One more to add

Hi everyone, I started lurking around here a few weeks back, and learned a lot. THANKS

I jointed yesterday and here is a short intro, I’ll save the questions for later.

We are not investigating trucking as a last resort job, but more as a career and lifestyle change to become a husband and wife team drivers. We don’t see this as a romantic freedom lifestyle on the road, but a business worth investing our time and labor into. We are reading “Becoming a truck driver; the raw truth” by Aquila right now. Of course we take suggestions about other books too, we enjoy reading.

My wife and I are in our mid 50s in good health, don’t smoke, drink or use drugs. Kids are grown and moved on to their own lives. I’ve been working as a mechanic for the airlines for 20 years, but changes in the industry have me planning on a career change, wife situation is similar. I could get another job as a mechanic, but if I’m going to do that I may as well stay here till the end. We both have high security clearance and background checks, and stable work and crime free histories. I have worked more holidays and weekends than I‘ve had off, so I don’t need to be off on ground hog day (ha ha).

I have time to learn and money to pay for it, I mention this because all I’ve seen so far is young people starting out, or people in need of an income. I’ll have many more questions, but will spend more time lurking around the forum and see what I can learn. Of course if my past lurking has proved anything, It will add more questions. Ha ha

Thanks for reading and please freely comment on any of my posts, I have thick skin (as long as forum rules are followed) and would like to know as many positives* and negatives* I can BEFORE I jump in.

* I was going to use Pros & Cons, but over my life I met Pros who turn out to just be Cons

 

Thanks for the reply, your question is an area I need to learn more about, since I don't know how the 'logging hours' work yet. From what I see here the hours are logged in one lump, and then the next driver starts their hours.

At first I was thinking we would both get a CDL, and I would be doing most of the driving she would be a backup driver when we had delays, or I was out of hours. At least this is how we would start out.

I thought we should spend the 1st few years learning the trade and adjusting where we needed to become proficient truck operators.

BUT now after some research it seems there are rules and regs about drivers sharing driving. If you or anyone can enlighten me about how driving hours are shared (or where to look) I would appreciate it.

I've done some searches here about 'team' and 'Husband/Wife' postings, I seem to mainly see the 'cons' or the miles/money discussed, which I enjoy reading but the DOT issues are where I need to read/learn now. Any search pointers??

In a few days I may post this over in the 'questions' as time permits. Of course I have things like personal safety to NAFTA on my search list before posting even more questions.

I finished Aquila's book, and the wife is now reading it. I have looked at the availability of local schools, so now I need to do some learning; ha ha