Why do so many newbies disappear after they hit the road?

You are wrong to say I have nothing to lose, as I am almost sixty, and trucking may be the only thing left for me. It is much tougher for a sixty year old to find a good job than it is a young person. But that is beside the point of the thread.

I am not saying that motivation, hard work, and some brains are not important to success. That goes for any job. In my post I tried to give an opinion on why turnover in the trucking industry is so high, and why a person with certain personality traits and circumstances might be better suited to get through the first year and onward. Your reasoning is not convincing. Your being successful under your circumstances appears to be the exception. The biggest complaints I see all the time are lack of hometime leading to marital and other personal difficulties, loneliness, disputes with the dispatcher, and lack of mileage/income, etc. With a person having a nature and circumstances similar to mine as stated, it is logical to conclude that that type of person would have better odds of making it through the first year. I think you miss the point.

 

Well, I certainly didn't mean that you have nothing to lose, just that you have less to lose. You're not married, not much in the form of bills, no young children and little debt. I've never been almost 60, so I'm not sure, but I'd guess that you have some amount of experience in several industries. The younger people have little to no experience in any industry therefore limiting our options for real, decent decent paying jobs. OTR looks real good on paper!

I tend to think that the ones that don't make it OTR are the ones that don't have a need to make it. They're just giving it a shot for poops and giggles. Nothing wrong with that, you won't know if OTR is for you unless you try.

But, if you don't Need to work 80 hours a week, 30 days straight, hundreds or thousands of miles from home and loved ones, why would you? Many wouldn't.

 

It's actually quite the opposite. Those who are married, have children, and a mountain of bills/debt are more likely to fail than those who don't. You need to be on the road to make money, and the more time spent on the road is more time lost between you and your family. So you try to find a equilibrium between your home time and road time, BUT your debt to income level becomes unmanageable. Having a job is nice, but not all the time. Especially when you still can't pay all of your bills and not have a personal life.

 

Nah you've got it backwards man. You're more likely to fail if you have a family at home and a pile of debt. It gets awfully stressful if you don't get the miles you need to pay the bills, plus you're not seeing your kids grow up. I came out here with very little debt other than a mortgage. My kids are grown. I do have a wife at home. My stress level is low because I don't have to get so many miles to pay the bills. I can take my time and learn the ropes of this job without having to run crazy hard just to make ends meet.

 

I'm new, posted a ton before i went to school, now I only post every few days.....reason?

Time...not enough of it.

Usually by the time I get food, take a shower, do some laundry, review everything that happened that day with my trainer, the paperwork, trip planning, cleaning out truck, and the fact i am still adjusting to being able to sleep "on-demand", yeah i'm usually exhausted, but I still find time every couple of days to pop in and say hello.

Like right now, we were scheduled to head to South Dakota a few hours ago, but got held up over a receiver schedule issue, so now we are waiting to see if we are dropping this load for someone to repower or if we are going ahead as scheduled....1hr 43 minutes has been our wait time so far, might as well browse and post a little.....

 

It will get easier for you as time goes on, numbers. Once you get out on your own, you will likely learn how to manage your time so that you have a bit of free time. It is like anything else, you just have to learn how to do it. For right now, it is just good that you are able to look in now and then.