New Driver's Log

Welcome to the TTR Forum. With no tickets since 2003 you are good there. Anything drug or alcohol related will raise some eyebrows. It should be old enough it won't cause too much of a problem. I suspect the address thing on you license may be a problem, but maybe not. I'll offer my standard advice.

You need to research and find out what the important questions are. You can make an above average living but you will make sacrifices that other jobs don't require. Read the "good companies" and "bad companies" section on this forum and get an idea of what company you want to work for and what kind of trailer you want to pull. Don't just go to school and then try to figure out where to go.

I don't know your financial situation. Don't take training from a company if you can afford it or get it with financial aid. You will be their slave for up to year. If you leave they will trash you DAC and credit record. Check out your local community colleges and employment office.

Just know that most training and trucking company recruiters will do nothing but lie to you. They will let you talk about what you want and then tell you what you want to hear. Trucking is about moving freight to make money for the company. Your home time, family, paycheck and everything else comes second.

It is not like any other job. Local is usually backbreaking delivery work 10+ hours a day, 6 days a week. Often you unload dozens of times a day or you are a salesman. In my area most dump truck jobs pay less than a good factory job. Regional is lots of loading and unloading time, fewer miles than OTR and not as hard as local but will wear on you and push your HOS limits. OTR is out 3 - 5 weeks with 3 - 4 days home, less manual labor and more miles.

You'll probably have to pay your dues before you get the gravy job. Weekends off, if you are lucky enough to get something like that starting out, may be home Thursday afternoon and leave Saturday night or home Friday night and leave Sunday afternoon. Loads deliver on Monday early and you leave in time to get them there. Often your home time will be in the middle of the week.

Regardless of your driving choice, after school you will go through company training. For OTR this can be six weeks to three months with little or no home time. The first phase is usually $400 a week and the second phase is $500-550 a week. Some pay less. One company pays 12 CPM for training.

One last thing, you don't want to wait around too long after training or you'll have trouble finding a job. If you get out before you have a year in, when you try to come back a few months later you will find they want you to start over.

 

I'm surprised they haven't caught up to you and suspended your Ohio license.

 

You know that's right. They have been doing that for more than 20 years under the reciprocity agreement. Years ago, I tried to tell my sister you couldn’t ignore those out of state tickets. She didn’t believe it until she got the letter telling her to surrender her operator’s license and vehicle tags.

The sad part of this, for a person looking to enter the industry, is that it is so old that it would have never came up if handled properly. Now it will probably be there based on the date of disposition.

For the most part speeding in excess of 15 MPH above posted speed limit is considered reckless driving in the industry. For the purpose of the age of an infraction, I don’t know if it will be the date of the offense or the date of the final disposition. I suspect the latter.

 

And there is No

Statute of Limitations on traffic tickets !!!!