Going From Straight Trucks To 18 Wheelers?

Hello. I am new to this site and want any advice on switching over from driving straight Class A & B trucks to driving tractor trailers. I have a little over 25 years of commercial driving experience with 15 of that in dry van, flatbed and tanker straight trucks and only 9 months in tractor trailers, none of that 9 months being very recent experience.

After many years of working mostly through agencies I would like to change over to driving tractor trailers full time, preferrably tankers, and have applied to a number of local and national companies with mixed results. When applying and interviewed I have gotten mostly very positive responses regarding my experience and even passed road and paperwork skills testing without problems but no one has offered me a tractor trailer driving job except the bottom of the barrel national companies.

What seems most in my favor is my well over 20 years clean driving record and what seems to not be in my favor is the combination of a lack of recent tractor trailer experience, that I have worked through agencies for so long and a desire to not work long haul OTR again. I have had more than one interviewer say that I am very much welcome to a job at their company in the future if I get in at least a full year of tractor trailer experience elsewhere first but doing so without going OTR is the kicker.

I can't afford to attend a reputable school, if that would even help, and every company training training program I looked into so far either would result in an OTR and financial obligation that I can't take on or is only looking for the more experienced drivers to start with. I live in the Los Angeles area and have not run out of companies to apply to but wonder if I am just chasing my tail on this? Would I be better off sticking with the straight trucks until the economy and my finances improve to get more recent training or have I missed something that the experienced drivers on here could advise me on? Thank you for any and all replies.

Bubba O'Reilly

 

I appreciate the straightforward advice and I will be following it. As of today a local company has agreed to hire me in January as a part time transfer driver so between that and my regular hours I will be holding off until finding an OTR position and can afford to be in a company training program. The costs of caring for an elder family member and reduced hours has cut deep into my resources but with the income from the second job I should be able to catch up on the finances by April.

All of this local work has made me a safer driver and apparently is the main reason for my getting hired for the second job. I'll get out of the straight trucks eventually and just need to be patient and become prepared for the opportunity when it arrives. Thank you again for the advice.

Bubba O'Reilly