All newbies please read (The real scoop here)

So you want to be a trucker huh? This is all my opinion and based on my own experience. There are a few different ways to become a driver. You can obtain a class b and drive local for a while. You do not need to go to school to get a class b. There are a ton of construction companies that will train you for one. You can also take the test through a private company, I think I paid $150. If you know someone who can teach you how to shift first then you will be one step up already. If you think you can get through the gears on your own then go for it but I suggest you get trained first! A ready mix truck only takes a class b and weighs almost as much as a big truck. They have 8 and 10 speed transmissions, so you will learn to shift as well as haul the weight. I was scaled once at like 67,000 and change. A ton of delivery box trucks only need a class b as well. Depending on the company you can also look at end, side or belly dumps. You need a class A for those and gain the trailer experience as well.

I know I will get slack for this but you will learn more about trucks, how they work, what they will do and where they will go in construction. I could go on and on about the things I have done in a truck that would make a lot of people vomit, but thats another story! My point is, look local. There are so many local jobs out there that can give you the REAL experience you need to be a truck driver. You will be home every night and it will ease you in slowly. You will learn how to drive in weather, traffic, tight spaces and everything else the city has to throw at you. I understand if you want to get right out there and go, SO..... Lets dig in!

Oh, one more thing and the most important!! EVEN IF YOU HAVE BEEN DRIVING LOCALLY, most big trucking companies will not consider you experienced. That is another story as well... But this leads us into the next thing. Try to start small. If you have been running local, there are some really good small over the road companies out there, maybe even right in your town. Check Craigslist and other places. A lot of these guys are willing to give you a chance with your local experience. Plus you won't have to deal with the big corporate B.S. Maybe they only run two or three states but you will get the "over the road" the big guys are looking for.

If you want to attend a school go for it. All schools are pretty much the same. Three to five students in the truck. What they teach you is THE BASICS. It is impossible to get any experience in 4 weeks. Why a trucking company takes that over say 1 or more years local makes my eyes bleed from the sockets. Yet another story..... I regress. You will learn what to look for in the pre and post trip (not what it does or how to fix it) You will learn to hook and un hook the trailer. You will study in class from a book, the things you might encounter (slick roads, braking, u-turns, rail tracks and so on) You will practice backing between barrels, into docks with no other traffic, shifting, double clutching, rules of the road, if you live in the mountains you will go up and down the hill a few times...... Again the BARE MINNIMUM.

A few grand and weeks later you are now ready to drive a truck!! Oh wait not yet. Now you get to choose the company. I won't name any names here. You will be contacted and given instructions. If you do not have a local terminal, you will be bussed, flown, driven a rental car or other ways to the terminal of their choice. I would like to say to the closest but that all depends on the company. You then need to get a trainer. I have heard stories let me tell you!! Now mind you that trainers are the same people we all deal with in everyday life. They are smart, stupid, gross, stinky, funny, loud, racist, overbearing, nice, calm... you get the point? You could get the guy (or girl) that was in line in front of you at the mall that smelled like a donkey and was rude and loudmouthed. People are people and they aren't always who we like or get along with.

You will either stay in a hotel until they give you a trainer (I have heard stories of weeks in one) They will pay you like $300 bucks a week. Or you will get one right away!! yay for you! I am not sure of the rules here but I believe you need a certain amount of driving hours to be turned out on your own. That may vary form company to company, but I have heard it is like 300 hours. You do the math. You can only drive 11 hours with 10 off up to 70 in 8 days, then you need the 34 hour restart. Most companies will not let you drive at night for so many of those hours. In a perfect world all your hours would be driving, not unloading or sitting. I am horrible at math but here is close "perfect scenerio" numbers.... 5 weeks with a trainer. That is 5 weeks in a truck with someone you do not know and those are perfect scenerio. More like 8 to 10 weeks. That is two to three months with a trainer.

I am not sure of the different pay scales of all the companies. I have heard $300 a week is all you get for that time. The trainer gets paid for all your miles as well as his.

Trucking is a hard adjustment to make. If you were not born to drive a truck you won't last. It is driving all night and sleeping during the day. It is sometimes sitting at a shipper or reciever for HOURS waiting. Example... If you get to sleep 10 and you wake up at 3am and drive 3 hours to get to a shipper at 6am then wait to get loaded for 4 hours it is now 10am. Your load has three stops on it two are that day. You get to the first one in 30minutes but it takes two hours, then you get to the second one in 30 and it takes another four hours more hours. It is now 5pm and you have seven hours left to drive. You have been up since 3am. When you stop it will be midnight. That is 21 hours you have been up. Yes you should be taking a nap through some of this, but there are plenty of things to keep you from doing so. You have to leave the cb on to be contacted, another driver might bang on your door for a number of reasons, you might watch movies or surf the net or yack on the phone. You need to eat and take a shower, get fuel... and lets be real here are you really going to be able to just stop the truck and just be asleep? I didn't think so.

Go to a truckstop and buy a log book. Start at what ever time you want. Run a perfect scenerio of driving. 15 pre-trip, 11 driving, 15 to fuel everyother day, and 10 sleeping. Just watch what happens with what times you will be driving and sleeping. Toss in an hour to load and unload as well. Are you getting the point? Companies don't want whiners. They expect you to pick up and deliver on time. They do not care if you had the runs or if you had traffic or if you couldn't find a spot in the truckstop. They don't care about anything but that load and if you whine and complain you will be treated accordingly. Schools will never teach you about PACKED truck stops and how hard it is to back into a space at 2am after a really long day in between two owner operators. One has a 379 pete that he has put $20,000 in chrome and lights and paint, the other has a W900 that has pretty much the same. They won't teach you that that truckstop you have to try to do a blind side 90 to get in cause you went down the wrong side and it is the only spot left and there are two other trucks coming to get it too.

You won't learn or should I say can't possibly learn all of that from 4 weeks in school and 3 months with a trainer.. even a good trainer. You will not shower ever day. Sometimes for a few days depending on you and how tired you are. The major truckstops are all the same in every state. They all have the same menus, same movies, same showers etc.... Some are nicer than others for sure. Rest areas are always packed early. Off and on ramps are usually discouraged by the bigger companies, although I found them to be quite nice, and sometimes they are just as packed.

Ice, snow, torrential rains, wind, accidents, traffic, construction, are all VERY REAL. Shippers and recievers that take hours to load or unload you are all real. Having 20 minutes to eat and shower are REAL. You will always see a ton of trucks just hanging out at a truck stop when you have no time, no sleep, no food or shower. You will wonder why they are getting to do that and you aren't. There are like 2 million trucks on the road. That is a lot. So what you are seeing is all of the ones at any given time getting a much need rest or getting hammered by dispatch waiting for a load. Relax, you will be there at one time or another as well. You will have dreams of 3500 miles a week... don't count on it EVER. That is 500 miles a day. With a truck that is governed at 62 you can't even get 700 miles in 11 hours, and trust me if you are 79,990 you are not gonna average 62mph. They can get you close to that sometimes but not very much. If you have light loads and a truck that will run 80 then 3500 a week is no problem if the freight is there.

I would budget yourself at around 2000 to 2600 a week. I was running for a company that ran me 3800 to over 5000 a week. No It wasn't legal at all and it #### near killed me. I was at .35cpm and I was only getting anywhere from 800 to 1500 a week take home. That should give you a good idea what you will make. Owner operators can make GOOD MONEY. If you can live on 600 or less a week the by all means. I know a lot of these guys out there will tell you they are pulling down a grand or more a week. All you have to do is the math. .35cpm at 3500 miles a week is $1225 dollars gross. If their truck is governed at 65 and they average even 50mph in 11 hours they barely will clear 3500 miles in a week. In a perfect world with no weather or traffic or swaps or extra stops it would be possible. It's like 3200 miles from L.A. to N.Y. I doubt a dispatcher is gonna give that to a solo driver EVERY WEEK. Plus you will run out or low on driving hours so you will either have to take a 34 restart or drive like 3 hours here and 2 there and 5 here untill you get an 8 or 9. Unless you restart your 70 you will never have consecutive 11's to drive.

I have written so much I know I have a ton more to say but I just can't right now!! I am not trying to discourage you from becoming a truck driver. I am just trying to get you to see some of the reality of the job. I haven't even gotten to the good stuff like being alone and listening to tunes and enjoying the scenery. Short skirts, no skirts, #######, wankers, not having someone looking over your shoulder all day, some of the freedoms you get and the country you will see. There are a lot of really great thing about being a trucker as well.

Last but not least here are some pointers. ALWAYS get out and look. If you are in doubt that you are gonna hit the owner operators $300,000 Pete..... GET OUT AND LOOK..... if it takes you 15 minutes to get in the spot but you do it safely... then do it. Turn off the cb when backing into a spot. Other drivers will give you a TON of crap and that will shake you up. Don't worry about the ones waiting for you... to hell with them. Take your time and do it right. Don't get ####y... you will hit docks and parking spots the first time for a month and if you get ####y the next one you try to get in will bite you in the ###. Don't tailgate, watch your mirrors all the time, double check cause that ##### in the BMW doesn't care that you are trying to get over and she will try to beat you to the punch every time. You could be lit up like a christmas tree with neon signs all over your truck telling people that you are turning or slowing down or what ever, and they will pass you and cut you off and honk at you and slam on the brakes in front of you all the time. They DO NOT CARE ABOUT WHERE YOU ARE GOING, always assume they do not see you or care to see you. If you are tired pull over and sleep. Evdn if it is for 30 minutes. Your life and those around you are more important than the load.... ALWAYS. Lot Lizards are GROSS don't even think about it. Drugs are for #######. Keep you logs as accurate and neat as possible.. (trust me) Keep your cool when it takes forever at the shipper or reciever, it will always come back in your favor. Keep a set of spare keys on you at all times. There are a number of reasons for this just trust me. No you don't need a "big radio". Watch your spending out there, it is EXPENSIVE.

I know I forgot a ton of things so if you have any questions I would be more than happy to try and answer them for you. Good Luck!

 

Nice effort but many wannabes are deaf , dumb , and blind . They are too dumb to listen to what you say and won't look at Department of Labor Statistics saying 88,000 workers in the industry lost their jobs in the last 4 months , trade articles repeatedly saying there is an oversupply of drivers , and posts here by members that are both experienced and trucking school graduates that can't find work .
Well , let them learn the hard way . The married ones will get to sit home listening to their wives tell them what idiots they were to throw away thousands to get a useless CDL .

 

To much effort for pennies on the dollor.... "Would you like cheese on that burger, sir?"

 

panic.. i like the post their.. very nice, but only some of it..
i can sit on here day after day reading about the amount people trying to find a local job, weather a trash truck, city, county, local, state, construction companies. I would say that maybe a year and half ago all that you said about getting a local job would be do-able, but just not today. EVERYONE local wants exp today, or the big companies want people out of school so rather then paying the exp .38cpm they are paying the " dumb newbs " .29cpm.
and even a lot of the bigger companies have put a hiring freezr in effect until further notice.
i no that W/S ( watkins shepard ), the company i drive OTR for is taking grads and exp drivers, taking teams out of school, and they have their own school out in mt. but w.s is a mid-size company, 6xx trucks, o.o's and flatbeds.
while most companies are not taking aps right now, w.s IS, but with strict hiring right now,

about school.. well, i did 6 months of school, 4 days a week, 5 hours a day, required 480 hour course, i finished off with around 515 hour of training, got hired onto w.s running the NE, no place for a newb to be driving, but i did, started a year ago, accident free. and i always get out and look, GOAL, and ur right about hitting that 300,000 pete, with the $75,000 paint job, i hit one of them, im runnin for the hills never to be heard from again

i really do agree with all that you have shared with everyone, but in today;s time its just not that easy to get a local gig, specialy now that the trucking industry is booming with new drivers for a lot of the same reasons.
great advise panic offered.

ill add some positive to driving,
- you get paid to see the country, youll get to see more of this country then most people you no, ( dance will tell you he gets paid to stay away from his family ) he is right. when your talking to these companies about home time, of couse they will tell you they you can be home a lot. not true, its a sals pitch!
but the time you do spend in the truck seeing our country and being able to see how different our country is, is truly amazing,
my sister called me last week to " help me past my time " i told her i had to go cause she was inturupting my sight seeing and jaming to my tunes and checking out the passing " seat covers "
youll drive for hours and hours with nothing to see as far as the eyes can go, then u come up over a tiny hill an then its mountians that go on for ever and ever, and cities that seem to go on for ever.
there are post on here about place to go and things to do while you have a layover or a 34hr reset, about taking a bus to the grand canyon, or mt rushmore, or aspin co. to go skiing. and so on and so on.

im otr now and im here to stay until im either asked to leave or i find a local job that pays more then otr.
but im out here cause i wanna be out here, i dont HAVE to be out here like most people today. im not married, no kids and still live at home
so if im getting miles great, if im not, oh well. no big deal.

again panic good thread.

 

I am in no position to add to this post on how to gain experience. My short time (approx, 5 months) doesn't have me come close to "experienced".

However, I could relate to practically everything you said. The only thing that I could add, and I really do think it relates to the company, is your Manager. I was with a company recently that had DSR's and "Planners". To this day, I have no idea what a "Planner" is at that company and I believe that the DSR's play the "bad cop" for the Planners.

Make it work for you. Keep talking to other drivers - most are really helpful - and keep researching - "thetruckersreport" is a great resource.

Thank you again, Panic!

 

one other thing-no matter how new the truck you are assigned is--it will have problems at some time(usually when your cell phone doesn't work)

 

good thread, using the extremes in examples but it is just about what it is out here. You forgot, or your fingers got tired, about the fun with driver managers, the experienced advice they will get from the 9-12 month experienced drivers that have seen it all. Oh yes don't forget the "old timers" still driving who learned on a 3 stick brownie on grandpa's farm hauling hay, granny was to be used to load the hay while the truck rolled down the rut of the old dirt road.

Good job panic.

 

Please be sure you know why you are going out in the first place,my whole family is drivers,I never was now I need to pay the bills

 

I grew up with truck driving as a part of my life, most of you are not wrong in what you say,but there are a lot of new people who don't rememberwhen truckers had to run 85-100 hrs to make the kind of money they are making for 70 or less so suck it up and help make AMERICA strong again

 

With all due respect KYFRBRD, I couldn't disagree with you more with your comment below.

You are speaking about a time that actually started Unions, and for #### good reasons. We are not in those times now. There is no reason that someone has to be out "on the road", in control of 40 tons going down the highway, and being compensated less than poverty wages.

In my case, wages weren't even the problem, as much as very low miles for a lot of time.