How much should an OTR driver earn? Here's my opinion!

Top 10 Most Dangerous Jobs

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/03/01/top-10-most-dangerous-jobs/

Truck Driver Made #9 most deadly! Average Salary = 44k! 18 work related deaths per 100,000!

Article is from March 2011.

I guess the pay for a driver is comparable to most of the other jobs in the top ten, but not many of the other jobs require you to work/be away from home, for the amount of time that most driving jobs do!

Time Is Money!

even for company drivers...

 

I never said that over time was required by the feds. I was regurgitating what some of you have been saying about being paid time and a half after 40 hours. I also said that if you are being paid then you are on duty and that will take away from your total working day since you can't log on duty not working, but if you are being paid then you are on duty. As you have stated on several occasions, you are with the truck and keeping an eye on it and the cargo. That means that you are on duty. And if you are on duty then that means that you are working. If you expect to log legally, then you will need to log it as on duty not driving. It would be interesting to see if you and some of your fellow drivers who want to be paid from the time you leave home would go along with being paid straight time after 40 hours. I guarantee that if you were being paid hourly to drive otr and you were not paid over time after 40 hours that you would be back here on this forum complaining about not being paid over time and how unfairly you were being treated by your carrier. I don't know of any carrier who pays hourly who doesn't pay overtime.

 

Running like H E double hockey sticks because you are paid percentage or by the mile will never change until drivers are compensated for the extras they do.

 

I would be happy if the drivers got fair compensation on per diem and say ummmm $900 a week guaranteed.

 

I haven't had a check less than $1000 unless I've had home time since I don't know when. I feel if you can't make at least $1000-1200 a week it's not worth it. I should be getting my annual raise here in a month, so will be another 25-30 dollars a week.

 

If you don't mind me asking, how long have you've been trucking and what do you pull?

 

Been driving a little less than 3 years and pull dry van.

 

Yeah, had some dates like that! Glad those days are over.

 

I don't know many who are paid a flat rate, such as you mentioned, unless they are on salary. If drivers were paid a flat rate salary each week, then you would see their work slow when they felt that they had given the company their salary. People need motivation. Trucking is a good motivator. It offers an opportunity to earn more money by producing more. If you want to give yourself a raise, then drive a few more miles or plan better. If you run on percentage, the look for those loads which pay the most. If all drivers were paid the same flat rate each week without some expectation of productivity, then you would see freight slow down considerably. I agree that drivers should be compensated for sitting at shippers for extended periods of time, but it is up to the carriers to make sure that they receive adequate compensation for sitting at loading docks. Unless the carrier collects the money then it won't be paid. It is that simple. Carriers won't pay extra unless they are paid by the shipper or broker. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen nearly as much as it should. When you have a career that has little or not supervision, such as trucking, performance pay works best. That is why we pay mileage or percentage. Both methods are most fair to drivers and carriers.

 

I started earn 70,000 a year right out of trucking school for a car hauling company that trained me