Am I crazy for wanting in?

Truck Driving | San Jacinto College

 

"I am very recently divorced, have no kids [...] I have literally nothing keeping me in this area [...] Am I insane for thinking of getting into OTR truck driving?"

You're like the perfect description of who should go into OTR trucking.

I, too, thought that having driven manual transmission before (including both cars and straight trucks), would help me with driving a semi. Nope, lol. Not a cause for concern, but not a challenge to be underestimated either.

 

Personally, I enjoy the challenge of the lowboy. Not every load is as simple as pulling on and being done.

I picked this bread truck up in Beckley, WV yesterday. It was low and the fuel tank hung below the frame behind the rear axle. As well as that exhaust. Get out and move blocks - get in and back it up - get out and move blocks…. I was like a mouse making love to a giraffe, between the kissing and the screwing I ran my butt off.

The steel plant I’ve hauled out of the last 4 1/2 years has been on strike. I’ve set as much as 3 hours there because the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. So far my lowboy work has been pretty much minimal wait times.

Needless to say my truck is not welcome in California, but that hurts my feelings none!!!

Stay focused on getting your CDL’s, and just look around at different trucks for now, don’t buy anything. I’ve moved a few newer trucks for a friend who is a salesman at the local Pete dealership…. he told me it’s a sellers market right now, not a buyers market…..

 

You are perfectly suited to trucking. I would strongly urge you DO NOT got to CDL school until AFTER you choose the first company to work for. Some companies have their own "free" school and some only take newbies from particular CDL schools. With minor exceptions it makes no difference which CDL school you go to, none. With exceptions all CDL schools are 3 week whirlwinds that only teach you to pass the state road test and get the license. You look a bit less attractive to companies if you finish CDL school and take a few months to decide on your first company. Deciding on first company is more important than which school. If the company you chooses has their own school, or offers "free" school do that. If your first choice doesn't care which CDL school, go to the one most convenient for you. It really makes no difference if you pay for school, get "free" school from the company AS LONG AS THE COMPANY FITS YOU.

Having experience with manual transmission cars slightly hurts you learning manual trucks. The clutch is used VERY differently. You will have to overcome your manual car experience. People with no experience shifting have an easier time learning to shift in semi-trucks. EVERY newbie over-estimates the complicated nature of shifting trucks and the difficulty in learning to shift semi-trucks. Probably 90% of semi-trucks are automatics. It would be nice if you can learn on a manual semi-truck for your license, but if your school doesn't have one, it's not something I would lose sleep over. Semi-trucks use a similar H pattern to cars, but you go through the H twice. Some truck transmissions have an H, but with one extra leg used for reverse or lowest gear. Just assume you can learn it, you will learn it, and don't think about it any more.

The exception to the 3 week rush through CDL school are state & community Vocational Education or Technical schools and community colleges. Those can be 6 or 8 weeks longs and give you a much more thorough education, but they often have long waiting lists to start. With one exception no matter which type for CDL school you go to, and how thorough it is, you will be riding with a trainer for maybe 8 weeks once you get to your first employer, if you do OTR.

Riding with a trainer is difficult for most newbies. It was difficult for me. I had a devil of a time sleeping in the truck while it was being driven. I knew what to expect. I liked my trainer. I trusted my trainer. But I defy you to find anyone you cannot wake up by pushing them sharply such as what happens when you run over a pothole. There were times I had never been more tired after driving. I would get in the bunk and try to sleep and every 10-30 seconds the truck is bounced as the road is rough in many areas. The truck is also louder than you would have thought. You may have no difficulty whatever sleeping in a moving truck. Some people are like that. Also, the space inside a truck is about the same size as the bathroom in a 1-bedroom apartment. Imagine the bathtub in the apartment is your bed, there are two seats in front of that bathtub and little other space. Now imagine 2 adult men in that space all day, every day. I thought that 8 weeks was the most difficult period in my trucking career. It's just difficult to spend so much time in such a small space, and for me getting very little quality sleep. If you sleep well, it is much easier than what I described.

Lastly, I would warn you to NEVER EVER consider or work for CR England. They advertise all over the internet and they are easily the worst company in the industry. They also train in trucks with 3 people. In my opinion, they are dishonest and completely uninterested in keeping you around. They also have one of the worst contracts, for the student, if you take their "free" training. EVERY company giving you "free" training expects you to work for 12 months after school as a driver. If you fail to stay for 12 months you will be charged the full or pro-rated amount for your schooling. The difference between working at a company that matches your needs and one that could not care less about your needs is nigh and day and goes a long way to deciding if you stay in the industry or if you quit before you complete your first year like about 80% of new drivers. I estimate about 5% of the industry are great companies that are difficult to get hired into. 5% are dishonest criminal enterprises that will hire and abuse anyone that applies. The other 90% are good for certain drivers and bad for other drivers. Like buying shoes. Shoes that don't fit you are bad shoes and shoes that do fit you are good shoes. The most important thing is to find the First trucking company to work for. Almost everyone leave their first employer because as you do this job you will learn what things are/aren't important for your happiness. Many of those things cannot be known by internet searches. There are probably current drivers at every company you are interested in. Ask about those companies and you can get some great info on this board.

 

For me the job is about dealing with the stress of traffic or the stress of customers not doing what they are supposed to be doing. Both of those stresses are then compounded because your company and your customers will blame their not being timely or competent in their job on you.
You will learn in the first 20 minutes driving a big truck that every car seems to be attempting suicide by truck and they all expect you to stop your huge and heavy truck in 3 inches like they do in their car. You will get less sleep than you want so you can show up at a customer on time, only to be told "we'll get to you next" and then hear nothing from anyone for hours and hours. When this customers slowness in doing their job causes you to be late making the delivery, be assured your company or that slow customer will faithfully report they were on-time but you must have stopped and slept too much,etc. Since you are out of sight you are the natural whipping boy to cover up others' mistakes.

Stay away from refrigerated freight, called reefer in the industry. Reefer is famous for very lengthy delays and you get to pay them a few hundred dollars to unload their freight, if they don't reject half of the load. Starting in dry van, just an empty box and majority of freight, is the easiest thing for a new driver. There is much less required from the driver. Then consider pulling tankers as soon as you can. Almost every tanker driver has said "I wish I did this sooner." The trailers are easier to back and the customers are so much more polite, competent, professional. Tanker pays better than dry van and has fewer customer problems.

 

I was 40 when I jumped in face first. Open deck.

Now that everything's settled, are we going to get some pics of that Mustang?!?

 

You absolutely are not crazy. Changing things up is normal, and healthy. If you stay somewhere you aren't happy, it can suck the life out of you.

Change it up. Learn a new profession. See the country.

I changed over to trucking from IT. I just got burned out of the office environment, drama and politics, etc etc.

Posts like yours are fairly common here. Lots of people do what you are thinking about doing.

 

If you truly ke long haul coast to coast my company averages 1500 miles per trip.

 

You might/ should be able to find a engineering position that has you at a job site ,

I understand about not wanting to sit in front of a computer all day , but that usually pays much better than being outside in the summer heat and the winter cold and the rain .

Do traveling mechanical engineering positions exist like for the traveling nurses ?

or maybe some work from home positions so you could at least be living in a cabin on a cliff on Colorado ?

The community college and vo tech classes in my state are very good and are 320 hours .
Takes about ten weeks to complete .


I know a company in Atlanta that does oversize heavy haul and hires new drivers and trains them to do oversized loads.
Back to Atlanta on the weekends .

But it’s always two people in the truck .

I also know of a company in Atlanta that does environmental and remediation and construction,
Water treatment plants and stuff like that

a mechanical engineer might fit there and it’s mostly outdoors , hands on stuff .