This is For The Newbies to Trucking, My Take

Good morning,

I have been here less than a full 24 hours and I have read through enough threads to know that in some instances, those who are or will be new to trucking, are getting the wrong information. Now, to be honest, some of the threads are spot on, and there is no way to get around that.

Let me qualify myself first. I have been in the trucking industry as a driver for about 24 years. I have been a company driver, lease driver, driver trainer, but never a full owner operator. Why? I just never really did it.

I've driven for Watkins Motor Lines, which was bought out by Fed Ex, and a few other companies, so I have been around the industry. As a kid, I was the son of a father and mother who were truckers. Dad was over the road with JB Hunt and mom was a local driver in West Virginia, hauling stone and other materials in a dump truck.

So you want to be a driver and live the lifestyle of a over the road trucker. Maybe you used to watch trucks go down the road as a kid and said I want to do that, or your out of work and desperate to just get a job because where you live is such a small town, that the entire town has taken up all the good jobs.

First, if you think this is a get rich opportunity or your just going to hold onto a steering will and not have to work, then reconsider, because this is one of the hardest things, anyone will do.

Lets talk about money. Until you have a year under your belt, meaning a full year, driving in all weather conditions, you will not see the high side of cpm, or cents per mile. Very few will pay you any real money, until that time. There are a few exceptions but you will have to be one of those drivers, living on the road for the most part. Why? because you are paid by the mile and if the truck is not moving, your not generating cents per mile or income.

The magic number for miles has always been 3,000 miles. It has been said that if you can run 3,000 miles per week, your doing okay and anything above that is considered doing well, but here is the thing, if your not doing that every week, your income will be up and down like a roller coaster. This is why recruiters talk in averages, because they don't want someone to come back and say to them, that I was promised X amount of miles.

Most new drivers go through carrier based schools because the upside is a guaranteed job at the end, but you pay the price in terms of sometimes low miles each week or if your good and you happen to get some decent miles, your pay will suffer because your cents per mile is low. Most of the training companies will pay between about .26 to .30 cents per mile, and if you do the math, on the front end, it seems like a pretty good check but when you deduct carrier truck school loan, other things you agreed to have taken out of your check, taxes, etc, your probably not going to see a big paycheck. Again, there are exceptions, so you kinda have to hope for the best.

I always tell new people, don't use the high numbers as a guide, use the low numbers. Example, if new drivers are said to be getting 2400 to 2800 miles per week, go by the lowest number, because until you prove yourself, you may not see the higher number of miles.

Bottom line is that you may not make much more money than your making now at your present job, however, if your trying to better your and/or your families future, your going to have to pay some dues and accept that your income may suffer before it will get better.

It has been said that most of the training companies or mega's as they are referred to get a government stipend for each person that goes through the training program. While this may be true, it does not really affect you one way of the other. You can't do anything to stop it, so why worry about it???

The purpose of being a student driver, I hate the word trainee, is to learn how to drive a truck and do it safely. That should be where your focus is at, while in student status. Read some of the posts, your will often wonder how any of these complainers even got the truck in gear to start with.

I always say to people, do your research and base your decision off what yo are feeling is the best move for you. Read the negative comments but don't allow those to be the deciding factor. People have a god given right to voice their opinions, complain and be negative, but not everyone is going to have issues.

When you as a person gets off track by being upset and complaining and doing the why, why, why thing, then you lose focus and you become dangerous to cars, other trucks and people.

Now lets talk about the various companies. I may upset a lot of people here that will say that CRST for example is a bad company, run the other way, etc. Newsflash, they say the same about CR England,
Schneider, FFE, etc.

If you look at the dates on a good portion of these threads here, they are from years ago. Companies change the way they do business, operate differently, have different people working there. So the point is that you can't in 2016 go by what happened in 2008, 2010.

Use your own judgement as to what you believe and don't believe. Good luck to everyone.