What's your opinion on trucking ?

Hi Giggles, that's true, one persons dream job is someone else's nightmare, even though it's the same job. Trucking isn't the most physical job, most the time , you sit there and the truck does all the work. It's not like pounding fence posts in the ground in 100 degree heat.( which I've done). It gives the driver too much time to think. And Big Don is right, years ago we pissed and moaned about the same issues.

 

The industry has been great to me ever since I first started, solely because of my location. Never once did I ever have to drive for a mega carrier, and I'm a first generation driver. The first truck I drove was a Mack R-model with a 5 and 4. It was a raggity POS farm truck, but I drove the wheels off it for 5 years. I then went to Airborne Express followed by DHL. From DHL I went OTR into heavy haul driving a Century and a FLD. Now I'm at the post office. Believe it or not, but I did not drive a governed truck until I was at the post office, but since they're paying me by the hour I couldn't care less if they governed me all the way down to 35.

Dont listen to the school when they tell you that you have to 'put your time in' and drive for a mega. That pile of shenanigans is a fallacy. Think outside the box.

 

By the way, in my opinion these are the best cities to live in or near, if you want a good paying job and a lower cost of living:

Indianapolis, Indiana
Chicago, Illinois
Memphis, Tennessee
Cincinatti, Ohio
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas
St Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota
Atlanta, Georgia
Sr Louis, Missouri

Theres one thing these cities have in common. They're major fedex hubs. If you want to live in a good freight lane, follow fedex. Even if you don't want to drive for fedex, these cities will have PLENTY of other driving jobs. If you don't live in these cities, I personally would give some serious thought into moving.

 

[QUOTE="semi" retired;4379372]Hi Giggles, that's true, one persons dream job is someone else's nightmare, even though it's the same job. Trucking isn't the most physical job, most the time , you sit there and the truck does all the work. It's not like pounding fence posts in the ground in 100 degree heat.( which I've done). It gives the driver too much time to think. And Big Don is right, years ago we pissed and moaned about the same issues.[/QUOTE]

you are right. i guess i should have clarified more. i knew what i meant..haha....physically, i mean its hard on our bodies..sitting in that seat for extended periods of time hard on our knees and our backs...so i didnt mean labor intensive...thanks for bringing that out others may have been thinking along the lines you were.

 

Another thing those cities have in common, is that none of them are in the west! I believe that trucking just doesn't pay nearly as well out west here. Of course cost of living may be a bit less too, unless you are in California, which is totally ridiculous in a lot of areas.

 

Out west there really aren't any solid freight lines, besides Salt Lake City and maybe Denver.

However western states would be a gold mine for cattle hauling. It all depends on what you want to do.

 

SoCal does have a lot of terminals, but most of that is OTR.

On the east side of the country, major cities are closer together, which makes it easier for LTL's to run line hauls between said cities.

 

ROFL, both SLC and Denver can be a nightmare to try to get freight out of!

Out here, refer is probably the best bet. We just don't have the manufacturing that they do in the midwest and the east. But we do have agriculture. Of course we have the ports, and I may be wrong, but in my personal limited experience, they are more "export" than "import" over here on the west side.

You can make a good living out here. You just have to find the right niche.

 

When I was OTR, I never had issues getting loads out of Denver or SLC as I was heavy haul. But you can forget about trying to get a load out of cities like Albequerque and El Paso. You might as well join Tom Cruise in 'Mission Impossible'.