New driver starting out

First off Welcome! Secondly I will try not to sound negative but I urge you to stay away from those mega-carriers and pretty much any company your school is going to suggest! Most of the time the fine folks at your school are being paid to recommend one of the top 5 mega-carriers to you. In fact while you are in school I'm certain they will have a few sessions with recruiters from several of these companies.

Do your homework! Find a good smaller company to drive for! Your chances of success are going to be substantially higher at a smaller company. You will also be a lot happier.

As far as being a dad and having a family, really not a good mix with the trucker lifestyle. I have been in your position and basically missed my son's entire childhood! Yes I supported him and his mom but he would have rather had a dad instead of some stranger sending money and calling him on the phone! As an over the road driver you are typically going to be gone 6-8 weeks with usually 2-4 days at home. This is pretty much the standard across the board. Many recruiters will tell you differently or develop cute little ploys and propaganda but these are the real facts. Also if you are going to make any money at all out there you need to keep home time to a minimum. Every time you take home time it messes up your pay for three weeks! If you aren't willing to stay out there then it ends up not being worth it and you are really then gone from home for nothing. You end up making more at a regular job and being home every night. You'll see how it all works though once you get out there. Home time is the number one reason for new drivers quitting early.

Its great you are doing your research ahead of time. This will really help you to get a picture of what's going on out there. Keep the questions coming....this is the best place for them!

Good luck man!

 

Minimum on the road time is 14 days usually. Most trucks aren't equipped with a whole lot. Prepair to buy a refrigerator (cook in your truck, cuts out some of your overhead) a cb, depending on the company, some trucks have bunk heaters for the winter, and apu's for the summer. Buy a laptop for movies, kills two birds when you need internet for bills or load planning. don't waste money on a tv. Get a satalite radio. I've seen them as low as 50$. These are things you'll want, some you may not need but after a few days on the road. You'll wish you had. Make sure you got blankets and door for 2 weeks and go make money.

Avoid lease owner. The weekly payments are ridiculous with the majority of companies. USA trucking is the only one ive heard that wasn't, the guy was running dollar tree @ 1.40cpm + surcharge. Which ain't too bad.
Also with the lease purchase you have a balloon payment at the end of the lease. That 100k $ truck just became 150k-200k$ truck.

Save up 10-20% for a down payment and anyone will finance you. Much easier an much safer.

Driver trainers, hit and miss. You may get a big smelly guy that showers once a week, but gives you all the info you need. Or you may end up with a clean cut cat who showers every day and doesn't know how to do his own job. Or only cares about the miles.
Make sure you are constantly asking questions. There is never a wrong one.

Drivi g solo vs. driving with a team mate, or trainer. You sleep parked. You're still going to. Run 2-3k miles a week. Most likely on elogs. The only real difference is, teams get guaranteed miles for the most part.
Youll have a Qualcomm or the equivalent satalite system for communication. And your cell phone.
Most companies have a rider policy. I know some charge, insurance purposes.

Same with pets. Some allow some dont.

Starting pay in a company truck. Expect anywhere from .29cpm-.31cpm some higher some low.
My recomendation. Just stick it out. Just because you choose a questionable company for your first one, doesn't mean you'll be stuck there forever. Don't hit ####, or other trucks, put in a year-two year and you'll have no problem moving on up.
Good luck to you and be safe.

 

Also you don't have to go to the company the school chooses.
Research other good ones. A lot of them do tuition reimbursement. Like TMc(flat bedders) great company. There's a whole list. Stay away from the big ones like chompi said. I.e swift, cr England, prime, Werner, etc jb hunt has some of the worst drivers I've seen.

 

When we had a land line, we'd let her answer when a telemarketer would call. It was funny listening to her talk to them.

"My disney princess castle is neat."

"Yes, that's nice sweetie, now can I speak to your mommy and daddy?"

"My grandma has a dog named Calypso."

"Ok now, can I please talk to your mommy?"

"My dog is named Pepper but he's a dork."

 

I think C1 and PAM have an agreement. I have seen others post that have come out of that school directed to PAM. Please look over options. Don't go with a company recommended by your school especially if it is the only one they recommend. Lots on different starter companies on this web site. Do your homework. Making a wrong decision and having to move to another company is costly.

Listen to what PackRat says. Don't look at lease until you have 6 months to a year under your belt. Get a feel for trucking first and see if you can adapt to the lifestyle. This is not a job but a lifestyle. It took me 3 years being a company driver before I made the jump to O/O.

 

ok...the info i have on c1 is out of date...i went years ago. at that time, the school was fine...not great, not bad. what they taught was enough to pass the cdl test. not a whole lot beyond that. the instructors were fine, but probably are no longer there. the hotel we stayed at was 2 trainees to a room, not great, not bad. there were actually 3 companies you could choose that you were guaranteed a job with...usa truck, pam, and roehl. usa truck offered the best pay, and so i pickedf them. as others here have said, with a little work on your part, you have far more options for companies to go work for than the ones the school gives you. still not sure what you are really asking in this post...maybe this is of some value?

and id go further as far as lease purchase goes...dont do it EVER. there are 3rd party companies that are out there where you can do a lease purchase type thing, these are a much better option than buying your truck through the company you work for. lease purchasing through the company that you work for is a recipe for disaster. some drivers succeed at it, but that doesnt make the concept less bad. your company will make out better if you fail than if you succeed, so the incentive with these type of things is to make you fail. and they have all the power as to whether you fail or succeed...if they dont give you enough miles, you fail, period. much better idea to either save up and pay cash for your truck when the time comes (even if you succeed at lease purchase you will end up paying at least 2 or 3 times what the truck is worth), getting a bank or credit union loan (credit has to be good for that though), or go to a 3rd party company that just sells trucks. lone mountain leasing is one example of this...there are others out there.