New to trucking and I have the bug

Unless you have some sort of guaranteed lucrative freight/customer lined up you're better staying a mechanic. You can easily start a mobile repair business and do way better than you'll ever do as an OO in the long run. Good and reliable mechanics are (and always will be) in high demand. Truck drivers have lost that status many years ago.

 

To be clear, farm pickup and bulk transport are 2 different animals. I've done both, and farm pickup is by far, a much better deal. Great people, laid back, it's no wonder to me these old timers stay with it for so long. That's fading, my friend. I read, an astounding 1,000 farms fail EVERY MONTH in the US, that's 250 a week! Many are getting to the point, with thousands of cows, they have their own tanks, and Farmboy John hauls them when not on manure duty. The small farm is a dinosaur, sadly.[/QUOTE] Sorry, I should have clarified that better, I was referring to farm pickup. Never heard anyone say they got rich doing bulk transit! As far as all the farms folding up, that’s is regional to a certain extent. PA, WI, OH, IN, MD, and there are several more, still have thousands of small dairy’s. And by small I mean 250 cows or less. Many of those are running on old money. A lot of where the news says so many are “going bankrupt” is where the cash flow was a little tight, and a bigger farm came and just bought it out. Yep, definitely headed the corporate farm way, I don’t like to see it, but I am reasonable enough to see how it’s easier to pick a whole semi load up at 1 place instead of 6-8.

 

edit: ###### double post

 

ehhhh I’d probably be right around there with some of our west coast stuff

after 5 years my insurance was able to drop to 21k and I was estatic, even though I am “high risk” despite none of my accidents being my fault

you are right on the 100k to go trucking though, whether getting a new one with down payment or old one and going through it will probably be around there

 

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Belly laugh at the comments on here lol

 

I will say the best advice to give you is just try different things until you find what you like to do... the great thing about trucking is if you don't like pulling one trailer find something different... I would just spend at least a year at the company you started with and go from there..

I have ran into some good hands like you ran into in Reno. Guys that go out of their way to help a fellow driver out, now ur job is to pass that down the line once you get the opportunity to do so. If everyone did that this industry would be alot better than it is.

 

Wow, what was it up to? Mine was 19,500 two years ago, was just under 11k last year, paid in full price was 5,800 for this year.

 

Last year was 32k, the agent dicked me around until 230 the day it ended and basically told me pay it or don’t they don’t really care so I wasn’t renewing with them regardless, but 52k was what they quoted me for this year

 

You are new, and your expectations are unrealistic. First, with your limited experience your insurance would be astronomical. I am talking $40k a year if not more. And that's even if you can get insurance. Get a good 5 years experience first.