Get Out Quick

So go ahead and get out if the numbers are so bad. I dopn't know what "Trucking Lifestyle" you are referring to, but I have a job that I like, work that I enjoy doing, and a pay rate much better than your supposed average. I can make 800 per week, but I have to take at least Friday off to do it. There are parts of trucking that pay very well, and don't require you to spend 3 weeks out on the road. I am making about 63,000 this year, and I am home in my own bed at least 2-3 nights a week. That works out to an average of well over 1200 a week, so your numbers are kind of low. But, no, that doesn't happen your first year. You still have to pay your dues and get some experience, and that's what much of the advice on this board has been about.

All over the country there are trucking jobs like mine, paying well, with good home time and decent equipment. Right now, if I could find 5-6 qualified drivers at my terminal, we would hire them tomorrow, and the situation is the same throughout the company and among our competittors. But we don't hire brand new drivers, because we require a certain experience level and new drivers just don't have that. Our customers don't want rookie driver mistakes made with their product, and our insurance carrier doesn't want beginners in our trucks because of the specific demands of our freight.

I think you need to rethink your advice, or at least establish some credentials to be giving it before you try to chase people away from trucking as a career. Your advice on here is only going to be worth something if people can go back through your prior posts and read them and determine the truth of what you are saying. As for your other post where you claim that smoking marajuana while driving made you a better driver because you were more paranoid, I think that undercuts your credibility giving any form of advice......

 

What area is that? Were do you work at?

 

Well guys short of posting my actual stub for you to believe i guess i cant prove any further. I make 800 a week and am a rookie driver. I handle 100% of my freight though.

 

You wouldn't have to prove it to me. I KNOW that there are good jobs out there, even for newbies. All it takes is for someone to take the time to seek them out.

 

my hubby made 700.00-900.00 a week his first time otr, he had done all local stuff prior to last year so I guess he wasnt a true newbie but yet he was to the otr situation. There are good companies out there, ya just have to look for them.

 

Part of the "problem" with big company advertisements is they "set the numbers" in people's heads about pay. If you see Swift is paying 32 a mile, you accept that as a "good" rate, especially if the ad is slick. Such is propaganda. Watch out for it, and don't just "accept" that you will be making chicken-feed your first year OTR because everybody "says it's so". Maybe you will make chicken-feed, but if you look around hard enough, you probably won't.

I bet anyone who makes the effort will be rewarded with a good job that pays well. No one has to "settle" for a company like Swift when he's just starting out....well, unless he's Mr. Bungle, that is.