Driver pay and the future

You may be in the wrong area of trucking?

Oilfield can defiantly make upwards of 80,000 - 250,000 a year.

I personally know city work ( in my field / my location ) can make upwards of 100,000 a year.

Maybe if you want a decent raise you find a different line of trucking? Highway may be what you want but may not be what your wallet is looking for.

 

This is what I am planning on doing. I currently have a good 9-5 Job that gets me by, but I am in the market for a house, and I absolutely cannot stand physically going to class 3-4 days a week after work.

So.. Trucking will get me the money I need, as well as let me finish out my degree online.

I am 22, I have built up an excellent resume from multiple volunteer jobs as well as many different kinds of part time jobs. While doing all of that I have maintained my full time job for over 5 years and underwent many promotions in that time.

My plan is to use trucking as a stepping stone. If I can't get to the next stone, I will still have decent income and job security.

 

Yah, once you get out of the coolie carrier phase, you can make a decent living doing this. And that college degree, well, I am for going to school. Please just make sure its going to be a useful degree, one that you think will help you get a good job with a good living.

Liberal arts, creative writing, communications, marketing, ancient greek, I don't know. Please, just make a plan that has a healthy dose of common sense in it. College degrees are expensive. You should see it as an investment that will pay off for you later.

 

I just finished some online classes from a community college. I had one class where I could work at my own pace for most of it. There were deadlines but it was easy to stay ahead. The problem was with the final. It was only available from 6 am to 11 pm on one day. If you are not in an area with a good signal, you could fail the class.

Another class had very strict deadlines, the material was only available for a few days at a time so I couldn't work ahead. I have a pretty flexible schedule yet I had trouble doing this class with the given deadlines.

Two other classes would have been perfect for someone on the road. Everything was posted up front and you could work at your own pace. You could take each test when you finished the unit. The finals were just tests on the last unit.

Online classes aren't always driver friendly so find out as much as you can about the school and classes before you sign up.

 

Glad to see you guys thinking and I don't blame you one bit. Trucking is definitely on a downhill run. Give a lot of thought to what you study though, heard on the radio that only about 20% of recent grads are having any success at finding work, let alone in their fields.

Personally, I'm too old at this to change, so I'll stick t out for a couple more years I guess. But this time, when I walk away it'll be completely. Don't want to see what "trucking" will become.

 

Pay depends upon you really, are you just wanting to drive or make a good living?

If any driver will take the time to keep the DR clean including your police record then it will help in the future, pay is not the only factor in trucking employment.

 

That's a bad position to be in. A lot of drivers lost jobs when BFI's came in with a cutthroat rate. Then you have to worry about customers going out of business .

 

I drive a water truck. I clear over $1000.00 a week. Being thrown from a few horses can get you just as smart as college.

 

I just wish that drivers' wages would kep pace with the rate of inflation seen on the truckstops menu. In the past 20 years the cost of a dinner item has more than DOUBLED, and drivers wages have only increased slightly. The super value of cheap freight has been such and incredible good deal for the entire economy, I only wonder how much worse things would be if freight rates had kept pace with everything else.

 

A major issue is health insurance costs. I think that may be a major factor in companies eliminating their private fleets and going with dedicated accounts .
My employer absorbed increases for a couple of years then told us he could no longer afford to do that . With a small fleet and the average age of drivers over the age of 50 it was difficult to find affordable health insurance . Every year the company checks rates and coverage with all potential providers . This year was the first time in 4 years we kept the same provider but it seems every year we pay more and get less.