A little background, 27, male, broke. Life just not working and I'm planning on a change and joining all you lovely road warriors.
I'v been a software developer for 10~ years but mostly freelance so work is hit or miss.. I guess you can say im educated and smart. Assa. in CompSci and Assa. in Nursing (never took state RN, working through first 2 years college in a nursing home, at age 20.. world views change, along with college major.. Finished the college course in hopes the Nursing degree would look good on resume but its not helped).
Actually all this year I;v been trying to move out of freelance and get a steady slave-labor-cubical job. Been through about 10 interviews in the past few months with different corporations but no luck. [this other guy has 10 years enterprise experience, sorry]. Nor am I willing to lower myself to tech support or some level 1 cable installer crap. Again world views changing, along with career path. So thats about where I'm at in the least dramatic fashion.
So my main questions are,
1) How flexible are schedules usually? Do all companys roughly let you pick or is something like '4day on 4day off' is that VERY company specific? I know the local ones will be much more fixed in this area but I'm looking OTR.
2) Again with the schedule, Can I drive at night? I really only would like to drive at night and sleep in the day. Period. I hardly like driving my car in day traffic.
3) Unemployment. If I quit trucking for a year or 2 how long is my CDL-A good? How much work is required in what time limit to keep it in good standing?
4) Is it hard? I'v never been very good at backing up a F150. Well its just nerve racking to me when I driving larger vehicles. It just seems a bit crazy how you guys make it though some construction areas with roads too small for my mustang.
5) Driving hours / log what are the limits. I see that 10hr is the max driving time, is that per-24? Am I allowed to drive my 10 stop and sleep for 6-8 and drive another 10? All my medical jobs I'v always done 12hr shifts. All my freelance work ends up being 16+hr days. If I can sleep 8 hours and still not be able to drive for 4 hours pretty much no deal.
Thank you all for your help.
Questions from a noob
Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by Rmetal, Aug 23, 2015.
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Hi R, welcome to TTR
Let me see if I can give you some general answers.
1) Schedules vary by freight, mostly. If you're asking about time off, most OTR companies here in the US give 1 day off for every 6 days on the road. I have never heard of a 4-on 4-off schedule for OTR.
2) Again, varies by freight. You're going to pick up and deliver when the shippers and receivers are open. Some are 24 hours. Most are not. Using a minimum time schedule of driving 10 hours a day, in theory your schedule will roll backward by two hours each day. But, you may wind up sitting between loads waiting for appointments. You're going to be expected to drive whatever is legal and necessary to get the freight to the consignee - day or night. And begging fatigue is not an acceptable excuse.
3) This is somewhat subjective, but mostly what I hear is you should drive some every year to keep you eligible. Some will say within 6 months, some will say 18 months. It's going to vary with who you are trying to apply with after that gap.
4) It is a learning curve, but it can be done and taught by a diligent student with a competent trainer. Usually, the second part of that sentence is the caveat.
5) In the US we can drive UP TO 11 hours a day in a 14 hour period. After that (in the simplest terms, because there are other ways to do this) you require 10 hours of rest. So, to answer your question of drive 10/ sleep 8/ drive 10 - the answer is no. That is not legal as you would not be getting enough rest by law. The legal way would be drive 11/ sleep 10/ drive 11.... or similar.
Hope that helps.
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And you said some of that stuff wayyyy better than I did.
HorseShoe Thanks this.
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Trucking Jobs in 30 seconds
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