They pay Per Diem pay, that's basically your tax free money of $57 per day for food and stuff drivers get. You don't pay taxes on that money. If you work 7 days at 57 per day for Per Diem. That's $390 week of your original pay you get tax free. I should say it days away from your home not how many day you work. Every day or overnight your away from home you get like 80% of $66 dollars as tax free money. Maybe it more complicated to explain but in the past driver claim that number at the end of the year on taxes as a deduction. Today we don't have that option unless you own your truck. So some trucking companies offer to give part of your pay as Per Diem or tax free money every week. So they keep track of days/night you away from home. The simply math is it save a driver about $90 a week in taxes. If new to trucking people don't know about Per Diem.

You can sing and drive all day just make sure you have seatbelt on and don't fallow to close and have Bluetooth headset because you can't touch phone while driving. The camera is recording but it won't unload anything unless you have hard brake say from fallowing to close. A big bump in road can set it off. They are looking to make sure not following to close or using hand held phone.