New driver introducing himself.

welcome 2 trucking
make sure u get cool CB handle
as far as for companies you are looking at a starter company many are a like. you will find out more about the company as you go. to pick a company and narrow it down. you need to figure out what type of trailer you want to pull, do want to run the entire 48, do you want to run regional up to 38 states, dedicated, local, how much they pay during training and when u finish, what do they offer on hometime. MAKE SURE YOU LOOK CLOSLEY AT THEIR TRAINING PROGRAM. research them online. only u know what you are willing to do or don't do. food for thought when I ran 48 that company told us after September chains are mandatory on the truck and with full set of chains and full tanks it makes truck heavy. I quickly changed companies I WAS NOT GONNA BE PICKING UP 150LB chains. sit down and write a pros and cons list of what you want and what you are looking for and pick a company based on that.

 

Don't forget about the local jobs. Unsure, if you are being fed BS have to do OTR for experience.
Drive local and fly the world

Good luck Josh

 

One thing to remember,, all recruiters "sell" their company, at any cost.
What a recruiter says is BS a lot of times, and not binding. What's written on your "hire papers" is, and may turn out quite different.
I don't aim to paint a picture of doom & gloom, but just some reality.

Also look at LTL (Less Than Trailer Load) companies. They are typically "local" jobs, home daily, with linehaul runs (8-10 hrs round-trip highway driving) or P&D (pickup & delivery) with tractor trailer to local businesses.
LTL companies are a bit harder to get on with, for a newb, but not impossible.

 

Spat coffee on "Werner recruiter - car salesman" !

Did someone say LTL ? Good option for more local time, maybe after you get your feet wet.

Welcome Josh. Read up, you're in the right place . . .

 

Thanks KW Cajun. I've been looking for local jobs around home, been wanting to put a call into Pepsi Mid-America just haven't had the time to do it lately. My appologies for being rather quiet here lately, just finished up all the classroom work last week and have spent the past two days driving. Its been an absolute blast learning to drive. At the moment i'm learning in a 2002 Freightliner, enjoying just about every second of it.

I also recently heard a presentation from Ozark Trucking, and liked it quite a bit. Sent in an application and was pre-hired by them. Roehl though, for some reason rejected my application. When i asked why they wouldn't give me a reason, and told me i had to write to the hiring commity to find out. Strange.

Another company i've been looking at is Falcon. They do some pretty high paying dedicated runs from what i've been told.

 

Josh (OP),

I can't stress enough... no matter what any company or recruiter says, or how well they present themselves, those two items are virtually insignificant in making any decision who to go with. Do in-depth searches on TTR and other sources to find out from the actual drivers of any company.
Note however, most drivers will complain faster than any will take the time to post good about their company. You just have to weigh out the number of complaints you see, as well as judging the credibility of the driver.

I see you mentioned Falcon. I'm not sure which Falcon you're referring to, but the largest Falcon has extremely bad FMCSA scores. Also, I did a quick search and found many troubling reviews about Falcon (Falcon Transport, Youngstown, Ohio).

I'll give you two links below, first one is the home search page for the FMCSA safety measurement system (SAFER).
You can search any company by DOT number, or their business name. After you hit search, scroll down to bottom of resulting page and you will see companies with that name.
Select the correct one and click on their DOT number on the left side. Their score page will follow.
The 2nd link is the actual FMCSA score page for Falcon Transport. Higher scores are NOT good. You can click on each safety category for an in-depth list of violations, also.

FMCSA Safety Measurement System Main Search Page

FMCSA SMS Score Page for Falcon Transport

 

Companies can go yrs and yrs with bad safety but drivers lets send out reinforcements and put those bad drivers oos and take their license away.A company I drove for,his safety was so bad he was at the verge of losing his company.So he changed his company name and dot number.Only to do it again and he gets away with it.Took him like 10 yrs to get his score that high.I checked his score a month ago and I seen his score is climbing,gee imagine that and also had an audit.I would like to say when is enough enough,but we all know that won't happen.

 

Yep,, commonly know as "chameleon companies". A chameleon changes colors, a chameleon company changes name & DOT number.
DOT does crack down on them... but it often takes too long, and in many cases it's just a slap on the hand "punishment".

 

hey it sound like u drive 4 the same company i'm employed with their CSA score was 97% I had 2 go in every scale and I had several road side inspections I was always told it's because of company score and they showed my and this company finally gave up and signed under swift as fleet operators

 

Welcome to the wide world of trucking. As you can see from my profile I have been around the block a few times. Since I became semi retired I was a State Licensed Instructor at a very well known CDL program run by a college in Michigan.

One thing I always told students was to not bit off more than you can chew. That refers to a lot of aspects of trucking ,road conditions, backing up, speed and on and on. Applying that principal I would recommend that you learn how to drive, that comes when you get out on your own, then learn to flat bed. One step at a time, slow and easy and you will be fine.