Choice: Home every weekend or cheap health insurance?

Delusion?

Ok bud....

Look, I was going by YOUR original post that you wanted to be able to see your kids on occasion. McD's may not give you the experience you want in trucking, but is that what you want to do from now on? If so, have at Covenant. Don't say you were not warned. And I never said anything about "one driver changing the way the companies work" but the fact remains that the market drives the costs and wages. If there is little demand for companies that pay so little, those companies will be forced to change the way they pay their employees. If you just want to give up because you think there is nothing you can do, that is your business. That is how things go to crap... nobody cares anymore.

Look, my first post back to you was in SUPPORT of you. I suggested finding a better company THAT WON'T SCREW you and your FAMILY. If you insist on going with the lowest common denominator, knock yourself out. You can do better. Did you make up a complete list of companies that take new drivers? Central isn't the only company out there, nor are any of the ones you mentioned. Given about two hours, I could throw at least 20 companies at you. I wont though, that is YOUR job.

Tell ya what..... go ahead and go with who you want. I tried to help. You rejected it. Kewl. Merry Christmas.

 

That is not *too* bad (IMO), but I think you might be able to find better. Home on weekends is a nice thing to have, no doubt, but I think the mileage pay could be better, but then again, perhaps the combination of being new and home weekends may keep that rate down.

Is there any possibility that you can be out three weeks at a time? If so, you might find that you can get much more per mile and better miles. I suspect that Superior is going to keep you running up and down the east coast. At Crosby Trucking, we pulled former Superior trailers all the time. I saw their trucks up and down 95 also. Even up in the Boston area. Not sure where they run.

If you go Superior, you may want to *ask* them if you can team with an experienced driver for at least another week. I think that would help. That week of training is a little "lite" in my opinion for new drivers who will be rolling the NE, but I don't know what they include in the training.

Do the math though. Ask one of their drivers how many miles they average on a weekly basis. Use your mileage pay and figure out how much is going to come out in taxes, health ins, food while on the road (it gets absolutely rediculous, get yourself a mini-fridge or electric cooler). If you were willing to be out longer, I could probably suggest a huge number of companies. Even now, there still might be more regional companies that hire on new drivers.

Once you get a year or so, call Premier or someone else that runs NE Regional. They'll run you hard, good equipment, and pay you better.

 

TMC
Maverick
WEL
Millis
SRT
KLLM
FFE
Crete/Schaeffer
Prime (kinda low pay, not sure if they do regional)
Watkins/Shepard (LOTS of threads about these guys)
Celadon
Western Express
Marten (not sure if they take new grads or do regional)
USA Truck
May Trucking


There are more, but all of these I *believe* take grads. Definitely check with each. There are more out there, but I have a 7-year old in my ear and cannot concentrate.

Go to the closest truck stop and grab all of the magazines and cards you can. Start making phone calls and ask them if they take new grads. Get to their websites, etc....

 

No offense to the OP, but how's he going to find better after failing a company's road test? Sure once he gets on somewhere and gets some experience he can do better, but he's kind of in a bind right now.

As to some of the companies you mentioned

Millis only hires grads from their school and he should forget about Watkins & Shepard since he failed the roehl road test, W&S doesn't send you out with a otr trainer so he wouldn't be doing himself any good there.

Also you do know that a lot of fast food places and gas stations etc won't hire anyone who's use to making more than what they offer. Lord knows I've been turned down more than once for being "overqualified".

To onthefence honestly it sucks but since you struggled on your road test with shifting and failed one company road test already I think you need the 28 days training. Like you said 6 months and you go solo, might even be able to find something better by then. Just my honest opinion.

 

this should scare the living crap out of anyone. we all saw that video of the truck flipping over on that corner. i dont think i'd ever want to drive teams for that one reason. i've seen some very disturbing videos online, thats all i'll say there, much more gruesome then the truck flipping over, but for some reason that video mortified me.