Is it difficult to get a local trucking route?

If you put in a good clean year driving, no tickets, accidents, failed inspections, etc, it should be really easy to get a local driving job, provided there are jobs available.

 

That is a mighty big IF !!!!!!

 

the only jobs i've ever had are local. i have a B license too which makes finding local jobs even harder since most places that have both a and b trucks will only hire class a license holders, and if a class a driver walks into a job position for a B, he's probably going to get the job over me. the best thing to do is walk in dressed the part, show you're ready to work hard. local jobs usually require you to work harder. offer to work for a day for free to prove you've got what it takes.

 

Just depends on who you know and what you're willing to accept IME. My first job was hauling food in teams. It was a 4 day per week gig that paid well and had me driving brand new, well maintained equipment. But in the words of a trainer I rode with when I first got that job, people come to this thinking that driving the truck is what this job is. Driving the truck is just what you do in order to get yourself to where the job is. The job is unloading the truck and walking all the freight into restaurant kitchens.

And he was not exaggerating. That job was hard work. But like I said, it paid well and got me home every day. And honestly I would have kept it longer if I had lived closer to the terminal. But the hour plus drive each way just to get to and from the terminal was just too much for me after putting in the 16 hour days that we had to put in.

So from there I found a job with a local company hauling steel. Again, I slept in my own bed every night. And unlike the previous job, more often than not, I was able to sleep most of the night, i.e. start times were generally 5, 6 or 7 am most of the time instead 1 or 2 am. But the equipment was old and kind of ratty. Things that didn't work and didn't directly effect safety just didn't get fixed. Period. And the paycheck was on the lower side. Plus it was flatbed work which meant tarps and chains were the norm. But the fact remains that with less than a year of experience, I was making a living and eating dinner/sleeping in bed with my wife every night.

So its definitely possible to stay local right from the start. But being able to do is by no means guaranteed and you'll almost definitely have to make some concessions (quality of equipment, size of paycheck, etc) if you do manage to find something.