Starting Company for New CDL Holder

Tanker companies are particular about which cdl school the new driver graduated from. Contact them and ask if they accept your school. If not, just go with OTR reefers.
I'll look for more tanker companies and post if I find any that hire new cdl school grads.
Foodliner | Bulk Food Transportation | Liquid and Dry Bulk
Virginia
Culpeper
Stuarts Draft
Winchester

 

Suggestion: Go ahead -- while you are still young, unattached...& in good health -- & see the whole country, via the OTR option.

Later on in life -- you'll be glad you did.

~~~~~~

Local driving -- it's just a job, not much else.

OTR -- it's not just a job -- it's an adventure.

Been there, seen both...

-- L

 

OMG! This!

 

Eagle Transport is probably the best, moneywise.
Once you get 12 - 24 mos. experience, then switch to cyro and make well above $100G. Those companies require experience and strict about that.
@TNSquire can give advice about all that.
~
We're all different, but if I were single and no obligations, I'd probably hit the road and live in the truck for a year, then re-evaluate my situation. Many drivers do live in the truck and have learned to conserve money and bank it. I met one driver that had been living in the truck for 7 years.
You can eventually change your domicile address to a state that has no state income taxes and save even more money.

 

The following self-insured, "starter" mega-carriers will have BOTH dry van & reefer fleets for you to try....& will more likely have the freight & the running lanes/routes to also give you a true OTR experience:

• Swift
• Knight
• Werner

With the above carriers -- if you try one type of freight....& later decide you don't like it (or you simply want to try something else: dedicated, for example) -- you can switch to the other -- all without the usual incredible hassles of changing to another carrier.

They also have far more terminals & dropyards -- giving you many more options/chances for safe, legal overnight parking -- especially in/near urban areas.

-- L

 

The issue is, he'll rarely see those terminals or drop yards. The companies I drove for, I might see another terminal maybe one time a year and the drop yards had no security, so I never stayed in them. The one time I did, teens from the local area were running wild and stole the TV from the "secure" break building.
Maybe your experiences were different.

 

With my "starter" carrier & 1st-year experience -- those home terminals/dropyards were all-to-often a lifesaver.

They offered VERY SAFE accommodations, and also offered reasonably-priced options for food & laundry (unlike most truckstops) -- among other helpful amenities.

This was especially the case in/near urban areas.

And even more so -- up in the northeast.


*****************

Otherwise -- one of your BIGGEST OTR CHALLENGES (especially as a newer driver) -- will be finding safe & legal parking...nite after nite after nite.

-- L

 

The US economy is slow so the moving of freight is slow. During the covid years the rates to move freight exploded and a LOT of people rushed into the industry and now there are too many trucks for the amount of freight that needs moving. It will turn around, but nobody knows when.

 

H. R. Ewell | Drivers

R.B. Rudy Incorporated - Food-grade Transportation - Job Opportunities

Job Openings - Payne Trucking

 

Seeing the country means seeing the industrial parks of the country. They all look alike. Tanker business has the best customers and operates the most professionally. But HazMat tanker generally won't hire newbies until they have at least 1 year experience. I'd recommend you get into tanker as soon as you can get hired at a good company. It's easier to back tankers than other trailers. The customers don't treat you like a wandering skunk looking for a place to spray the world. Almost everyone at tanker customers have been doing their job for years and know their stuff. You never have to pay some meth addict (recovered) to load/unload your truck. The downside is lots of tanker customers are using 50-75 year old facilities that have been updated because it's very hard to build new chemical plants under modern regulations. ANY careful driver can haul tanker freight, but you cannot adopt the bad habits most truck drivers routinely use and stay employed. Tanker companies usually have ALL of the safety-monitoring systems watching the truck and driver and they often tolerate almost no violations of their strict rules. I worked for Quality Carriers and they have a week long training program for moving into tankers for drivers that have 1 year CDL experience. Heniff is a company that has a good reputation. Indian River Transport is a good company with mostly food-grade tanker. I also hear good things about Oakley Transportation of FL, not Arkansas. I pulled some reefer during the last 2 years before I retired and it was the worst form of trucking I ever worked because of the customers and the jacked-up schedules and appointments common to reefer. I wouldn't ever haul reefer again. My reefer loads seemed to almost always be more trouble than they were worth. But, I didn't pull any dedicated reefer. In no other segment of trucking, but reefer, did I get customers routinely delaying me by 4-10 hours and never knowing how long I would be delayed until they were done. It's one thing to be told when you arrive you will be sitting for 6 hours and quite another to arrive on-time and hear nothing, or be told it'll just be 30 more minutes, until 6 hours are gone.