employers requiring OTR experience for local work

you shouldnt have to drive very far to realize you are out of whatever route you are supposed to be on...... that's what a trucking GPS is for, as long as you use it correctly.

this is also one of the strong reasons WHY i like local work. if im within 100 air miles, of course i dont know ALL of the roads but i know allot of them well enough to know when something is way off. believe me, it helped me everyday knowing the basic layout of the roads in western ny. i know the I90, I190, I290, ect ect.

 

Why does everyone want one year otr experience:
Answer:
Because they know you've driven the biggest trucks
Fully loaded thru all four seasons.
Rain,snow,ice, high winds,blizzards,fog, white out
conditions,sand storms, mountains and everything in between. And still got the job done.

They know that you've maneuvered that big rig around
Cities that you've never been to before and backed it
Into every kind of dock there is.

They know you've been #### on ,harassed,
Called all kinds of horrible names, beaten down
and bent over by the everyday otr life.
Yet you still got the job done.

They know that you know,how important
paperwork is and how to do it right.
They know that you know, how to do your
Log book and how to deal with dot.

In other words you've been hardened to trucking.
Every local job I ever had was a 3 steps down
Driving wise. Everything is smaller and easier to
Maneuver around the city.

Most don't have the time or money to train someone.
They don't have 50 extra trucks sitting out back
Like a mega does.

From day one they want to hand you a stack of bills,
Keys to a truck, and you're on your own.
Go get the job done and leave us alone.
Don't call unless there's a serious problem,
You solve the small problems yourself with
Your experience.

That's why they want otr experience.

 

That 20 years of driving a dump truck is nice but ultimately not remotely applicable to driving a combo. They'll take the guy with one year of doing that job over the guy who drove an Uber for 20 years too. Apples and oranges.

Also to be more precise, their insurance company is the one demanding a year OTR. The company I just started driving for requires 2 years experience. Their insurance took me with 11.5 months OTR over a few people with cleaner records and up to a year and a half of running locally. They even had tank experience. I didn't.

 

OTR is like a survival course for trucking. You are facing different situations every pickup & delivery plus staying away from home. If you do that for a year or more and have a clean record you are a better risk for not wrecking or quitting after 1 hard day at work.

OTR is a requirement for some local jobs like a college degree is for some "normal" jobs. It isn't really required to do the work, but it's a good way to weed out people when you have more applicants than jobs.

 

Disagree totally. Driving a Dump is totally comparable to driving OTR. I have done both. Their is a subset of skills needed for each specialty but that can be picked up in a very short time.

UBER comparison is out to lunch.

The real reason the OP is running into jobs that are asking for a year or two OTR, is because the job and the equipment is more like OTR and not the materials hauling profession. Could a dump driver do it. Yes, a good dump driver could catch on in days, hours or minutes, it is not a big deal at all. But why chance it when their is no shortage of OTR drivers with the experience.

 

I just had a call from someone who couldn't hire me because of lack of experience. The insurance, of course. But... He did suggest two companies who might hire me.

 

Moving from a class b truck to a class a truck is a lot harder than most people think. The best way is go to a company that offers some hands on training with pay and do a year or more OTR.

 

uber LOL, only if you want to drive taxi is that at all relavent, and uber's very existence is making driving taxi a career move in even most loose definitions a thing of the past..... not in 20 years but NOW. saying you want to be a taxi driver is a joke.

the similarities between dump truck and semi are closer then most people here would think unless you have done them both you have no proper frame of reference. im not talking about driving a little pickup truck with a dump box. im talking about driving peterbilt 357, 379, kenworth T800 ect ect; a 10 wheeler or triaxle. you are still shifting an eaton non-syncro trans, pre-trip, post trip, air brakes, and a truck weighting ALMOST as much as a tractor trailer. allot of transferable skills, but yes they both have their own subset of skills. some things about a dump truck that are really challenging, often going to different places you have never been..... assigned routes are rare

 

I tried to train a guy who previously drove straight trucks. He kept forgetting he had a trailer...

 

i test drove a tractor trailer, the only problem i had was backing. just going to take practice. as far as remembering you have a trailer that just takes some brains.... and use the mirrors. it probably helps that i did werner's training program and drove tractor trailer BEFORE i drove dump truck