Trucking has been a blessing to me.

I bet you won't hear that combination of words in the title coming from many truckers , but that is how I really feel about my career as a trucker.

My career started on 12/3/1996 at the Professional Driver's Institute in New Buffalo, Michigan as a contract driver for CRST. If you were in that class with me I'd love to hear from you. My classmates called me Slow Motion because I was so nervous about driving at first that I drove real slow, even for a newbie.

The school went alright and I got my CDL and reported for duty after the new year. My first load with a trainer was a two-stopper going from Iowa up into Alberta and over to British Columbia. CRST doesn't go to Canada now that I'm aware of, but back then they did. As we rolled through the plains of the upper midwest and into southern Canada, I knew that I had made a good choice for a new career. When I got out of training and got my first paycheck for driving as a part of a team I brought home about $300. I thought I had hit the jackpot. I had never grossed that much money in a week let along brought home that much.

I gave CRST the first year and a half of my career. I spent most of my time there with one co-driver. I realize I was fortunate in that regard. I've heard a lot of horror stories involving co-drivers, but we got along alright and we only lived 50 miles away from each other so we made a pretty good team.

All of my driving since CRST has been solo up until last year. It turned out to be good for me. I was having a real hard time with a mental illness back then and the solo otr work I did, albeit hard work, was really a blessing in disguise. I had a hard time being in public places where there was a lot of people. Being a long haul otr driver, I could hop in the truck and not have to see anyone for several days except for when I had to fuel. I was able to make a living through trucking at a time when I don't think I could have done it anywhere else.

Well, I got all the "screwed up head" stuff cleared up when I took a local position and got some decent health insurance. I know a lot of you drivers out there go without health insurance whether you are an o/o or your company just doesn't offer health insurance. I urge you to get some kind of health insurance if you don't have it now. It could easily save you from a lifetime of debt.

I've hauled otr, regional, short-haul, and local all with dry vans. I've been a company driver, an independent driver, and an owner/operator. Now days I haul doubles half the time on a linehaul route and a pup trailer the other half of the time on a delivery route. I'm home every day now with the weekends off. I'm going to make $57,000 this year and that's going to be the best year I've ever had. And that's the way it should work, right? Put in your time and pay your dues and good things will happen.

I do not regret my decision to become a trucker.

It's probably going to be hard for you new drivers when you first hit the road. It does get easier and more tolerable, but it never really gets easy. And it's probably going to take some looking around before you find a company that's right for you. But hang in there for a year, especially if you are a contract driver, and you will find opportunities opening up for you.

Be safe everyone.

 

And thanks to everyone else who has responded to this thread so far.

Yeah, poptop, this is the life for me as well. I think about my days of working in factories and fast food joints and cringe with fear and loathing of ever having to return to that kind of work. Well, that may be a little exaggeration, but I really do hope to stay in trucking in some way for the rest of my working days.

I see some of these newbies and wannabes here and I see that they already seem to have a little bit of that diesel running through their veins. I hope that trucking is everything to them that it has been to me.