The real reason so many new drivers don't last...

Best advice I can give someone wanting to become a trucker is to remove all of the clothes out of your closet at home. If it needs to come to apx 90"w X 70"d then get some masking tape and put it on the floor to show the size of the cab of the truck! Put a chair in there and then sit in it for 11 hours and then go lay on a small pallet of blankets you put together for a bed it can not be wider than 42' X 80"L (this is a standard sized mattress in a truck). You do get to get out of the chair every 3-4 hours to go do your "business" BUT you can't just walk to the toilet! You MUST walk around the house a few times to simulate walking into the truck stop.

When you get back to the truck you sit back in the chair till your "day" is over. Now you must walk at least 100 yards to "go" or to eat! Pull at least $10 out of your pocket and give it to your better half as payment for the food. You only get a shower every other day!

You will sleep on that pallet! You will also have a tape of an old reefer unit running that you parked next to. You also must set your alarm for about 2 hours into your sleep time to simulate a lot lizard, bum or other trucker waking your arse up!

When you wake up you must walk another 100 yards to the bathroom and take care of business then go eat if you want but remember to leave that $10 for the food!

Do this for a week! If you can do this and not be crazy you just MIGHT be cut out to be a trucker!

 

You forgot to have someone beat on the door when you are trying to sleep... OOPS I must have missed that part when I was speed reading LOL

 

LOL....that reminds of something I read when I was deployed....
http://www.strategypage.com/humor/articles/howtoprepare.asp

believe me...driving this bad boy is heaven compared to what I was doing previously....it's what you make of it. Now if I could only mount a .50 cal to deal with those pesky 4 wheelers....

 

Oh, and 2 hours after the lizard or bum wakes you up, you get woken up by a tow truck driver that says if you dont move your truck he's towing you! This simulates parking at the dallas flying J.

 

This is an interesting thread, and I dont mean to interrupt the course of the thread but for some reason I decided this will be my starting point as to know if this could be something for me or not. I have not held a CDL in a few years and I have not been inside a cab for even more, nor ever have I worked OTR so I wouldn't know about this. But I would much rather look a the ugly first than listen to the promises of a recruiter from a CDL Mill.

So I am contemplating into getting into one of these schools and get my CDL and make this a career. And this thread is very discouraging for me to look at when I am trying to make of this a career. But at the same time I love it, honest people telling people like me (wannabe's) what its going to be like, and why most likely I will not make it. Im the kind of person that prefers an ugly truth before a pretty lie.

In my case, this will be a career change (obviously), a major one, but not the first one. So I went to college, got a degree, worked in my area for about 10 years and got tired of it. Plenty of BS, doing more that what I was getting paid for, etc. So we moved to Florida, Well, guess what; Florida is big time in customer support jobs, so that's were we ended up, working for the Mouse. Long hours, minimum pay, putting up with a-holes 110% of the time. I see my wife for 5 minutes twice a week due to our schedules. Life here is beautiful, I mean I work for the mouse, it cannot get any better(that's what some people actually feel about working for these company). So time went by, and its been 4 years.... Still long hours(not like you have a choice to decided if you want the OT or not), still see the wife twice a week for 5 minutes, and still earning minimum wage for the job that I have, Yes, I was upgraded, I have 3x times the responsibilities I had before and make 0.75cents more of what I made almost 4 years ago(so I make $30 more a week if I work 40hrs), working in an industry that its hurting like hell, in a state/area where the estimated per capita income is $20,000. Now take Fed tax out of that, and tax almost everything else at 7% and what you end up with is a $700/month rent over at "Crime Hills" and cabinets full of "Great Value Brand" products.

What I'm trying to say at least to me, even though this is meant to be a discouraging thread of why people should not get into the business or why is it going to most likely suck for a while, To me its more of a motivator. I might suck at it, I don't know yet. But it try to keep a positive attitude about things regardless of how bad they suck. I might not be cut for it, I don't know yet, I guess I will find out in the process. I'm not going to see my wife, well WTF, I haven't seen much of her in the past 4 years anyway what's another year or two of it (She's contemplating the possibility of teaming up depending on how this works).

So I guess, the question is, should I give this a try? I mean how bad can it be aside from what you guys mention here?

I respect and appreciate everything you guys do and comment, this country or any other will not run/operate without truck drivers.

Any input will be greatly appreciated.

 

Davenport Florida, there's afew trucking outfits around you, but not many !! And only 1 that hires new drivers. This state(florida) sucks for driving jobs, but GOOD LUCK !!

 

Why would you think there is opportunity in an industry where over 90,000 jobs were eliminated in the last year with more lost every month and freight levels continuing to decline ? 3rd quarter reports said most carriers reduced their fleets by 10 % . So why do they keep hiring when reducing fleet size ? Because drivers keep quitting . Figure out the reason for that .

 

It's not easy getting hired on FL. Even carriers that aren't based there are reluctant to hire drivers who live there because it's hard to get them in and out for home time.

If you do it, you should try to minimize costs as much as possible so you don't lose a lot of money if you don't like it. If you can, pay cash for the school or get some other kind of assistance if you qualify. If you get funded through a company, you will owe them the money whether you stay or not.

You never know until you try. No matter what you read here or elsewhere, there's really no way to describe it without experiencing it. It's not for everybody. It could be a mistake and you lose some money, or you might like it and get some bills paid. That's understanding that you really don't start making decent money for a year or two after starting.

 

My reasoning for wanting to leave otr is simple put, I miss my wife and family. I need otr experience to get a local job and I am going to just get it finished this month. As for the rest, the disp, FMs and such are just doing their jobs and it is not easy of them either with one exception, they go home nightly. So I will take my local job and stay home and watch my girls grow up and play slap and tickle with the wife, much more frequently.

 

Actually, some of the dispatchers might not be home long enough to make it worth it...but i sure would rather sleep in my waterbed at home than in this springs-with-no-padding-whatsoever mattress in the truck.

But, alot of times when i call night dispatch, I get ...daytime dispatchers... answering the phone! Not all of them, but some of these guys are doing a LOT of OT. And atleast for us, they almost all live in Omaha, which is a big city....and they probably have a longish drive to work.....and i know one dispatcher in particular, has got to be doing 16 hour days atleast several timse a month, judging by when he answers the phone.....if hes home for 6 hours a night, whats he gonna do when he gets home?"


But i bet he has a lot of long weekends too...He's only my dispatcher when he does overtime, and my dispatcher never answers the night phone!