Young Drivers Experienced Drivers

I can't wait to turn 18 and be graduated from high school and get into a rig! Hopefully I'll be able to get a local job that will keep me intrastate, if not, then I guess I'll have to wait till I'm 21 and be able to go anywhere. I have a lot of goals to accomplish once I get started in the industry.

People call me crazy for wanting to, and think that the industry is like evil or something haha. I know that it's not a stress-free and trouble-free job, but then again, what job is? Maybe they call me crazy cuz I go to a trade school and I can make "so much more in electrical than trucking". Thats not the way I see it though. And it's not what I've wanted to do since I was a little kid. For me, my trade is a fallback plan if trucking does not work. And I'm not all about the money either, do I wanna make a decent living, of course, but I'm not in it to be a millionaire.

My dad tries to talk me out of it, and tries telling me that I'm going to college. But I think thats cuz he never went to college and didn't finish high school and is now kicking himself in the #####, but thats his fault.

Like someone else said in another thread, get a job that you want to wake up to in the morning and go to it. For me, thats been trucking since I was like, 4/5 yrs old. No body is gonna change my mind on that, they can try, but it won't do anything haha

 

Mainly because most 20-somethings are not willing to do the hard work or make the sacrifices to get a job they think they're entitled to, or unwilling to make the lifestyle choices (away from home, no drugs/alcohol, etc) required of a class A driver. For most it's all about immediate gratification or just live off Mom and Dad until their ship comes in (it won't). The public school system has reinforced that message by making everyone a winner and eliminating vocational programs.

A college degree does not equal work ethic, nor does it magically eliminate entitlement thinking or create responsibility. There are no college courses on "how to work hard," "common sense," or "being responsible." What college does do is advance the knowledge of basics you should have learned in high school, and enable strategic thinking. If you haven't already got the foundations of success in you, no college degree will make it happen for you.

Read this article about welfare PhDs. See if you can spot the entitlement thinking and bad decision making that is being blamed on everything under the sun. If you can, you may do well in a trucking career

 

Im 24 soon to be 25 and I started driving otr right after I turned 21

 

I started driving a semi at age 14 for a farmer running grain to the co-op. I started driving OTR at age 22 and bought my own truck the same year. That very same year diesel went from $1.50 gal to $3.50 gal and everyone said that's about when the industry went to crap.....I like to think me starting then didn't have anything to do with it

Ive now been driving for 9 years and think it is more that the old farts (or the old crustys as we call them here, and before you get all upset it is a sarcastic remark) just don't want to change with the times, more than it is that the industry is crap. They all remember the "golden days" of trucking but if you ask each driver, that golden age is different for each of them, and usually corresponds with when they were young and about the first 10 years they drove.

My grandfather started in 1948 after the war and said he enjoyed the 50's the most. The 60's had too many hippies all over the road and stupid hitch-hikers. My dad started in 74 after Vietnam and he said the best was the mid70's and early 80's. He now drives for WalMart and just tolerates the guys around him, but when he comes home all he does is ##### about the young drivers that Werner has in the DC

 

I started at age 16 doing 10. Wheel gravel trucks then went to semi truck and haven't looked back since and that was after a stint in the army in 71. 60 yrs old and still hammer down after 40 yrs and still got a college degree in business. Guess it paid off cause I havent gone broke yet after all these years

 

I think with what allot of the guys here are saying is true. Allot of the younger gen seem to not like being away from home which is hard when you are doing your best to raise a family or your just starting out. It is not easy looking back on what all that you have missed especially when your an OTR driver doing long miles everyday.

 

I'm 21, I got my CDL permit on February 12 of this year and my birthday is the 12 of February.... lol
I'm loving what I do and the people I see, oh and he stories that people share! ... Just great life style I think....



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I turned 23 yesterday, had my CDL permit on my 18th birthday and license about 3 months later, I have never gone OTR though only local, which is nice because I am able to work linehaul at night and "not sleep until I am tired" during the day. Been living on my own since 19, (I was pulling doubles), have a nice pick up truck, a fun car, quad and I have been house shopping for the last ~3 months or so but am not rushing into it and summer is the busy season so that might get put on hold. I just love driving, except on the weekends, being local with saturday and sunday off saturday nights usually consist of my passed out in the back of my buddies pick up. I do know that people my age that actually work are few and far between, I was talking to someone who graduated high school with me and he was complaining he had to work 50 hours that week, I asked him how he liked working part time

my step mother does loves the fact that my step brother went to collage, that $110,000 degree he got three years ago has done him real well making minimum wage at a pizza shop.

 

The younger generation has gone to complete hell. Im 22 and can't deny that 98% of people my age are lazy self entitled worthless sacks of life. I moved out right after highschool and went to college for a semester and realized it just wasn't for me. I was always good in school and had a 3.8 the one semester I went to college but I just didn't feel like college had anything to offer me as far as a career that I would enjoy for the rest of my life. I didn't want to be another desk jockey or another sap with a "liberal arts degree". I grew up hunting and fishing and being outdoors and around trucks my entire life. Old man drove for years and now it's a shop foreman for a big truck ccompany. I always wanted to drive but I couldn't at first out of college not being 21 so I went to a hunting guide school in Montana and guided back country hunts all over the west and then got into whitetail, turkey and waterfowl hunts in Kansas and Illinois. I had alot of fun for the past fee years doing it. I've seen some amazing place,met and guided tons of great people even CEOs of major outdoor companies. I recently became engaged to an amazing girl who has delt with me being away for sometimes 6 months at a time and often a month or more out of phone contact up in the back country. And we are now expecting a little one due next febuary. I decided to get out of guiding and start driving to attempt and have a more steady paycheck and a little more home time. Anything I can do for my family is all that matters to me. And did I mention I'm 22? Most all my friends my age don't do anything than work a minimum wage job and focus on nothing more than where the party is at on any given night of the week. It's quite sad that these people are going no where in life and they are just to stupid to realize it. I still get old friends from HS that contact me and ask where I've been all this time since graduation and I tell them I was out working and living life to the fullest and not just living for the next party. Idk maybe I'm just different but I'd rather have an amazing woman at home with a beautiful healthy child and know that I'm busting my ### OTR to provide them with a #### good life. Hopefully soon I will be able to become a O/O and bring home some more $$ and choose my home time more to my liking. But that will be a little further down the road.
Either way cheers to the real MEN out there working hard I know it sure makes me feel good to be a youngin with a work ethic and mindset not the "norm" of my generation