Prospective Trucker

How are you going to handle being away from your family for weeks at a time? It is not easy and that road gets awfully lonely, awfully fast.

There couls be temptations to cheat on your wife. My wife rode with me all the time and chicks still hit on me. None of them were worth ruining my marriage for.

If you are religious, what are you going to do about services. (Hint, a lot of truck stops have chapel services Sunday morning.) I never went cause Sunday mornings I was usually on my way to thr land of cheese.

As far your questions...I cant answer them all as I am not, not have I ever been on o/o. But if I could I would find a Freightliner Cascadia with DD15, pre emissions. Might not be pretty, but some of the most well built trucks and engines out there.

 

What makes you think you can even drive a truck?

If I had money to buy a truck in your position, I would take up day trading or alligator farming, less risk and more enjoyment.

What floors me is you are one of thousands who think owning a truck is easy and you will make money as a paid vacationer but the truth is that you will most likely be border with it soon, ignore the safety aspect of it and be one of the people who won't treat this as a profession.

Buy an rv, be one who is envied by the truckers.

 

He said flatbed. So he don't have to worry about working the night shift.

 

He will be working night shift. I hauled aluminum loading in Logan Cy KY so that I will run through the night and arrive at Busch in Williamsburg VA in all weathers across the smokies. Regardless you will be there at sunup or 7 am whichever is earlier. IF you are late, they run out coil. Then they will have to stop the whole line.

Trucking is not all pretty. It's a form of battle. Do it right every hour of every day or you break stuff, hurt people or kill someone or someomes plural or yourself. And you wonder why you are in jail now or worse. You can be fired for the smallest of preventables. And easily replaced in a few hours as soon they get another driver to take your rig away. You get home on your own.

It's about expenses. That will never stop. Your payroll fluctuates week to week. $0.00 is possible. (Don't think they wont...) Even if you had a pile of money at the end of week all you can think of is sleep. And more of it.

You wont believe the regulation present in this industry. If you come from a pot state, it's even worse. You cannot even have alcohol mouthwash or anything that alters your mind or you will be charged with DUI.

Your CDL will have to go face to face with TSA, Homeland Security among other things. TWIC, fast card for canada and passport to start off. If you ever have a felony in your life you can forget Canada. They will turn you around and refuse entry.

You cannot be late. 15 minutes is enough to get you fired. In some places your time has no value and you wait days to get loaded or unloaded. And you wait some more.

You say you have children. STAY right where you are working. Don't come out here until all of your kids are grown and on their own away from you. Never mind your spouse. She gets lonely then angry then cheating and so on. Why? To her you are having the time of your life roaming the USA. What is left after your expenses might not be enough to support the household budget.

You cannot tell your dispatcher you have family here or there. They will ROUTE YOU THE OPPOSITE direction you will never see them. It's only business. If your wheels aint rolling you aint making money.

And the taxes?> That will consume you, followed by the real estate taxes. And then the property taxes too.

You WILL building savings with each load, one at a time. Small or large. Without any savings you have nothing. Then you lose everything in a really bad day fast.

You will learn that companies don';t give a *&^^ about you. ANY thing happens the question number one., "WHAT DIDJADOTOMY TRUCK!?" YOU don't matter. Esepcially if you caused the truck to be wrecked through your own fault.

Tuition? HA. 5000 dollars please. Cash. No money? Sign here. You pay back in one year should you NOT get fired, dismissed etc. If YOU DID get fired, all of that money is due now. And they will go after you in court. Because you are married, they will attach your marital assets and sue the wife too.

Let's say by some miracle you get into a 18 wheeler. Handed a 300 mile toilet paper run that does not deliver in 5 days time. Your first truckstop is stinking with urine. How in hell did you get involved in this thing?

And the children. They will miss you. Daddy daddy daddy daddy. That telephone 2000 miles from home is not a adequate enforcement tool. Your time does not matter. Your family NEEDS do NOT matter. You are wedded to that 18 wheeler and the load on it. Nothing else matters in your life. Not the grandparents on death bed. They will pass on without you.

I hate to be dfficult. But if it's trucking you want? HA. You give up everything so the USA can keep going another day on a load of toilet paper that will need about a month to sell out at the stores in your area. It's NOT that important.

 

Go with a company for a year or two before you invest all of your time and money into your own truck.

 

I've been an O/O for 15 years. Started when I was 40 after a good paying career that I was burned out from. Bought a truck right out of school so always an O/O from day 1. I had a boyfriend who was an experienced O/O drive team with me for the first 6 months so I did have some training and support, but the relationship did not last and I "let him go". I don't disagree with what anyone says above BUT I LOVE MY JOB. I love being alone, I've never been married and don't have children. I do make enough to pay a mortgage and support myself and my dog, I don't make enough to support children or exes. If I was young and male or just a stronger taller female, I would absolutely do flatbed. I could make more if I worked harder but that would just mean more days away from home.

Being an O/O is not a job, it is a LIFESTYLE, if it's what you want you will be happy, if it isn't, you will be miserable. Once you are in, it's hard to get back out again. If I was American I would sign on with Landstar without any question. I would buy a Freightliner 2007 or older with a Detroit 60 series. I would buy a recently rebuilt one in clean condition. If possible from a single owner who you know. Guys are getting out of the business all over the place right now. If possible talk to the shop that serviced it and stay with them. Detroits are easy to service, inexpensive parts and excellent fuel mileage. A "Freightshaker" may not be as pretty as a Pete or a KW but a solid workhorse of a truck and easy to repair. Having said all this, I seriously recommend that you get some experience first. Do a year in a company truck and NOT in an automatic. Especially if you are going to do flatbed, you seriously need to know load securement inside and out.

As an O/O you need to have solid accounting skills to know where you are at at all times. You need to say NO to runs that will not net you any money. You need to be able to figure this out in your head. I work with alot of guys older and more experienced than me who have taken second mortgages on their house or who owe thousands to the company we are contracted to. Don't go down that path, you will never get out. You need to have a credit card with a solid $30,000 limit on it at all times out on the road. You need to be able to pay it off within your business without borrowing money from your personal life. You need to have a budget that accommodates engine rebuilds, replacing turbos and replacing tires and you need to leave that money in the business and not use it for personal things like buying a motorcycle, a boat or building a bigger garage.

If you are in your 30's and married with children seriously ask yourself if you want to stay that way. Many of the men that I work with are unhappy, divorced, paying child support and never seeing their children. They are in deep holes they will never get out of. The guys above have said the same thing but maybe you aren't taking them seriously. I'll tell you that everything they say is absolutely true but that doesn't mean we don't still love what we do. I never liked children and I never got married so I'm a horse of a completely different color and there are lots of us out here too. I've just bought ANOTHER 07 Freightliner after my 06 was written off by a drunk driver in an F350. I spent all 3 months I was on disability telling myself I wouldn't buy another truck and here I go again. So I won't tell you not to do it. These guys out here OTR are the best people I have ever met in my life and this is my family now.

 

My bad. I stand corrected.

(Lucky skateboarders.)

 

You do know Landstar does take canadian owners on for their canada operations?

 

Yes thank you, I do know this. I know the local Landstar broker and a number of guys who did work for them. I gave long and hard consideration to it years ago. It's very difficult as a Canadian to run Landstar or as Independent due to Cabotage regulations. The vast majority of Canadian O/O's contract on to a carrier. If you would like, I can explain why, but this thread is about a guy who is not currently a truck driver who is considering becoming an O/O, not about who I work for.