Education materials

So the first lesson is this; if you want stability, think really hard about this industry because it is not stable as one is told, we don’t have ha driver shortage, we have revolving door employment system for almost all carriers and you are on the front line of the most dangerous work in the biggest litigation target in the world’s history.

 

“BMV” ?

 

If?

 

States call their Driver's License Offices by different names, most people think EVERY state calls their Driver License Office by the same name as whatever state they live in. I'm guessing BMV means Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Most people will recognize DMV or Dept of Motor Vehicles. Texas calls it DPS for the Dept of Public Safety and that's what they call their Highway Patrol, also.

 

I found this on Knight Transportation. You can ask the recruiter for clarification.
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Knight Transportation does not provide meals or lodging for CDL students. Students are responsible for their own transportation and lodging expenses during the training period. However, they will receive a weekly salary to help cover these costs.

 

Trucking has almost no stability. Some parts you will never go to sleep at the same time or wake up at the same time for your whole career. Companies buy other companies and shut them down. Customers treat drivers like stray dogs that lost a fight with a skunk. There is not enough truck parking. You are electronically monitored 24/7, many companies video you behind the wheel all day.

Types of trucking are dry van, flatbed, refrigerated (called reefer), and tanker.

Tanker and reefer probably pay slightly higher than the rest, but tanker is a bit hard for a newbie to enter until they have 1-2 years experience in other parts of trucking.

To learnt he lingo you need to read and listen to those in the industry. This forum is great, trucking podcasts, and trucking magazines are good also.

Pay is often Cents Per Mile CPM, hourly, per load, sometimes salary or guaranteed, percentage pay of what customer pays to have freight moved.

As a newbie you have no power to negotiate. THERE IS NO DRIVER SHORTAGE. Your only power is by carefully choosing where to work. When you choose where to work you get what they provide, you don't negotiate almost ANYTHING. Making that choice is what determines how often you get time off, or home-time, where you drive, what types of things you haul, how much your health insurance costs, how often you get paid (weekly is most common), whether the truck has driver camera or just a dash camera, whether your truck has an inverter to operate 120v AC electrical devices like a microwave or fridge, and APU to provide heating, cooling, electricity when the truck engine is shut down, and many other things. Most newbies screw up by rushing into a CDL school that is most convenient or cheap and flipping a coin about who to work for. That will 80-90% of the time make all of your effort a waste of time and money. 80-90% of newbied who do this leave the industry LONG before they work for 12 months in the industry. Your first decision is where/who will you work for, because it decides all the other things. Then after you have that answer you decide how to get the CDL or license. Some trucking companies have their own schools, some companies only hire newbies from certain CDL schools, some hire newbies from any school with certain amount of training. Go to the CDL school your future employer recommends, ignore any other CDL school. You can't tell your girlfriend hey you should like this movie because my last GF liked this movie. You've got to make that one girl happy and what others like is of no importance to her. Ditto for your employer. You make them happy and other employers do not exist.

You can fund CDL school different ways depending on location and circumstance. There is a grant called WOIA, administered through your state's unemployment office. WOIA pays for nearly everything and you don't re-pay unless you break the rules. EVERY CDL school has some finance company willing to loan you money for school, if you qualify. The trucking companies that have their own school don't charge you to complete school, they provide it "free" if you complete an employment contract with them. That typically requires newbies to complete 12-18 months of employment, or sometimes the requirement is measured in miles driven at work like 125,000 miles. If you don't complete the employment contract then the newbie is required to pay for the school. The point being is the payment and choice of CDL school is 100% based on who you work for. You wouldn't make wedding ceremony arraignments before you and GF decided to get married. You would make those decisions based on your GF and your preferences. Don't put the cart before the horse. Sort through the trucking company employers FIRST and then decide about school.

If you have ANYTHING in your past, like criminal record, big gaps in employment history, traffic tickets/accidents, DUI/drugs, all of those make it harder, sometimes much harder, to get hired. Companies have their choice among MANY newbies and they don't like to volunteer to take a newbie with problems like these.

Trucking IS NOT like that one pleasant car trip you took somewhere. It's more like a prison sentence because you don't decide very much beside where yo work. Other people will decide almost everything else and they often blame you for someone else's decisions and lie and claim you overslept, when they made you late. This industry gives you a lot less training compared to other jobs and you are responsible for a lot more than many other jobs. In my career the most common phrase I remember hearing was "you should have done that thing we never told you about." In this industry, being caught TOUCHING your phone while the truck is moving can end your career. It's almost as bad as a DUI or running into the back of another vehicle. Many newbies think trucking has a lot of freedom. It has very very little freedom, less than most jobs. It's also far more stressful than any newbie can imagine. We will try to explain what trucking is really like, there are lots of videos on YouTube. Most newbies simply do not allow outside info to change their imagined job in trucking.

 

why do you think trucking is stable??

why do you want to enter this job??

terms;

van- big box trailer
tanker- big tank
flat bed- flat trailer, no sides, you throw chains or straps over cargo, then you tarp it. tarps can be HEAVY.