Seeking advice (new to the industry)

You need about a year or more of OTR experience to get most local jobs. Sorry...that's just the way it is. Sometimes we have to make temporary compromises.

 

hi guyz ....i got my cdl last year in 2012...started work with schneider tanker in keasbey,nj...had no problems...i was driving in brooklyn and all north east regional area...i have three small kids...nannies were unreliable and my wife,s job was getting compromised....i had to return with only i 1 month experience...i got a break later and got a job driving a tanker delivering to pepsi...it was a local job driving into new york city...i was doing good for a month...i was so confident...then one day was backing up and hit a boulder at the customers,there was no damage to their property but the back of the trailor went in...since i was on probation,they had to let me go...the problem now is that i cant get a job anywhere....not only local,but even the otr companies are not hiring...i have no accidents on my MVR...one ticket in the last 5 years,that for a lane change,no points...no DUI,z...no felony...just this accident...swift,werner and couple of other companies have rejected me...what am i goin to do?can someone give me some advice???

 

try schneider tanker division...they do not require experience....you make 550 a week starting..and then in a couple of months..you start making the 700 ah week...this is in new jersey,keasbey area...they have a terminal in indiana...not sure...best of luck,bud...i started with tanker also

 

Air Force Vet? then you prob can live with less than $30k for which there's hundreds of jobs in Central Indy. A good GPA and attendance dont mean a thing in truck driving - all that matters is NO citations/NO accidents/and sleep as much as you can, whenever you can! ---Howeva if you want more then: if you're gonna haul beverages, make sure you get paid commission - not hourly like pepsi or coke - better yet, go for specialty drinks, booze or food delivery such as Frito-lay where you def get commish, but... you gotta get up between midnight and 2am and lift heavy loads - sooo, driving a mixer probably pays aprox $10 hour, and you still lift heavy bags of cement......so i'd rather haul residential waste....... But if you want real experience, i'd go for Schneider 48 state otr Teams Divish 14 days out for aprox 1.5 years, then get their tanker training for 6 months, then do Knight Reefers for a year....by then you should know all about every trucking company in your hood, then maybe you'd rather have more money so.... you'd prefer the big bucks and go for a fuel/chem/crude hauling, tank yanking gig that gets you home on weekends for no less than $50k and once you've had enough, you could probably drive a box truck and deliver ice-cream cones or nestle water and be home every night if you really wanna see your wife every day..... and in time you might not wanna drive at all an be a driver manager/dispatcher at $40k - if i woulda stayed in Indy, i probably wouldve grabbed a morning shift FEDEX airplane loading gig and a afternoon warehouse yard dog gig. That way, me and the wife could take off Friday afternoon,visit every possible point of interest within a 360 mile radius from Indy, and be back Sunday afternoon.... every other weekend, after a while... i'd go to every major point of interest within 600mile radius... and eventually go on a one week trip every 3 months, to our favorite spots near Indy, East Coast, USA, and Foreign country. Hope that helps

 

*correction/addition - I meant heavy lifting with pepsi, coke, beer etc. not with Frito-lay,Food services,UPS, USPS, etc. Also, central refrigerated and others may want to start you at .29 cents per mile...... strive for .34 cpm minimum (my calc is that .38/.39 cpm - or over $20/hour ($16 minimum if they guarantee voluntary and plenty overtime which)should give liveable wages. I'd rather work for guaranteed commision than anything below $20/hr, and i'd rather haul tankers that guarantee over $50k, and i'd rather be an oil field technician than any of the above at $65plus; but i'd rather live rent free driving teams thru all 48 - no touch dry freight -25 days on/ 5 off....... if only i would've found a partner that was always jolly, worked hard, liked to play, was good at basic math and algebra, didn't require 660 miles every day but drove more than 480, had few personal items and was not a screamer.

 

Normally I would say that getting a local position right out of school is #### near impossible, however you may have some luck on your side being that you reside in Indiana. Its still going to be very tough but you should at least have a lot more companies to choose from in your area.

You have to realize that there is a long line of experienced drivers wanting to come off the road and drive local and currently in this economy there still isn't a lot of hiring going on yet. Now with that being said put yourself in the shoes of a local business owner who needs to hire a driver. You have two choices: you can hire an experienced driver that has a proven track record driven millions of miles, backed up hundreds of miles, is a seasoned refined driver which means he isn't going to tear up your truck and burn up tires, fuel and brakes (and transmissions) he also has some mechanically ability so he's able to do small fixes and maintenance. Knows the rules and regs etc... Also keep in mind that local driving is much tougher than over the road driving because most local places you pick up and deliver don't have large facilities and loading docks and such. Most are very tight small business in which you have to navigate through cars, pedestrians, curbs, obstacles, low powerlines, low tree branches and building overhangs etc... Also because this guy does have some experience your insurance won't be expensive. In fact it is very difficult and highly expensive to insure a new driver.

OR.....

are you going to hire a brand new driver fresh out of school who has driven a total of 300 miles all with an instructor and his total back ups are less than a mile which were done in an empty parking lot with cones, has no clue whatsoever how to shift and has never even driven a big truck with a load on it. Also this driver still cannot do a pretrip without a cheat sheet in front of him and probably doesn't know what DEF is for in the fuel island. Add to this it is highly, highly expensive to insure a new driver and a lot of companies won't even do it at that! Another added bonus is that this new driver is going to wear down your brakes and tires in half the time and your fuel costs are going to be way higher because they do not know how to properly drive. Log books and reading a map is whole other story.

Anyway I could go on and on but you see my point (hopefully). You surely wouldn't hire a driver fresh out of school to drive your equipment you just spent $200,000 on!

Give it a shot, you won't know unless you try though. Just don't get your hopes up too high.

Good luck man...