Did anyone go from OTR to Class B?

Yup.
Went OTR for 7 months. First company was crooked second company my DM was bat**** crazy and I started looking for another job.

I’ve been driving a rollback for almost 4 years. 8-14 hour days 5 days a week, home every night. I’m paid hourly with OT.

Just make sure it’s what you want to do. If I want to go go back OTR everyone wants me to complete their company newbe training. There is no way I’m spending 15000 miles in a truck with a trainer again.

 

When the economy crashed and I had to hit the road. I went with a local carrier instead of a mega carrier.


I didn't have to prove I could still drive in the winter. And I didn't have to worry about dac. Or my psp. Which stays clean working local anyways.

 

I went from a Freightliner, to a Ford F550. Hourly, with bonuses, home most every night, life is good.

 

I hear you. Out here every tanker company wants 5+ years OTR experience before they’ll train you to haul tankers. That includes the milk haulers.

I just won’t lie on my resume where everyone else does. Otherwise the same companies wouldn’t be looking for drivers for the same position every 90 days. I love getting callbacks 6 months after getting a rejection letter because the last guy couldn't drive a manual or didn’t want to work 70 hours per week.

I like my Class B job. It pays well (for now) and has a lot of off time. It just doesn’t have any upward mobility or good raises. In 4 years I’ve gotten two 3% raises.

Like I said though I can’t go back to OTR without taking a pay cut and redoing training.

 

I now drive dump truck and went from regional class A to local B, it was totally worth it for me.

Being home every day is great and working in a ski town, the scenery is beautiful and the work is far more interesting. We run year round so there is the weather and insane job sites and pits to navigate around which doesn't allow you to much mental downtime and that bothers some people, but it is perfect for me.

That said, as mentioned above, be away from OTR or even tractor/trailer for a few years and going back is hard because insurance companies demand recent experience or they raise rates on the company. Side, bottom, and end dump trailers are an option to keep that for dump, but you tend to be in more normal routine cycles with those than with a 20' rock bed and 2 to 3 drops. Even if backing up a loaded equipment trailer on a construction site is typically more challenging than most tractor trailer jobs it doesn't count, probably because they are trying to exclude goose neck trailers and pickups.

Note that almost all class B jobs do require class A license now because insurance companies demand......

Note that in concrete you may be able to move up into a bulk material truck as you do have experience OTR. Those jobs almost always require construction experience because pits and job sites are very different than OTR and obviously by driving a cement truck you will be building that experience.

Best of luck and I hope this job is a good fit for you.

 

I went from Class B to A. Drove a dump truck for a paving company's sister company for a while since most companies wouldn't take a 19 year old onto insurance for most class A jobs. The problem is finding competitive pay in class B, but if you did that, then I say go for it. Class B jobs in Kentucky don't pay what Class A companies do when competing nationwide.

I prefer the adventure of OTR, but in terms of local jobs, it was great. Worked Mon-Fri with occasional Saturdays. File unemployment in the winter time shutdown and get paid to sit around for a couple months and do something under the table if you feel inclined. One day might be sitting around all day 'on call' in a sense. One day might be doing 50 haul offs. One day might be scale pay for 40+/hr doing simple asphalt runs for 14 hours. One day might be hauling rock 1.5 hours away to a power plant and coming back empty and repeating 3-4 times. One day might be hanging out with good Ole Martin Marietta hauling rock from one end of the quarry to the other.

Class B work isn't bad at all. You feel like you're really helping complete a job instead of the irritation running down the interstate all day can bring.

I think if life circumstances change for me and I need to be home daily again, I'd go back to dump trucking or pulling a lowboy and laboring on a paving crew. The pay was less than good, but the mental reward of each day was far better than bouncing around at warehouses like most of us class A's do.

 

That's what my dad has been doing for the last 10 years, he went from OTR to water bottling, then was a concrete driver for a few years and just recently got a dump truck job hauling asphalt, they put that man in an 18 speed and he ain't drove one in over 10 years and we live in West Virginia/PA so super its hilly. I would like to work a class B job but that hamper it puts on your class A experience is a major turn off I would rather die then have to work for cr England for an entire year