OTR

Sure if you don't mind living out of a truck weeks even months at a time. Even if you land a local job your life will revolve around work and you'll be home just to sleep.

 

The question is really whether it is a good time for you to get I to trucking... any career change takes thought and planing.. and research...
One of the biggest pitfalls for many who jump into trucking is the came in broke and behind on bills and didn't realize it can take awhile to really get your feet under you...

 

There is no driver shortage. There are plenty of CDL qualified drivers who are on the sidelines (other career fields) because they refuse to work for peanuts.

 

Those estimates are ginned up by slick politicians on both sides of the political aisles to justify the enormous amount of money they supply to the industry to keep the over supply of prospective drivers flowing in smoothly and at the same time to also ensure that the wages will always remain low and stagnant so that the cost of goods and services for consumers will always remain low and affordable.

I'd much prefer the federal government to get it's over reaching hands out of this industry altogether, so that true market forces could take back hold. Then the laws of supply and demand could kick in and governed compensation levels and the amount of drivers entering and leaving the industry.

Yeah this industry is filled with crony capitalists that live off the politician's dole, and as always it is the drivers that pay the highest price.

 

While not always the case, and some drivers do land some really good local gigs, there is a lot of truth to this statement. The law says that you can run up to 14 hours per day until you hit your 70. There are many companies that will take advantage of that law and work you your entire 14/70 each week.

 

When was the last good time? When did it end?

 

And living off of extended unemployment insurance, disability, welfare, food stamps, and subsidized Obamacare. Yeah they are all still here all right. The lowest labor participation rate in 35 years and since the last Marxist, Jimmy Carter, was president in 1978 without having the opposition holding majorities in both houses of Congress the same way the Marxist Bill Clinton had. Yep, they're all here all right with about 30 million illegals aliens stealing their prospective jobs and opportunities from them, while at the same time Obama's Marxist economic policies is taking its toll on the economy by stagnating our wages and destroying our jobs.

 

Exactly, the shortage is of qualified people desperate enough to work for peanuts. I know I sound like the "I can remember when" old-timer, but chew on this for a min. before you jump all over me. In 1984 I was in my 3rd year in the tanking world working for a company whose primary customer was a local asphalt company (seasonal, I was laid off at least 3 of the winter months), that year I grossed including the unemployment $44,000.00. Just think about that next time you roll up on a trailer that has that giant sign on the back door that says our drivers average 45-50,000.00 per year. I did that working part time 30 YEARS AGO. I'm not braggin' I'm just sayin'... I know times are different now and all that, but come on. This industry as a whole should be ashamed of itself, 30 years and basically no pay increase, not even cost of living, absolutely pathetic.

 

I work local, work 5 days a week at about 10.5 hours a day