How much do OTR drivers with a little experience make?

In my day it's .20 a mile to start. Today Im worth at least .50 but there is no experience worth a #### so they probably will try to stick me with .35 or so.

It's best to ignore the high dollar stories at 83K or whatever. It's even more better to manage your road expenses. and to build some savings with every check you get. Even if you have to eat a bowl of chili once a week.

When you get into becoming a experienced driver in a few years, especially without any trouble of any kind you will write your own golden ticket. Becoming a trainer is a possibility. Or a husband wife team. Who knows?

Don't worry about the high dollar pay. Focus more on keeping alive and avoiding preventables your first three months, then 6 and so on.

 

Most OTR jobs pay by the mile. A 5 year veteran would probably make 0.45-0.50 cents per mile. A good weekly average is 3000 miles.

How many weeks are you willing to work per year?.

 

You can make that much with Trimac Transportation running OTR.

 

Look into local/regional tankers, flatbed or Ltl/linehaul. great money and still have a life.

 

That would be a good week.
How many good weeks in the year?

It matters less what you are willing to work than it does the freight available in the area you are in.

 

Does Trimac really pay that well? I've driven hauling heavy equipment for const companies since 2000. Last 6 months been pulling chemical tanks and making pretty good but nowhere near $80,000 a year.

 

Yes, they do. You can make over $100K in their Elite Fleet running OTR.
@ethos can verify this; he works there.

I did pretty good at Tankstar and worked about 11 months a year @ $65K. I took long vacations. Many of the drivers were making $72K. This was OTR work.

 

Trimac are an excellent company by the way. If you can start with them, you'll be ahead of the game.

 

When people are comparing pay everyone seems to be making $50,00-$80,000. The next thing you read is nobody is making money and trucking sucks. I would base you pay on 2,500 or 10,000 a month or 120,000 miles a year. If you do more miles that even better. Don't forget people end up wanting to go home for the holidays and maybe family.

So if your pay is $0.33 per mile times 120,000 $39,600. I got new driving job and they have a minimum guaranteed pay of $1,000 a week if we drive more then 2,500 a week we get paid more. It's not like I can say I feel like running 3,500 miles every week. They dispatch the truck on the loads they have. So I'm lucky if I can get 3,000 a week. It regional driving and they have use do a 34 hour restart every week. They try to get us home that but if not we to that at truck stop.