School, or trained by first job?

Yes. The days of not going to CDL school are over, unless you were trained in the military. There is no option to learn trucking from riding along in a friend's truck.

 

If you start trucking with a home daily job some OTR companies will not consider you for OTR jobs. I did 3 years OTR, then switched to home daily daycab trucking for 18 years and wanted to switch back to OTR. Some companies like Prime & Jim Palmer treated my 18 years of recent experience like it didn't count. Other carriers counted my 21 years of CDL driving like gold. I switched into HazMat tanker, and loved it. OTR adventure with much less time pressure. No rule applies to every situation.

Newbies want to find they are welcomed by every company or are blocked by every company. That's not how trucking works. If something keeps you from getting hired at 95% of employers, it doesn't block you from working with the remaining 5%. You only work one job, so find that job. This doesn't mean that you can find a job if you just got a US license, served 32 years for murder, failed a drug test, have 4 speeding tickets 30 mph over, and don't speak English. Although it seems most newbie questions have that as a background, sometimes.

 

Here you go - a Dock to Driver position in Southern California

Truck Driver Student

 

HazMat tanker can carry any Hazardous Materials such as chemicals, acids, poisons, fuels, etc. There are also dry tanker or bulk tanker that can carry HazMat. I drove HazMat tanker for 3 years until 2020. I worked for Quality Carriers in Nashville, TN and we carried various "flavors" of phosphoric acid to any customer of the acid producer in Nashville. Mostly we supplied asphalt companies, bread makers, chemical companies. The Nashville acid producer had customers all over the USA. We would either get loaded in Nashville or pick up a loaded trailer in Nashville and drive it to any place in the USA. Once we delivered that acid, we drove back to Nashville empty. I took acid to San Francisco, Bangor Maine, Klamath Falls Oregon and then drove all the way back to Nashville empty. That is NOT common in tanker. It only happened for me because the acid producer didn't want any other stuff in their trailers and they were willing to pay to make that happen. Most tanker gigs have you carrying something out and back or OTR. I liked that I was guaranteed to receive my weekly paycheck no matter how much waiting around I had to do or how little I drove in a week. On my first trip to San Francisco, I made over $2,000 in detention pay because the customer made me wait 36 hours to unload. In my last months at the tanker company the BLM/George Floyd riots were ongoing and after I refused to go to 2 different cities with ongoing riots they took away the weekly pay guarantee and I left. That job let me see the Northwest enough for me to decide to get a job in Boise, ID and start looking for a place to retire in the Northwest. After 2 years of that job I retired from trucking and expect to move to the Northwest someday.

 

I'm wondering if your trying to get someone else to make your mind up for you here? As you don't seem very certain, you've chosen a good spot at least to come find some advice, you may not like what you hear but at least in most cases it'll be the truth. Yes the industry due to the current economy is experiencing some tough times, nothing new about this however economies seem to run in cycles, so many boom years and then so many not so good years, good things unfortunately do not last forever it would be nice if they did, but thats not how it works in real life, maybe in the movies and comic books. In the end its your choice you need to decide whether its worth spending the money up front, or taking up training with a company weight up the pros and cons. Do you really want to be in the transport industry? Are there other options for you? These are the tough decisions your going to have to make, no one else can make them for you, all we can do is just give you good advice.

 

You'll get paid whatever beginner pay is at whichever company whether you go private or company sponsored. Pay is based on experience and safety rating mostly..You'll have to get some experience and try not to get into any accidents during this time. You just won't be locked into a contract. In my opinion, even if you go the private route, it's best to stay at your first company for 1 year, or as close to a year as possible. If you jump around to different companies in your first year, it's all lateral moves. You're not necessarily bettering yourself. If you stay 1 year at your first company, get some good experience, hone your skills, it looks better to prospective employers.

I will add....however, just because you get to 1 year, doesn't mean you HAVE to leave. If you like where you're working, and you're able to pay bills, stick around. Don't listen to others' opinions about any company. Do what works for you.