Give me the truth please...

An old joke, but still holds true . . .

How do you make a small fortune in the trucking industry?

Start with a large one!

If you actually want to drive, then you will have to leave nursing for awhile, as you will have to go through school and training time with a company, build up some experience so you can get the good paying jobs in trucking (those aren't open to the newbies, gotta have 2 - 3 years experience or more for those), and you might be able to break the $50,000 a year mark . . . after 3 - 5 years . . .

Even guys with experience flop at being owners. It's a cut throat business that requires quick decisions at times, and has no room for error. Want to put someone else in your trucks? Good luck finding the right people that aren't going to trash your equipment or abandon it someplace just because they don't feel like you are treating them right. Know someone who had to replace an engine and various other things because of an idiot driver that doesn't know his job. How are you going to be able to make sure a driver does know their job if you don't know the questions to ask?

Between my hubby and I, we have enough experience, connections, and knowledge to start a trucking company, but I wouldn't really want to deal with it, as much as I love the trucking industry. It's too easy for another person to cost you thousands of dollars with simple actions.

 

Last I heard we are still a free country.

What I or anybody else does with their time away from the truck is no-ones business.

When I'm home I off duty I do as I feel. Sometimes I do things that make me money. None of it has to do with trucking. Those rules you want to beat someone over the head with are for people who when they're not driving are on a dock loading trailers.Not somebody with a part time gig.

I'd love someone to come into my life and tell me oh no you can't do that because you have to log it. Get real.

 

Dont take me the wrong way because I feel where you are coming from and agree, but the way it reads is any compensation has to be logged.

If someone works a legit part time, then drives while not loggin the part time, and is involved in an accident fun times begin. With the way our sue happy society and lawyers are it wouldnt be very difficult for then to find you have a part time compensation. Then I would imagine you have a falsified log book and your now gonna get buried under the jail. That being said if you getting looked at during a general inspection and everything "looks" good doubt no one would ever know and even less if it was under the table.

 

I did not mean to start a debate here on what can and cant be done on your time off. Im just saying what both a DOT and FRA officer, straight from the horses mouth, told me and that was that the hours dont count towards each other. Think about it, a guy can drive around in a dump truck all day long under 100 mile radius and not have to log it but the poster here would have to log his hours as a nurse on the on duty nusring line in his log book? just doesnt make sense. I think the rule book is a little unclear as to which ones pertain and can be mistook either way but I wouldnt ever see this becoming an issue.

 

Here's a different approach. You want to be a trucker. Just skip the actual trucking business. Get cdl, then go find you a nice antique semi and short trailer. Find you some good truck shows to drive to and enjoy driving a truck without all the hassle. Go make your 100k as a nurse and take your truck for a spin when you feel like it. Be home everynight. Problem solved......lol.

 

Whether or not its a free country has NOTHING to do with it.

Not true. If you're going to drive a truck and get paid for it, then its the DOT's business. The regs are very clear on this. Whether or not you choose to abide by the regs is a different matter entirely. But don't for a moment believe that the regs allow you to work for someone else without logging it. They very clearly do not. More importantly, don't tell others that the regs allow you to work for someone else without logging it. If you want to skirt the rules yourself, that's one thing. If you want to willingly mislead others, that's a whole 'nother level of scum bag. Don't be a scum bag.

Those rules are for anyone who drives a truck. Period. The text of the regs is very clear. There is absolutely no mention of loading trailers or doing dock work. It says getting paid for work by someone who is not a motor carrier. It doesn't single out any particular kind of work. Therefore it applies to ANY kind of work. If the DOT had intended that reg to apply to only trucking work, they could have very easily put in text that made that clear. They didn't do that. The text of the reg as it currently reads makes if very clear that any compensated work must be logged if one is going to operate a CMV. If you want to work a second job and not log it, go right ahead. Why should I care if you want to skirt the rules. But don't try to tell me its legal because its not and anyone who can read at a 3rd grade level can see for themselves that its not.

 

ummm Why ? i've been busting my chops for years trying to go from trucking to nursing.
And besides New Mexico doesn't make anything except maybe Catholics, and they don't ship well....
Most of my career while living in NM has been based on, loads to Walmart and Cheese out of Roswell

 

Push to be a doctor?

 

Fact still remains he wants to become a fleet owner based on the accounting of a couple people his wife does books for.What he fails to realize is that its a whole different ball of wax between being an O/O and a fleet owner.

Now he has payroll, income taxes, federal taxes. social security taxes, added insurance, if Obama gets re-elected.. OBAMACARE ! How is he going to keep up with all the dirty tricks of the trade when he doesn't even have a clue about straight forward aspects of the industry. You have guys trucking successfully for 20 yrs that can't make it as a O/O, so how is someone that hasn't a clue going to succeed ?

 

Id stay put,independent wanna be. I could support your fantasy if you were a flip burger and lived somewhere else but NM ?You can get a CDL for fun, it IS a nice feeling to know you can handle the monster. I see you have a lot of energy after 36 hrs a week, attitude changes fast when you work 100 and log 70. I am younger than you,at 46 I ll probably look for a quiter environment, not somewhere you can be cut out of metal. Also few people put in equation when they want to make an investment in trucking , this lifestyle is outright detrimental to your body. To cut to the chase,if you are looking for a financial reward the odds are against you.