Young, no experience, insurance problems

Read the IRS guidelines for being 1099 vs an employee. 90% of the 1099 trucking jobs you’re an employee. Companies just use it to skirt regulations.

 

Another thing to consider is what you will do when this upstanding company decided not to pay you. You won’t have any of the safeguards against it like an employee would.

 

During the two times I was working as an contract 1099 driver I was doing Drive a way and Repo. These jobs paid by the contract and I made so much of that contract. A driver driving someone else's equipment should not be a 1099 driver. If you are as @Long FLD said, the company is shady and i would recommend walking away.

 

OP-- FFE has a terminal in Lemont Chicago area. Its a good company to start with. You can focus on driving and learning to live on the road and not worry about all that 1099 junk. You'll make a lot more than most 23 year olds by far.

They have linehaul where you drive mostly the same route every week. You get a weekly 34 hr reset and they are usually out like 6 weeks at a time. They earn 1 day off for every week on the road. You can team or you can do it solo. Teams get priority because they can haul in half the time of a single driver.

They have a LTL a Tyson Food account that I hear are OK.

They have a plasma deal thats good. Like Chinatown said its average 1500 per week. Team is required. They load their trailer. It's .40 per mile for all miles driven plus 30 per pick up - avg pick up time is about 45-50 minutes, 2-4 pickups per day avg during the week. On the weekends you will help with LTL. You get 5-6 days off every month and they tip you $850 for the days you are off if you remain on call. Most people are rarely called, it's mostly just a nice bonus.

That last plasma division is hard work, esp for the driver driving at nights because you might need to drive through the night to reach stops the next day, then help load the trailer as needed during the day. It can be challenging but it puts some paper in your wallet. Also there are some backing situations that will be challenging for a new driver. But its all totally doable if you can be patient and take your time and not rush it. Some routes pay more than the avg 1500. Went to the northeast and pulled on 2200 for that week. It was hard, and I disnt like it, but it paid me. The Northwest runs will pay even a little more.

Hardest parts of the job is just dealing with another guy in the truck, and fatigue. Sleeping in a moving truck takes some getting used to. Other times sleep just gets broken up for various reasons. You and your codriver are given 70 hrs a week to work and they will usually have you use it all up or most of it. Its like starting 60-70k annual.

My humble rookie opinion is to start with a company fully insured, and covered taken care of by office personally behind the scenes so you can focus on driving, backing, road living, HOS and FMCSA laws and rules. Theres enough learning there to keep you busy for some time. I dont feel like ive scratched the surface after 7-8 mos driving. For me adding a bunch of 1099 #### would just complicate things unnecessarily in the beginning.