Is trucking right for me if I only want 40 hours?

First off I of course love driving. I have experience making deliveries in a small 5 ton van, driving farm equipment ETC. What concerns me about becoming a trucker though is the long hours. I know for sure that I could not do the long hauls. My homelife is way too important. How hard is it for someone like me that wants to be home every night and maybe work a maximum of 45 to 50 hours, to get into this industry? I do plan on going to a trucking school.

Heck i'd be willing to take a lesser pay job if it meant a normal 40 hour work week.

I also here horror stories of employers pushing you to take drugs and stimulants to stay awake.

What do you think? Should I drop the $4,000 for CDL training, or would I be wasting my time trying to find a local route with less hours?

Thanks!!

 

Skip the driving school and look for a local job that is willing to train you,..

Most soda, beer, food companies will start you out as a drivers helper and train you to drive,..

Then you just need to move up the list to a bib job,...

And more than likely you'll be home every night,...

Sales skills and customer service skills are more important to these kind of company's than anything else,..

 

chances are you wont be able to find a local job until you have some OTR time under your belt

 

It's not necessarily wrong for you to want only 40 hours, hell thats all I want to work, or less. But the nature of the industry dictates longer hours sometimes. By your location I think finding a local job might be kind of tough as there is not much industry down that way but there are jobs, just harder to find and more spread out. Are there any community collages down that way that would offer CDL classes because you can: (a) spend $$$$$ to get your CDL and not find the type of job you are looking for or...(b) get your CDL cheaper and not find the type of job you are looking for. I would start banging on some doors and see what your opportunities are and what might be available and dont forget to check out the farms where you see trucks coming from. Possibly you can train "on the job" while getting you CDL. Check out craigslist for salem. Would it hurt to go OTR for a year just to get your foot in the door? Thinking May Trucking.

Im sure there are cases where people will push you to take something to keep you going or stay awake but..........In my time out here, which has been mostly local driving, I have never heard it.

 

I spent the money for driving school my first job was for a local 7-up bottler. Depending on how they pay you, you canmake #### good money or barely break even. I spent 3 weeks being trained (my initial route was filling in for someone so I had to know the specifics of the route) then was on my own. It was long hard days, starting at 4:30am, some days would be done by 12:30 others would be done by 3pm. At first I was paid by the hour $9.50, my first take home check for 10 days work $1050.00, the next one was $1,300.00. Then about a month in they switched us a flat rate, I would go from $9.50 an hr to $89.00 per day, after 90 days it would go to $99.00 per day and top out at $139.00 per day. They lost several drivers over that switch. You can make #### good money though, but it's very phyiscal and weather can make it worse.

 

Truth is, HARD AS H*LL! Even when the economy was good and every trucking outfit known to man was hiring it was hard to land a local job with no experience. Now, you can just about forget about it.

I recently applied for a little job with 4 years experience and the H.R guy said he had a six inch stack of resumes to sift through! There are tons of experienced drivers out there looking, what makes you think they'll take a newb straight out of driving school over one of them?

 

my dad just started driving for 7 up after being layed off by DHL...he works alot of 14 hour days and gets paid some kind of stupid chinese overtime....paid a flat rate for the day and comission based on cases delivered, he said it averages to $11 an hour

 

That is on of the biggest false statements I hear about the trucking industry,......MOST local drivers that I know have NEVER been otr,.....

Like I said driving is the least important thing to most local jobs like soda, beer, And food distributors,...SALES SKILLS and CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS being the most important to them,...Driving they can teach quickly, But if your not going to be good with there customers they will not keep you around,.....

 

You are right Fish, I think most guys don't even try for that local gig because
they believe there is none out there or they are just too hard to get which is
not true.

We have 5 trucks leased to a company that we are home allmost every night and
for awhile we couldn't find any drivers, or any that were worth a darn.

 

Oh those kinds of jobs, these are not real driving job jobs they are a lumper on wheels.