Thinking Career Change

It's hard to explain why we do it, it must be something in our blood. Once you start driving, after a few years, it just ... is the way things are.

Trucking is probably the best way to see the country, and I would argue to people that have seen by driving car, it is a TOTALLY different world in a truck. Somehow the truck keeps you awake to drive it, when you slow way down crawling through the mountains, you gain huge respect for them. Trucking is really what you make of it. If you find a good carrier that provides good equipment, good, steady work, and treats you like a human being, then you may ask yourself why you didn't start earlier.

There are many hardships trucking brings also. You will be gone from home for long stretches of time. That is unavoidable. The cost of living on the road is very expensive. You will have to sit in truck stops far away from home, often missing holiday times when the rest of your family is eating turkey. All the sights to see, say Mt. Rushmore, Crazyhorse, any national parks, any of that, you must drive on by because the load doesn't have enough time in it for you to stop to go see that kind of stuff.

To sum it up, I find it is mostly a love/hate thing. Some days I love to hate it. Other days I hate to love it.

 

Its a worthwhile career but stay local if you can imo over the road blows. Your 58 forget about it as a new driver you would only have otr available plus the 5 grand to go to school. Thats my advice from a 28 year veteran of trucking.But you do whats better for you and good luck.

 

Sometimes it depends on the carrier. I drive for a wood recycling facilaty and cover the state. I'll be outta town for a few weeks or home every night for a month. Its a small company and I'm the young pup so thats why I am the one who gets sent to the western slope and such. They do however have a guy in his 60's driving local deliveries for them as well he drove school bus for 2 years before working there but didn't have any tractor trailer experience. So keep your head up and explore your options. I've found you can have better luck sometimes with smaller companies that do things such as landscape supply or building materials rather than only looking into trucking companies.