Questions from a clueless noob

I believe before you make any switch you should have at least 6 months pay stashed away in case you need it. You can figure very low pay in the beginning until you get on your feet and start driving some real miles. This is the worse time to go into a driving career. Just like everywhere else times are bad and companies are cutting the fat to get the most for their buck.

You need to sit down and make a couple of lists. One is for what you want out of driving and the other is your goals and timeline. You have to take everything into consideration from pay, benefits, type of equipment and how safe it is, to when you retire. Everything you can think of should be looked at and rated how important it is to you. How are you going to get trained? What is going to happen after the trianing is over? Of course you won't get any exact answers but you need to research so you'll get the best idea. This board is a great place to start. Never trust a school and never ever trust recruiters.

Driving a truck OTR is just not a job, it's a switch in life styles. You can forget any normalcy you have now. Be sure you research all you can before you sign any contract or lay any money down. There's been a few stories here where guys have paid for school then try to get a job and then can't because of prior problems. So do your homework.

 

You don't say how old you are but it does sound like you have some physical limitations. We had a woman worked with us at my last job who did the job and was a very safe driver. she is about 60 years old. We pulled coils on flat beds. You will have to climb the truck alot and chaining and tarping is not a walk in the park. You really need to assess any joint problems you might have. You can make that kind of $$$ on a truck but you will prob. put in more than 60 hrs a week.

 

Liking driving is a completely different thing from driving for a living. I always loved driving. However, I find that I don't love driving for a living. Don't get me wrong, I like it. But I don't love it. I've had to do some real hard looking inward to determine if it was something I wanted to continue doing, and have determined it isn't. And it's not like I'm new to it either. Still green at 6 years of driving, but plenty of experience that has told me it's time to bail. However, if I didn't have a wife and younger kids, it would be a different story. The reason I don't like love my job, is because I don't love being away from them 5-7 days at a time.

What I would suggest, is sitting down and writing out what kind of lifestyle you want. Then, once you've determined that, you can then look into whether driving OTR suits that lifestyle. If it does, then go for it, and do it with excellence. If not, then do some searching for something that does fit the lifestyle you want, and that you would have a passion for doing, and pursue that instead.

No sense in driving OTR, only to find out 2 or 3 years down the road it was never what you wanted.

 

The money you are looking for is very attainable but not starting out. You will first run into the fact that most companies want 2 years driving experince and the ones that don't usually don't pay well. Every post here is correct, driving is not a job, it is your life. You will go out on the road for 2 weeks to ????? and then come home for several days. You will miss family functions and times with friends. if you are flexible with your home time and you are a safe driver, you can easily make a very good living at driving but like I said, there are sacrafices.

 

im also new and thinking of getting in the business but i talked to a safety man with a o/o company and he said freight is very good right now. I dont believe he would lie about that but he's just the safety man

 

and dieselgoddes ur family says think about cause they dont wont to c u fail. Its understandable, but if its one thing i learned bout life do what makes u happy and sometimes u have to take a chance no matter what some poeple say. If u dont what will happen 20 years from now u might be sitten around and say i could have done that. Even if u dont do but for a couple of years, you'll never know if u dont try just take ur time and research the business

 

Two of the job titles that will frequently lie to you (at least with larger corporations) are safety and human resources.

The economy is a long way from being "very good" including the freight sector.

 

Where do live? Sounds like the "Waltons"! You are probably going to make about the same to start. $550 is probably low to average on the pay scale. Give it a shot sounds like you have nothing to lose. Good luck. Tell ma and pa we said hi!