Pay

The recruiter is telling you that you will be driving 600 miles per day? Please take whatever the recruiter is telling you with a big grain of salt. At any of the large training companies, you will in reality be averaging 2000 to 2300 miles per week. At .31 cpm, that works out to $600-$700 gross per week. Yes, that is likely more than you make now but you have to consider that you will be living on the road, away from home, for several weeks at a time. The majority of your downtime will be spent in the closet-sized bunk of your truck at a smelly truck stop.

Can you see yourself living like this for a couple of years? If you can do it and manage not to crash, back into stuff, or get tickets then much better driving jobs will become available to you (I.e. Better pay, better hours, more home time).

All in all, I think .31 cpm is a little low for a new driver but not by much. Shop around a little. There are lots of companies that offer CDL training. KLLM is not the worst one out there but likely not the best either. Start reading threads on this site and ask questions. Driving OTR for a mega carrier will be a major lifestyle shock but if you can tough it out for two years you can make a very nice living as a professional driver. I started with a mega carrier that gets bad-mouthed on this site pretty often, but my experience there was good, because I was determined to make it be good, and now I've got a gravy local job. Good luck and keep researching before you commit to any kind of contract.

 

You might make money and be miserable too.

You could land a local job or you could spend months away from home in a truck.

If the only reason you want to do it is because it looks like an easy way to make more money without education it's probably not a good choice.

And if you think you're going to run 600 miles a day, every day right at the start you're dreaming.

A lot of good information on this this site, I suggest you start by reading through some of the threads here.

 

It appears to me that you are very new to this idea. So let me give you some advice.

$14 per hour is right around 28,000 per year. That is a wonderful rate of pay for the early 1970s. But you can't support a wife and family on that little pay. Their is a ridiculous push to make $15 the minimum wage. So you can look forward to that.

Are you happy with your life? Is there room to grow with the company you are with? Do you have skills to take to the market elsewhere? If you answered NO to those questions then Trucking could be the place to go.

All training companies start out paying you very little from a Professional truckers point of view. We will all tell you that you are getting sc rewed by your first company. Because you are but you are also paying your dues. We hate it because more drivers drives our wages down. We don't want any driver driving for less money then .45 per mile. But if you do not have experience or even just a CDL it is almost impossible to avoid a training company.

If you sign with KLLM and go to training and drive over the road and learn something you will have a skill that can be put to use anywhere in the United States and Canada. Trucking is a very rewarding career with many good things. There is also lots of downsides. Over the road is a lonely life style. Personally, I like my alone time. What it is, is Prison only higher pay and less friendly showers.

After six months you can make $1125 per week guaranteed with companies out there. But you will give up a big part of your life. But working for 14 and hour, the life you give up isn't much.

 

Does it have to be at the very bottom? Look around explore options.

 

.31 cents per mile isn't bad as long as it's only for 30-90 days. After that you should be making .38 cpm or more. Don't get into it for the money. If money is your motivation you'll find yourself dissatisfied in no time. It's long hours and most of it is unpaid. Do it because you enjoy it and the money will follow. I recommend Knight Refrigerated as a place to start. They did well by me and I made good money there.

 

How long will you have to wait to get loaded and unloaded?
In a hundred miles you will make $31. If you average 50 mph driving you would be making $15.50 per hour.

You can only drive 11 hours per day, 11 x 50 mph = 550 miles you can drive per day.... Is $170.5 per day.

Now add in your down time where you will be on duty but not driving, so for a 12 hr day you get paid $14.21 per hour. Plus you would have to sleep in your truck if you were out of town overnight.

The question you have to answer, is this a good deal for you?

31 cents per mile is the going rate for new drivers.

 

It can be a rewarding career, but as others have said it is NOT an easy job. There is a reason why over 90% of new drivers don't make it a year in this industry. You've got to go in with the right mindset and be willing to work very hard (12-14 hour days are the norm). You must be very disciplined and self-motivated because there is no one watching over you to make sure you get the loads where they need to be on time. You must be very good with time management because you are working under federal hours of service regulations and mandatory breaks times (you will need to know, give or take 15 min., what time you will arrive at a customer that is 1600 miles away). Late loads are unacceptable. Tickets of any type are unacceptable. Accidents (even minor ones) are unacceptable. There are so many ways that you can make yourself unemployable in the industry if you are not performing at that top of your game at all times.

I'm not trying to scare you off from pursuing this career, because it's given me and my family a good life, but you need to understand that there is so much more to it than cruising down the road while you rake in big bucks. The top tier jobs in this industry are highly competitive and only go to experienced drivers with proven track records of exceptional safety and reliability. The entry level jobs can be, at best, mind-numbingly frustrating.