Is going local as a newbie a mistake?

Sounds like a personal problem there.

 

Driving experience is just that. As long as your local job crosses a state line from time to time you should be fine. If you never leave your state, and decide to go OTR or regional one day, you will be with a driver trainer for awhile, and not just for learning the hauing job you are doing but to teach you how to run in areas you don't know. I happen to know a little about this since 1 of my 15 years driving was hauling fuel. When I find the right lease hauling gas my truck will be doing it again. I love yanking tankers.

 

I heard someone say the other day that local drivers don't move the country. That's BS, if it's not then shutdown the fuel trucks and see where the nation goes IN ABOUT 48 HOURS (NOWHERE) LITERALY!!!!!!!!!!

 

Don't forget the food that is supposed to be at the grocery stores would be sitting in the distribution centers.

 

I would think that driving tankers in Iraq would not look too bad on one's resume, if you choose to use that piece of information in the future. Keep your local job as long as you can. (From memory) 6 states and Canada is hardly local anyway. You'll do fine. Who is it on here that says that attitude makes the difference? He/she is dead right, and your attitude, so far, is going to do good things for you.

 

If your intent is to piss people off you probably got a long ways to go. Just because someone has drove OTR does not mean they "knew where to go" or "what to do". It means they have driven over the road and bumped docks, sat in traffic, sat at shippers/receivers. If I had 31 drivers in front of me looking for a job doing local stuff and 30 were "local" drivers, I doubt the one that had OTR experience would beat them out just because of that experience.

 

It always feels so good when someone proves me right and they don't even know they're doing it.

 

I wouldn't even worry about otr, if you can drive a truck you can drive a truck. Some people perfer over the road and that's good for them, if I was single with out any children I may like it too. I guess you don't have many bills, maybe phone and internet would be all you really need and you save a lot of money that way. But, I'm married and have a daughter and a grandson so I perfer local. I drove over the road for three months and that was it. Those were my first 3 months of driving and I have been driving since 99. The rest have been local for a short period of about 3 months I drove regional se but was still home most every night. You don't need otr experience to find a job and that is not hear say it is coming from experience. I myself am proof of it. Go ahead and drive local and enjoy it.

 

I know it may be hard now but if you can invest as much as you can to get the company to invest their max. I'm sure they have that type of retirement/savings program. Take it easy for awhile to get your feet planted solid with the company. Spend the extra time to learn all the regulations and watch the safety films even if you have to do it on your own time. Check out the Charlie Morecraft Video if they have it. It really hits home and gets you thinking. You will never forget it.

You've done good and now you'll want to stay and improve so you'll have something to look forward to. There's some drivers out here that went right away for the freight job and moved up and now they have nothing set aside so they have to work until they drop. That's no planning and just going after what they could get that day. There's so much out there with good companies and you have to search it out. They are not going to come to you so use all you can. I even went to school and got paid for my classes and books and onto of that the government kicked in some so I was making money going to class. Of course it wasn't much but have you looked at the price of courses and books? Just don't get ####y and do the best you can.