How to start

Good Luck and Welcome to the forum

 

You will have to go to a school for insurance purposes companies will not hire people whom have no exp. without schooling. Thusly the only real thing you did here was skip the more tedious part of school, which is the cdl test prep, and can focus more on learning to drive the truck and less on learning to pass the test.

 

As was said, most companies wont hire without verifiable experience. However, there are some smaller companies out there that may work with you. Do you know anyone who drives that may be able to get you on with their company? I know a couple guys who went that route with a small car hauling company. Last I heard, they were both solo and doing just fine. Good luck!

 

I drove for Con way freight for twelve years.A tough company to work for but they have great pay and benefits.They may work you to death but they compensate you well.I worked in the LTL division.This includes local delivery and line haul.A local day was about 10 hours and linehaul at least 12.Both home every day or night depending on your shift.5 days a week.Both positions include dockwork(good exercise).Con way truckload drivers that I talked to were happy.Plenty of miles although some said too many.All con ways trucks are well maintained and they do run legal.Both divisions(Con Way Freight,Con Way Truckload) do have training programs for drivers with a CDL or without one.LTL is a little slow now but it won't hurt to call over to the Southbend terminal(closet to Bristol)and see if they can't help you out.If you can't get on locally, try Con Way Truckload.Go to Con Way Freight's web site.Hit on careers.We all had to start somewhere.Last thing, you will need a Haz-mat endorsement on your license and double/triples also.They'll guide you through this also.

 

There is a lot more to know as a truck driver than learning how to drive. You need to know about Hours of service, dot laws a regulations, log books, etc.. I haven't heard anything really bad about Schneider, but I do hear they have a good training program, so that looks like your best bet right now..When your done, you might want to drive with them for a while, then if their not what you looking for then you can always move on..

 

You better be careful, doubledragon5. You are going to get accused of being a Schneider recruiter. Actually, if Schneider hired in my area I would go with them. I actually was pre-approved at one time with them then they shifted to hiring only teams in NM (I don't fancy team driving since I can't convince my wife to do this). Now it has gotten worse. They won't even hire if you live in NM.

 

Now why in the world would they not hire in NM. It should not mater where you live especially if your experienced, starting our, because you probably will run 48 anway..

 

I really don't know the answer to that. All I know is that I was pre-approved to come there. When I called to ask about orientation and get it set up, they said, "We are now hiring teams only in NM and we will try to set you up with someone if you don't have someone that lives within 250 miles of you." When I called back a few months ago to see if anything had changed I was told that they are no longer hiring here. It makes no sense since I live on I-40 and I see loads of Schneider trucks going through here all the time. I also live a short distance from the Petro at exit 79 and seems like they could do like other companies, swap loads if need be to get me home.