I know nothing, but need it all.

Recommended by someone, and confirmed by me, the worlds most respected driver...you can't go wrong.

Stay safe my friends.

 

There are a lot of reviews on this forum of companies, good and bad. Take time to read through them. Decide which relative you'll start with and look for companies in that area. Then come with the names to this forum and do a search. Talk to truckers from that company. Don't just take OUR word for it that a company is good or bad. For example, I've seen a lot of bashing on Swift. But I've also seen a few guys here that work for Swift and their posts do not indicate that they are unhappy working for them. Craigslist is a bad place to find trucking jobs usually, but sometimes there are gems in the dirt.

There are many ways to fund school. If you sign up for a company that trains you to get your cdl, then you may have to sign a contract to work for them for a specific period of time, like a year. Some of those companies do not treat you well. There is a government program that helps pay for school for specific "needed" industries, of which trucking is one. Look at the state you'll be living in for them. Here in arizona it's called "one stop". They pay for your school outright. Check out your state for the program. Many community colleges have grant programs. You can check with the truck driving schools in the state you want to "live" in (I use the term loosely, you may only end up there for vacation time, or to go back to the distribution center for another load). My school of choice told me about the one stop program here. Many drivers will tell you that it works best if you do school independent of any trucking company. Many companies will also pay you extra as a bonus to help you pay off your school after you graduate and after they hire you, so if you do end up taking out a loan to pay for school, you'll be able to pay it back. While you are in school, some companies come to the school to recruit, so you may not need to "look for a job" as much as know ahead of time which companies you "for sure don't want to work for." That's why research beforehand is a good thing.

Starting pay varies. 35k to 50k is a range for first year truckers. That's more than enough to pay back a student loan of 4 to 6k, especially if, like me, you intend to make "home" the inside of your truck.

There are also many ways to "do trucking". Some ppl want home weekly. Some want home nightly. Some, like me, want to travel the country and see things and don't care about home time. Read this forum and you'll find all the different ways to be a trucker. Then, look at companies that do the kind of trucking you want.

Yes, one bad "oops" can #### up your career. But there are many thousands of drivers who never had that career ending "oops". Just use caution, be respectful of the 80k lbs of deadly force you'll be expected to control, and follow the laws and safety procedures.

This life is what you make it. Choose carefully the company you first work for, but remember, turnover is high in this industry. You can get another job at another company if you act professional and use caution.
At worst, some companies can get you to the school, and then kick you out for various reasons, some of which may have nothing to do with you personally. Sometimes during training, your trainer may get pissed off and kick you out of the truck - we are all human and sometimes two ppl just don't fit together. Try to have "an escape plan" if something like this happens. This is why going to school on your own first can be helpful. No matter where you are, if this kind of thing happens, you can apply to another trucking company and get hired, and "rescue yourself".

Good luck bud, Puerto Rico got the short end of this stick, and hope you are successful in your new career.

 

The sad part is, I'm not a "real truck driver" yet. I am on my way to school, and I've been scanning and reading this forum for a couple months. That is the collective knowledge I've gained from reading and re-reading this forum. I've taken it to heart, and learned a few things from outside this forum too. So, I only repackaged all the good info I've gained, free, from the awesome posters on this site, and fed it back to you in a nice voice

Good luck my friend.

 

That's funny all I did was spit on a cop and not one of those schools would take me and when I finally got my cdl on my own was shot down by about 20 companies in a week because of it