Completely NEW wanna be driver looking for advice.

You don't want a school, you want company sponsored training. That's different.

Take your pick. 6 of one- half dozen of the other. What type of freight you wanna haul? What kind of hometime you looking for? That's pretty much the biggest factors right now

 

CPM isn't really the biggest factor. Miles matters a lot. With any company you're gonna have to prove you can handle them first. All the starter companies are pretty similar.

just let them know from jump street that you're looking to go all out and RUN RUN RUN! Once you show your dispatcher that they're gonna feed you. It benefits them to feed the horse. BE THE HORSE!!

 

Stevens Transport is in Dallas, TX. I started there, but went to their 3rd party school in Denver. Worked for them for 13 months.

Decent starter company. Good trucks. I could always get pretty good miles. Typical mega bs. Not the best pay.

All in all, it got me the year of experience that I wanted!

 

I recommend looking at refrigerated carriers if you truly want to see all 48 and roam coast to coast and see as much of the nation as possible in the shortest time. Try and avoid those who seem to try very hard to push lease options from the beginning and all the time while working, such as TransAm. You want to avoid lease options in the beginning for at least a year. I don't recommend leasing at all except for a handful who love the lifestyle, become apprised of all the other types of driving career options, have a good head on their shoulder and are very disciplined with money, and don't mind risking going into the poor-house prematurely.

Once you get 12-24 months of solid experience and good work history under your belt, you can work almost anywhere you want if you think trucking is going to be a long-term career for you. There will be lots of better options once you advance beyond the first 12-18 months at a training company.

 

Just to clarify. Dry van freight tends to be largely "regional", and the long-haul loads typically go to teams.

Flatbed and tanker is largely the same as dry van ... lots of regional fleets

Refrigerated freight (mostly food) however, runs all over the nation, for both solos and teams. However there are many refrigerated outfits (fleets) that are mostly "regional" operations such as Marten and others.

So, if you really want to run all 48 (my preference, too) and have minimal home-time needs, be sure about the fleet you begin with because there are a lot of regional and multi-regional fleets out here.

 

Swift has a terminal in lancaster tx. Think they have a school there to.

 

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I can tell you a couple of things that are absolute when starting out. If you're hell bent on going company training, do not go with a company that makes you lease, I cannot emphasize this enough. If you choose to do a lease purchase later in your career that's your choice but don't be forced into it just starting out in the industry. I can't speak for all companires, but most that do company training are not great companies so don't let that form your opinion of the entire industry.

 

FFE (Frozen Food Express) in Dallas has company sponsored training.
You can also choose a cheap 160 hr. cdl school, then go with a refrigerated company that has nice trucks set up for driver comfort and long haul coast to coast trucking. Some will reimburse the school tuition directly back to you in monthly installments.
Here's a few that hire new cdl grads:
Freymiller - new cdl school grads go through the "Restore Program" to gain experience and learn refrigerated trucking.
Navajo Express
MCT Transportation
Pride Transport
Butler Transport