Payment Expectations

Oh it's open.

Sit in the orientation trailer with 50. Half of whom have not bathed yet.

 

When this question gets asked, and it gets asked a lot, every other body chimes in here with outstanding numbers, that if true are the outliers in the situation.

Average truck driver makes $41k a year. Heavy and Tractor-trailer Truck Drivers : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most work 70-90 hours a week to get that.

If all the fresh meat is doing better then $41k, why are so many experienced drivers getting screwed with lower pay? Especially when you consider most jobs are asking for better then a year of experience?

It is true some people do get lucky right off the bat? That happens in everything. Egos aside, I think it is best not to misrepresent the job to a prospective driver.

 

I would assume most people also claim their perdiem, which would add another 15k to that baseline of 41,000.
Let’s assume .40 cpm is the average across the board, then the average driver is only moving 1,900 miles per week. 271 miles per day...
If you want to drive part time, expect part time pay.

 

No that is all in for that average. Don't add anything! By far, not everybody pays on a per-diem basis. That is straight up pay don't make things up.

Your math is off, which is par for the course when discussing incomes.

$41,000/$.40 cpm = 102,500 miles a year.
102,500 miles/52 weeks = 1971 miles a week.
1971miles/7days a week = 281 miles a day if you never go home.

Most drivers take a day off now and then. But by far that is not a part time driver. Most drivers lot 70 hours to get that, and work 90-100 hours in the real world.

You get what you get when driving for a CPM mega. It is not a bottomless cookie jar of freight where you help yourself to what you want when you want.

Now the front office at the mega has mislead drivers into thinking different; That there is a shortage of drivers; that piece work pay is "performance based pay." It is not. Of course they have financial motives for their lies.

 

What's the point in posting this? Half this forum is "well in my day 10/15/20 years ago with paper logs, loose laws, and no breathalyzers"

Like, we get it, all us new truckers are late to the money making party...

 

In my time we had three meals a day in a different much less laid back culture. In the Baltimore area, it was common to have .50 cent coffee, bottomless on to a proper 4.50 breakfast and similar pricing for lunch and dinner.

My numbers came from a petro menu from the 2001 era where spouse and I were a team. it caused us to cook meals exclusively in the tractor carrying about 6 weeks worth of food, water etc at a time from Walmart in Lariame WY which has that special nice cased bacon, Ranch brand or something or other not availible in Arkansas. Nice big cut. I would love to order it to ship to Arkansas like Omaha steaks. But Im not sure where to go to get it ordered.

We managed to slash the food expenses for two people by not eating retail anymore. What we did do for nutritional and for morale was to have a date night/day in the TA at Armarillo East in the old 76 there. I think that truckstop is gone now. But anyway good food, premium retail paying for both of us turns into a expensive outing but they at that time recognized what we were doing and served us well. I think it was a hundred dollars in total for a proper day out of the truck eating nice once a week.

I quit smoking when smokes reached 20 a day for 4 packs. The rockies high altitude did a number on me and I ended up in the Casper ER with symptoms of mid chest wall angia, asthma or rocky mountain sickness we had been roaming the mountains 6 weeks prior and I got really sick coming down past that yellowstone range. So we pulled into Casper hospital downtown WY and asked them to fix me.

Smoking had to stop. and it did. Thankfully it was nothing really serious, but it was a difficult night for me what with the feelings of morality etc waiting to get to Casper. Im over it now.

Your advice is solid. I would love to repost or share that with everyone who visits here.

I am a little bit... unique here. Some called me lunch counter pounder, drama or taste for the hyperbole etc. It's who I am, a little bit of a showboat and can be difficult but I am a good student and listen to everyone, at least once. LOL. HA....

Happy new years to you and yours.

 

If you like heavy equipment why not get your CDL and go run a dozer or something. Equipment operators with a CDL so they can haul their own machines are in pretty high demand. In lots of areas the oilfield is booming and they use a lot of heavy equipment. Nothing wrong with trucking but why not make the same money doing something that you want to do.

 

What you new ones don't understand is that they paid .20 to start, .35 for the best hands in 1980's and are still paying .35 crappy pay to anyone stupid enough to take it on hire from school. Base pay should be twice that minimum industry wide for new hands. .70 experienced ones should be a dollar.

Inflation and all that.

 

Trimac is tanker and most of your pay will be for loading and unloading, things like that. I made 70+ at swift team dedicated and on flatbed. It can be done even at companies people swear it can’t. I would say out of the gate to go into something specialized if you want to make any money or find someone you like and team with them. When you have some experience I can get you on with the company I work for. I’m averaging like 1450 weekly at the moment but I’m home every day, when the weather is cold, wet, or unfavorable for cement type #### lol.

I do miss being over the road though. Anyway, my advice is specialize early and don’t lease a truck under any circumstances. LTL, tanker or flatbed are where most of the money is at. Which you should do depends on where you live, whether you want to do physical work, whether you want to stay local, or you want to drive over the road.

SAIA is hiring in Ft Worth as well for a new terminal. It’s like 26.50 per hour to start, overtime after 8, double time after 12. And you’ll be running out pretty much all of your 14. You will be working for your money.

And fair warning, if you take the lazy route and don’t do any physical work, you’re going to fail your physical because of high blood pressure etc when you try to fly. The guy I teamed with was an aircraft mechanic for years and got his license only to be told he can’t fly due to his blood pressure. And that was under control with meds. Still can’t fly. So my advice is driver unload, or flatbed. You’re in the hiring area for TMC, Maverick, for starter companies. Maverick has a dedicated account out of Midlothian at Gerdau hauling structural steel. Home weekly and pays percentage of the load. Maverick has dedicated glass hauling out of Corsicana at guardian glass. That starts at .42 per mile. Those loads have to be tarped. Tarps are heavy and the loads are tall. The steel, I have never seen tarped coming out of Gerdau. Maybe a few rebar loads.

Between them and Trimac, that’s probably what I’d do if I was starting over.