Best Companies to apply to as a student driver?

Seeing that you live in Mass you pretty much have an excellent selection to choose from. What you ask is to broad of a question without knowing what it is you would like to pull. I wouldn't jump on with a dry van or refer carrier cause there is no future in them, were as flatbed could lead to heavy haul or over sized. Car carrier pay well and lead to real nice union jobs. I drove LTL for 6 years and then due to family issues had to move 1300 miles away and couldn't transfer and LTL is hard to find cause most driver never leave once they are on. Now I haul liquid food tank and lover it, but would prefer to do LTL. No matter what you haul dry van and rifer will always hire you on without any special training. The others will not.

 

My 2 Cents are that you have to do a little research on what it is like to be truck driver (living/working) and decide what is important to you since there are so many companies that have different options and benefits, for example some companies charge $20-$30 for passenger insurance and what type of passenger you can have so if you don't ever plan on bringing someone with you then who cares but that matters to some people. You should also know what you want to pull and how long you want to be OTR, for me I want to hit my 12 months and look for a local day cab position. I learned in the last few months getting into a driver position is like no other job out there, its never clear cut on what your getting into so you have to research and be prepared. You don't get called in for a interview like a normal job and discuses your future with the company.

This site has a lot of great info but you have to apply it to what you want from a company and look beyond the complaints as they may not apply to your expectations and needs.

For me I would say Roehl and Crete would be a good place to start researching. As an example of something that doesn't work for me but has nothing to do with the quality of a company is I do not want to drive for a company that uses a fleet full of automatics or does team driving during your OTR training period. I want a manual and the trainer awake and on duty sitting in the seat next to me while I'm driving. I also want the trainer to have a min of 2 years experience, not 6 months and took a 2hr company course on being a trainer.

Good luck,

 

Runkle makes some valid points

What do you want out of a trucking career. Some drivers want to driver OTR their whole career and some only driver OTR in order have the experience to apply for local jobs.

You don't need OTR experience to find a local job but most of the time you do.

To Runkle:

Life on the road is more about a personal experience and a lot less to do with any company you work for, until you experience it you can't truly understand it. A drivers personal life has a lot to do with you experience. If you are single and have no kids, house payment, or car payment then you experience will be a lot different then a driver who has wife, 4 kids, a house payment, 2 car payments, and a couple of sick elderly parents.

Yes you are correct at looking for a trucking company that has OTR Driver Trainers have to be in the passenger's seat while you are in the drivers seat, you don't learn anything by running team other than a hatred for running team. A train the trainer course would be something to see if they require of their trainers too.

Once your out here on the road stay out of the truck stops except to fuel, scale, and shower. The less time you are there the less money you will spend and the more money you will have in your pocket. Just keep the left door shut and roll down the road.

DON'T FEED THE BEARS!

 

CDL1968

Thats everything I thought of when I was looking for a company. I have no interest in sitting in a truck stop for hours drinking coffee and BSing. Which brings me to another thought, if you want to make money do as you said, keep driving and i also realized that you have to be willing to get under the truck on your back and fix something when needed even if think you shouldn't be doing it just be safe and do it right or sit and wait for a shop truck while you make nothing and loss hours.

And don't be shy, when you see a driver hanging out in a parking lot ask a few questions about the company. I have done it many times and i find they are always willing to entertain your questions, I also think they like talking to people since they are stuck in a truck all day. I recently meet a nice driver for Con-Way and the only complaint he had was he did not like his super single tires in the snow at all, other that he sounded very happy with the company.

 

No such thing as "a best".

You pick what you think will work for ya.

 

If Tanker/Hazmat is what you want I would look deeper into Schneider, its huge and you might even luck out and go from OTR to local and stay with the same company. I find drivers that complain about money are the same drivers changing companies every 6 months when time with a company is the major factor in earning more money over time.

This is where you find complaints about Schneider but considering you want a tanker job OTR then local they might be a good fit. If they have a bad policy on APU's for example, who cares and you can deal with it for a year if you can get a local job and stay at the same place.

 

Whoever you decide to drive with just suck it up and keep your nose clean. In a year or two your options will get bigger. By then you'll get a clearer picture of what this industry is about and then you can move on from there. Good luck.