Ready to hit the road after several months of planning.

Hello Jpatt and welcome. I have good news and bad news...first the good: there are many companies that train new drivers, I myself started at Stevens Transport 15 years ago and I do not regret it. Now the bad news, the first 6 months are really tough. Getting used to the lifestyle, away from home, making very little money. But if you find you enjoy it after 6 months you have found a career. The money you have to take is about $700 more than most...lol

 

Jpatt: Since you were laid off from work you should register with your state unemployment office. In addition to getting unemployment pay (which you may get to keep while in training), many DOL's (Dept. of Labor) also offer training opportunities. Here in Georgia, WIA pays for a lot of career training to those out of work and drawing unemployment benefits. I know many here that have had their CDL training paid for (100%) by the DOL through the WIA program. They go to private driving schools or local tech schools to get their CDL while drawing the unemployment pay. This route to CDL allows you to apply with many companies with no contract or school repayment. Good luck to you and be safe.

 

If the unemployment deal doesn't sound interesting or you just have the itch to get trucking ASAP, I would try central refrigerated services. I started there 3 years ago and I do not regret it one bit. After I earned my dms trust.. I got put on Midwest dedicated and was making 500-600 a week. My biggest mistake was leasing a truck after only one years experience. Please just what ever company you go with, please don't lease right off the bat, no matter how great your doing as a company driver, things usually change when you lease. Do a year at a starter company and then move on to greener grass. Also, another company that has GREAT training is maverick inc. Good luck!

 

So, you were happy when you were making 600 bucks a week -- after your dm trusted you -- and THEN it got WORSE???

So, what... do you pay Central to drive one of their rigs?

Why are you not regretting it?

 

Dude, that's like security guard pay.

 

Wow, I offer help to someone, only to be ridiculed by 2 people? Yes, after 3 months experience and proving myself, I was very happy to move up from crap pay to 500-600.. at only .29cpm.. what do you expect? I would run around 2500 or so miles, have to pay for school, abandonment protection fee of 400, enforcer lock set and insurance/ride insurance. So i thought 500-600 was pretty dern good back then.

TooGroovy, do you even drive?! Uh.. Yeah, it got a hellova lot worse when i leased a truck. I drove for 12 months and the company painted me a picture just like every other person in the trucking industry. at .95cpm+fuel surcharge PLUS i got a used truck that turned out to have a butt load of problems.. it just wasn't working for me. I had to leave midwest dedicated because when i was there, they weren't allow l/o trucks to be on it.. I got a completely New to the trucking industry dm and that didn't work out, my truck broke down 3 times in a month due to dpf problems along with a turbo AND fuel injectors.... Match that to not having any money saved up in my breakdown account and you look at a negative check quite a bit. It didn't work for me.. And ya.. I kinda payed central to run their truck for a while.. my mistake.. not anyone Else's. Plus, I no longer work there, so you cant call me a recruiter.. just the training was good in my personal opinion.

So please, Big AL and Toogroovy, instead of looking down on my beginnings, why not put forth, your obvious plethora of excellent trucking industry knowledge and provide this individual with THE PERFECT place to being to drive and make.. what.. 1000 a week, never sit, run brand new equipment AND be home every weekend? FWIW, central has a great training program and you can make half decent money your first year.. some stay longer, some don't stay at all.. I tried leasing and failed.. so now I work for a different company and come to find out.. the grass isn't always greener on the other side but when my mileage increased to what it is now.. you don't need A LOT of miles to make a good pay check.

So take what i say with a grain of salt.. Like i said... maverick has a excellent training program. I have heard good things about system transport out of Washington state, TMC has a good training program.. but these 3 are flat bedding jobs and require a good bit of work.. but with a years experience you can go anywhere, instead of only having reefer or dry van and if you want to explore flat bedding, you still have to get training.

 

5-600 isn't all that bad depending on who you're dealing with and what their financial needs are. I would like to make a grand a week, but I also don't want to sell myself to the truck, I currently make 16.00 an hour and with overtime average 800 weekly, but I can think back on times of my driving career where I was making 550 and a hell of a lot happier just based on my happiness with my job and life in general.

Money isn't always the deciding factor in my life, you have to find happiness in what you're doing and if you're lucky the money will come.

 

If you have over 3 years experience and a clean record, you should be making $ 1000 a week. .40 a mile at 2500 miles is $ 1000. You could make that at Crete certainly. Plenty of companies looking for good drivers that pay over .40. Millis is another on I can think of. An experienced driver working for less than .40 baffles me.

 

I used to spend 300.00 per week just to eat!