Overstock on drivers?

Yeah patty she retired from CF lol

 

Lol,ok got it after rereading your post.

 

Some people retire from trucking, and manage to do quite well on retirement. A decent job pays 60k+, over time it actually adds up on social security. Most people just wait till it's too late to start saving for retirement, I'm 35 and have put 10%pretax and 5% post tax into my 401k's for the past decade. It's hard for anyone to survive on SS alone, and I'm planning that it might not be there when I retire anyway.

 

A very good move and assumption. My advise to all young people is to save as much as you can. Social Security has already predicted cuts in payments by the year 2030.

 

That's really the only way for us to do it any more regardless of industry. Not too many people will see any kind of pension any more and a $1400 a month SS check (assuming we even see that) sounds pretty terrible to me. I've been playing catch up since I was so money-stupid in my 20s and early 30s but I think I still have a chance of hitting half a mill by the time I hit retirement age in 20ish years.

Gold and silver bullion for you preppers...

 

Some accurate observations in here, Thull. Remember a couple of things. Driver churn (hired and gone in a short period of time, usually less than a year) is still high, very high, maybe the highest turnover ration in any major industry. And transportation is a really major industry, over $2B/year. 3 million trucks out there any day. (They might all be in Houston some days, it seems like)

So there'll always be work. Driver retention is important, but not as important as corporate profit and quarterly reports. Therefore a sign-on bonus. It's just one of a number of incentives. "Free" school. "Guaranteed miles." Discounts on stuff, benefits like insurances, so on. These are all good incentives, and for many companies, they're really available. But consider. The company doesn't hand a driver $3K in one lovely check. Nope. You'll see $150/month, $500 after each 6 month period (with no SF's, preventables, or crashes even if you're not the one) and generally bleed out the cash based on your performance.

It works if you stay the course, in other words. Example from rel life: I did great with tuition reimbursement, for Swift Trans. They were one of two companies hiring in Albuquerque, and I went in with them after paying $2,200 for my new CDL, including testing and miscellaneous. (MVD test fee, instructor gratuity, like that.) Swift paid $150/month upon receiving documentation of the fees, and I wound up not paying hardly a thing. A cute little strategy: I paid the school with a low interest card, then paid the card with the tuition reimbursement from the company. Worked like a charm.

So, if you think you're going to stay with a company for at least that one year so many recommend, you could see that sign-on come to you. If you're planning on being a good driver, avoid icky stuff, be good to your equipment and your customers, that is. If you don't, so what? Can't lose what you don't have, but don't count on those incentives to be the difference maker. Trucking is all about good, safe miles, on time at both ends, and being good with your income. MY $.02.

 

Bzinger, in my life one month of school to get into a $45-55K starting job is not "low pay." 4 years of school and a "management" job at a company starting at $11/hr with zero chance of promotion? That's low pay. And if you look around you can find companies that actually provide decent benefits. Of course, this is the trucking industry and the "right hand giveth but the left hand taketh away," also. One little mistake changes the whole playing fiend.

 

Interstate was BEGGING me to come work for them. Hazmat, TWIC, Canada legal. $7500 sign-on bonus=.

But they pay .39 CPM.

My current job gave me a $3k sign-on bonus (which I didn't even know about til after I was hired). and i'm making. 47 CPM. I just had a really BAD week here. About 2100 miles. For which I'll be paid about $1062 (including a $75 layover day. ) on a BAD week. 9Holidays always screw the pooch) You'd have to pay me a HUGE sign-on bonus ($15k+) to make up for crappy CPM and low miles. Which is what most companies offer. And I'd leave 5 seconds after the sign-on bonus expires.

Sign-on bonuses are a Chimera.

The miles you get and the CPM or % are what you make your money on.

System Transport, which is a pretty good company to work for, has an 80% turnover rate. -That's according to one of the hiring managers.

The "AVERAGE" new driver fresh out of school won't last 4 months on this job.

They get too lonely, don't get enough home-time or just can't do the work. No fault to them, this is a HARD job. It's definitely not for everyone. Flatbed can be brutal physically. This is not a JOB. It's a WAY OF LIFE.

And THAT, young driver, is what you sign on to. And you won't know if you like it until you DO it. Most people DON'T. And i don't blame them.

 

Dead end job... really???? Do you even know what a dead end job is. A dead end job is an unskilled job where there is absolutely no chance of transferring to a higher paid position and offer no transferable skills to other type of employments. Examples include shelf stackers, cleaning and other menial roles. Jobs like this normally pay less than 20k per year. No trucking job pays less than 20k per year. Despite what the feds say, i consider this to be a skilled professional, It requires certification(CDL) and knowledge of how to operate a tractor trailer safely. The average person without a cdl cant just jump into a bigrig and drive it. There are higher paid positions in trucking the average 1st year driver earns abt 40k on average and with experience and a safe driving History can find higher paying jobs at 60-100k. As for transferable skill, the Transportation industry doesn't work like that. Dont ever comparing trucking to to shelf stackers again. It shows you have no idea about the industry you're in and how it works.

 

Whatever you say driver.