Need advice from the pros

Most companies go three to five years on tickets like that. My best advice to you is to stay away from the mega-carriers! Find a good, smaller company to work for. Your success is going to be substantially higher with a smaller company. With that being said though you are going to have to put forth a lot more effort in finding one. The mega-carriers will take you provided you are breathing so that is why most newbies go with them.

Like I've said in many other posts... any company that has to spend millions of dollars in advertising to get YOU to work for THEM should set off an alarm in your head! These companies are only interested in cheap labor in the form of paying newbies training wages for months in order to move their freight. They do not want experienced drivers! For the experience drivers they have created the "lease" program. This is where they provide you a bright, shiny new truck to disguise the less than training wages they are going to pay you!

So do your home work! Besides, the smaller companies will probably be more forgiving with your record then the larger ones.

Most important of all, and this probably won't make a lot of sense to you yet, but has to do with your dispatcher. At the mega-carriers the dispatchers are responsible for hundreds of drivers. This makes you a number. At the small companies its easier to establish a one on one personal relationship with your dispatcher which is crucial in making money out there!

Good luck to you... do as you wish with this advice!