Career change to TrUcKiNg......

KCorey, I guess my question was how many days did you have off every month and thanx for answering that.....How long did you work for Hill and Hill? So when truckers retire do they rely on Social Security ? While working did you get paid well enough to own your own house, new car? Or is trucking a check by check job? My questions are just trying to get a feel for a trucking career, what to expect how to do it right. How do hotels come in the picture with trucking do companies pay for them? Or is it up to you to pay for them being trucks have their own sleeping cab. Is it just OTR routes that have a cab? What is OTR considered over a certain amount of miles, out of state? thanx for reply
thanx for reply.....

 

RedRocker how was the pay when you first started trucking were you able to pay for car, apartment? Whats a good starting pay for a driver?

 

i know the only way a hotel is going to come in the picture for you with werner is if your with a trainer and he goes home for hometime he'll put you in a hotel not too far from where he lives(with approval from fleet mgr) and otr means you run 48 states now you may not get to all 48 but if they have you classified as 48 otr they will try to get you everywhere.

I was otr for 2 months and out of 48 i made it to 40 states with my favorites being AZ,NEW MEX,TX,FL,GA,TN AND MD.The states i hated IL,OH,PA,CA,WY,CO.

LOL the places with the worst traffic Tn,chi,atl and Long island Ny

 

Ok for me the pay was great,put then again i drove for my dad( if he did not pay me well,he'd have to deal with my mom) when i first started. As far as pay goes, it all depends on what kind of driveing job you do IE: van,refer,flatbed or tanker, i haul tanker now, but have hauled all but refer.
If you going for top pay as a newbie i would find a company like roehl(rail)
to train you as a flatbed, its a hard life, hauling flatbed but can be very profitable. As far as tanker goes i haul oxygen( don't evan think about this yet), It took me a about five years to feel confident enough to do this, and somtimes have second thoughts. You most likely will not find a company that will train you on tanker. Van is the most popular by far
but also pays the least, between 27 and 31 cents per mile starting out. It is also an easy way to get into trucking. Refer means refridgearated, you'd be best to ask someone else about that. They all have there ups and down, the main one with tanker is the security steps i have to go through( and i can not smoke in my truck.) the bigest problem with flatbeded is most of the driver's i have seen just can't back up. and plus you are expossed to bad weather. Van just does not pay well( in my opion) but on the flip side they can back up,lol. whatever you chose you will be fine as long as you take care of your money and are not stupid with it, you will be able to aford a new car and apparement or house. good luck.

 

I knew that would piss someone off, i realy ment no offence. Just want to give him an idea of what he is geting into.

 

Hmmmm.....time to kill RedRocker.........LOL Seriously bro, These things-------> Mean he as joking........

LOL

 

Flatbed is a lot of work........and not much more pay....you'll make a little more while your tarping.......I'd rather pay a lumper as I won't work for a company who wont pay for lumpers......Most companies will pay a lumper allot more then they will pay a driver for doing the same job........

A good lumper will open your doors for you, but you'll still want to take a walk back there and check out your hole and make sure your doors are secured properly..

 

If i ever get enough sense to stop pulling my death tank around, i would go into flatbed. I'm in love with my pay check though, and i only work 4 days a week.:smt041