Becoming a DZ Driver

I just want to put this out there.

Don't take what most of us here say as trying to talk you out of getting your Dz, but more towards giving you realistic expectations as to what you are likely to find when you do it.

Your overly optimistic out look for the future in truck driving may leave you disappointed, much like you were in automotive repair and IT previously.

Don't get me wrong,it's worked out good for me but your first couple of years are not going to all rainbows and puppies. If you can make it through the first few years you can do OK, but you ain't going to make top rates in the begining.

Good luck and come back to let us know how you make out.


Pete

 

You sound a little like me in terms of background (minus the impaired driving). I'm college-educated and came from a white-collar background with lots of varied experience (military veteran, too). I ditched the office work and now drive local with an AZ license.

 

Again unless you’re doing something specialized with your own truck or live very very cheap it’s not worth it . I know two o/o at my current company one with well over 20 years experience and the other who’s a south asian who immigrated with a electrical engineer degree but couldn’t get hired because it wasn’t done here in Canada . He bought a truck thinking it would make him enough to buy a house . He bought an old company truck a 2018 freightliner with 700-800.000km during covid times for 110k because truck prices were ridiculous high then . now he wants to sell it with 1.1million km but still has 2-3years to pay it off and is up side down in his loan because the trucks not worth what he owes . Reason for selling is because as a o/o it’s money in , money out and you don’t keep much of it . His Annual safety cost him $800 and he had $4500 in repairs also . He’s tired of always having to put out so much money . the other guy with 20 plus years who had a truck in the 90s but decided to try again say’s it’s stressful never knowing when the next big repair is coming. I wouldn’t buy a truck just to pull a dry van or reefer here in Canada too much competition with the new Canadians hauling for nothing

 

I think is hilarious that you think that you can go from an office job to running a vac truck and making better money and it’s going to be easy. Vac truck is easily one of the worst jobs on the planet. Good luck.

 

I ran a vac truck for 3 days and it was the most mind-numbing job I've ever had.

 

Is it really that bad around Toronto a lot of companies are union . What makes it so bad