Teaming with wife.....I'm a truck driver she is not.....advice on getting started.

A lot of Companies will let you train her if you want to.

 

I'd buy a new Pete with all the bells and whistles and lease to Bruce Oakley, Forward Air, Monroe, any tanker outfit or buy an aluminum flat with side kit and lease to Watkins and Shepard. I was leased to them and ran 130,000 miles by myself a year and got paid well. They have shop, fuel and other discounts and if a load didn't pay enough you just negotiate with them. They probably would let you train your wife. I'd then trade the truck at 450,000 miles and keep one under warrant. Write offs are the answer to making money.

 

Are you O/O?

If so I woudnt waste your money on a school. You can teach her everything she needs to know and she can get her CDL very easily and affordably.

Get the CDL hand book from your local DMV,.. its free. It will have everything she needs to know to take the written tests. Give her a week or so to study it. Quiz her to see if she is understanding what she is reading. Help her understand where she needs help. When shes ready, have her take the written tests,.. General knowledge, Air brakes and combination. Thats all she needs to get her learners permit to drive tractor/trailer. Find a large lot somewhere and have her get a feel for the truck. Set up an alley dock, parallel parking area and general reversing, and then drill her over and over till she cries uncle. When you feel she's ready,.. have her go down the road so she can get a feel for the weight and negotiating the trailer, particularly right turns from intersections.

Then when she's ready, you can use your truck and do either a state sponsored road test, or through a 3rd party like Road Master school. Make sure she can do her pre-trip. They will be hard on that. Dont have a load on your trailer when you go either. They wont let you test with your truck while under a load. That,.. or you can use their truck for a fee. I think Road Master charges $150 with their truck, $75 with your truck. I'd advise you use what she's been practicing in.

In Florida its $80 for the written tests, she can take them over and over on the same day till she passes, but after the 3rd fail they charge $20 for each retake. Then the road test. I dont know what Florida charges for their road test. Miami was the closest place and that was 6 hours away from me. I used Road Master for my wife. How ever,.. after spending the summer with me, she decided trucking was not something she wanted to pursue. She now has a better understanding of what I do. But lack of showers and potty facilities etc was a deal breaker for her.

If your a company driver,.. well,.. I guess it all depends on what the company will allow you to do. Its probably best that she go through a credited school for insurance reasons. But if they will allow you to train her, I think they could wrangle it up as company training with their insurance.

Good luck.

Hurst

 

North Carolina is loaded with companies that will hire her right out of CDL school & you can be her trainer. Many other companies based in other states also will hire you both as they have freight going into North Carolina.

Old Dominion would be my first choice. Highest pay per mile.
US Express - excellent for teams, not good for solo.
WLA Inc.
Decker Truck Line
Cooke Trucking Co.
Pride Transport
Schneider
Covenant - need hazmat endorsement
Inman Trucking Company
Cargo Transporters
Hardy Bros.
Tyson Foods
DeBoer Transportation

Some of these companies do lots of West Coast turns.

 

My wife and I have been teaming for almost 2 years now. What I would recommend is to have your wife get her CDL through a cheap school. We paid $2,000 for ours. Both of you get all your endorsements . You get on with a company first. Work there for a couple of months so you learn how they do things then have her come on board with you being her trainer.

Since your kids are all grown up....something you need to ask yourselves is are you teaming for money only or for the money and to see the country. The reason I say that is because some companies will run you hard with little downtime to enjoy the cities your in.

 

Yeah,.. I was going to say. As a team they can pretty much write their own ticket after a while.

Teaming with someone that you work well with takes a lot of stress off. Can run virtually non stop if need be. $$$$

Plus, being with someone you love makes everything seem ok. This was the best summer I've had in a long time. I took specific routes just to show her how beautiful this country really is. She's hooked on Moab. And anytime I run through to Providence or Boston, I take 84 from PA, exit 11 in Connecticut takes you through 34 and out to 95. Along the way you go down this twisty road. There is a small hamburger shop by this lake resort that has 31 flavors of soft serve ice cream. And of course... the best hamburgers anywhere. Then you drive over a small dam, and continue on through small old towns. Very very scenic.

Hurst

 

I'm a mentor with Swift. A little over a month ago I had a trainee that was pretty much in the OP's boat:

- He'd driven local straight truck for years
- Kid's grown and gone
- Wife tired of stressing about her job

However, in their case the wife didn't have a fat retirement in the headlights.

Since he needed to upgrade his CDL he went to Swift's academy, then got on my truck to train. Meanwhile his wife went into Swift's academy, timing it so that by the time her husband finished training and upgraded to solo he would be ready to train her.

Swift has a "Friends and Family" program for exactly this situation. As soon as my trainee upgraded he went to mentor/trainer orientation and that qualified him to train his wife. She just finished training and upgraded, so now they are a full fledged team.

Their plan is to build their retirement savings for the next 4-5 years, by which time they should have enough to buy a house and she can settle back into working a "real" job or they may continue teaming longer.