Older (60) Retired Military (Marines) Getting Into Trucking

I don’t see the cameras as Orwellian, just a poor attempt to use techology to keep people safer on the roads.

If they REALLY want to sit there and watch me sitting there staring out the window they can go for it. I feel bad for them that their lives are really that boring.

 

I think if you got a good driving record and don't tear stuff up tell them to screw off you was trying to eat a sandwich when that camera went off.If they don't like it they can find someone else to work for chump change.Which they can't even find people to show up for work.A good driving record means everything.There is no such thing as loyalty in this business.It all about the money and Time which there is never enough of in my opinion

 

I think you are well prepared, better than most. I say focus on which company is the best place for you to work for 1 year. The area you are moving into may limit your options and limited options often means less home time. I know where you live is a multi-factor decision with priorities getting prioritized over other priorities. If tucking was your only consideration, and it's not look at where major interstate highways intersect. That usually mean lots of trucking options. Port cities have tons of container hauling, but usually owner-op and 1099 companies. Avoid 1099 companies if you have any choice.

Toward the New Orleans and Houston areas tankers options increase, IIRC.

Prime, IMO, has the most organized & rigid training program. You will know what you must complete, when you will start each stage, and they work almost everywhere. They are very big and have trainers, for reefer. But you may have to train out of Springfield, MO. There is probably more on Prime training on YouTube than any other company.

Your family is probably better suited to you being gone than most families. You'll have to judge if your family has had enough of you being gone that it becomes a deal-breaker. In general, you can be home weekends/weekly if you live near a company terminal. I would usually prioritize a company near where I live because it makes hometime more frequent, if shorter. If that means flatbed, then I would do flatbed, or whatever is closer. Since you haven't done any type of trucking you will adapt just as easily to whatever trucking you do.

Prime will have much longer training period, sharing a truck with a trainer, than most other companies and that is about the hardest period in all of trucking. You are sharing the space of a typical 1-bedroom apartment bathroom, not the apartment jut the bathroom, with another man for 1-10 weeks. It's pretty difficult for most people to sleep while the truck is being driven which makes most people even grumpier. But you are probably better prepared than most, unless your experience makes you super-set in your ways. You make the call.

You might check out Dale Clay. He's got a ton of YouTube videos, including a recap of every day from 1st day of orientation to his first solo load with Maverick Transportation of Arkansas. I'm too soft for flatbed but Maverick seems to really love their vets. Their securement training seems top-notch and you can be home weekly, depending on where you live. They also have dedicated flatbed in some places where you could be often often. Flatbed means lots of outside work and lots of exercise. Pay is more than dry van and reefer, usually. The miles are lower but higher paid.

Your not too old for any company. You're obviously smart enough to do well if you find a good match with a company. In my experience newbies underrate the amount of hometime to their success in the industry. With a family you might not toss away hometime like a lot of is single guys. Hometime will usually be the most important part of your week if you know your bills are being paid.

I've always worked weekly, home on weekends. But that means a rush to get home at the end of the week and a rush to mount up and get back on the road, which is pretty stressful for me. Home less often means more days at home when you are home. Typically you earn 1 day home for each 6-7 days out. I think Prime, and related companies, may max out at 5 days continuous hometime unless permission is obtained.

You can practice every question of every endorsement at Truckers Country.com and most questions of most endorsements at this website. To get CDL A you will have to takes General, Combination, Air-Brakes. I strongly suggest you add Tanker (necessary for some van and flatbed freight), Doubles-Triples, and HazMat. With those you can haul 90% of freight. HazMat will cost about $200 while the others are just the testing fee ($20-30). If you need to, get HazMat later when you can.

 

The bigger the trucking company the more mandatory it is for them to use these cameras.

The way the industry works today one of the biggest expenses is legal liability IE claims from accidents with 4 wheelers. This liability increases with the size of the company that owns the truck, so the bigger they are the more important it is to get unsafe drivers out of their equipment.

For some reason some of the biggest companies in the industry also run massive CDL mills and are constantly putting new drivers in their (self insured!) equipment. I get that this keeps the costs down on labor, but it seems to me that if the actuaries are right it might not be worth it? I guess it might have something to do with arbitraging the difference in between the cost of insurance and actual claims + the difference in accidents between the totally green and the experienced? Maybe the cameras make it possible to weed out the unsafe very quickly and thus the average Swift driver at 3 months in is a more careful person than some other companies? This seems very unlikely to me.

All's I know is that the mega's seem to be pretty lousy stocks. If you read the financial statements they give the SEC it's pretty obvious that the only people making good money off the mega carriers are the executives at the mega carriers. The shareholders and the drivers don't seem to be all that happy.

 

The hazmat endorsement costs 200 ?

 

Isn't the HM about $50 plus finger prints & background check. $150-ish. Some guys get TWIC & HM at same time which put it in neighborhood of $200

 

just study up, go to best trucking school in your area, don't pick a cheap trucking school.

give it your all while there, study like 14 hours plus a day.

do and practice all your training.

when with trainer it might suck at first, but the better you get the less and less it will be sucking. it's like riding a bike. gotta just get on and fly, you'll be scared at first time learning it. but once you learn it, it stays with you for life, and you'll fly like nothing on it.

with weiner enterprises. my starter company. if you don't like you trainer or he isn't training good or what not, werner encourages the students to ask for new trainers. werner is on the students sides not the trainer's sides. werner gets a bonus from government for each student who finishes the sit with trainer stage. trainers get paid well, so once you are learning the trainer will then try to keep you on his truck as long as he can, or atleast mine did, cause if he gets a new student it's like a pay cut with the first weeks with a new student.

another thing that made weiner enterprises nice, was that they had great online training. it was great, it wasn't just a few online courses they had 100s of online courses to take everything from learning flat bed, adjust your mirrors, winter driving, chaining tires, you name it it was on there they even had allowed drivers to take courses for human resources jobs and mechanic jobs on their driver portal. they also had at some terminals hand's on pretrip training refresher for drivers, where one of the guys at the terminal would walk out with the drivers and do a hands on pretrip training session for any driver's wanting to learn more about it, or want a refresher.

the pay was low cents per mile for trucking, but at the same time, my first 6 months working at werner i averaged 1k net pay a week, due to the sign on bonuses and other bonuses, plus i was doing teams 48 states.