Trucker Lifestyle Questions

I will do my best to answer your questions.

1. All of the medium to large trucking companies have electronic log books and GPS tracking on the trucks. This means that the potential is there to be micromanaged and have some one breathing down your neck all day. In my experience, however, if you get the the job done (be where you are supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there. Don't hit stuff) you are, for the most part, left alone to do your thing. I, too, am a lover of audiobooks. When I was on the road it was not uncommon to get through 5-6 audiobooks per week (the Audible Daily Deal is a wonderful thing).

2. If you have a mobile hot spot from Verizon or AT&T, you will have great 4G access at 95% of the places you ever stop.

3. The truck stops give you loyalty cards, so when you fuel it loads a shower on to your card. You can use it anytime at any of that chains locations. You will have no problem getting a shower 5-6 times per week. The showers at all the big chains are pretty nice and reasonably clean. You get a private room with shower stall, sink, and toilet. They provide towels and bath mats.

4. Sometimes the truck stops are with in walking distance of dining and retail establishments and sometimes they are not. As you spend time out on the road, you will learn the good spots to stop and the ones to avoid. Typically you will have time to grab at least one nice meal per day, if you so desire.

5. GPS and google maps do make this job considerably easier, some times too easy. Don't rely solely on that technology and don't blindly follow a GPS or you will get into trouble. Invest in a Rand McNalley Motor Carrier Road Atlas and learn how to use it, as it contains a huge amount of information (if you know how to read it properly). That should be your primary tool for trip planning in a large truck. Use the technology as secondary tools.

6. I started with a mega carrier and worked there for 2.5 years before moving on to greener pastures. It is what you make of it. I made decent money and got a whole lot of invaluable experience there. Megas are not the only road into the industry but it is one that many choose with varying out comes and experiences. I enjoyed my time at one and I wouldn't trade the experience I got for anything. That being said, I probobly would never go back to working for a mega carrier now that I have several years of driving under my belt.

7. There is considerable job security in this industry. A clean CDL with a couple of years experience is a guarantee of earning a decent living any where in the country. It is invaluable.

8. As stated above, there are trucking jobs everywhere. There are too many varieties of driving jobs to even begin to list them all. Over the road fright hauling is just the biggest. While it is rare for any drivers to see 80k, after a year or two you can realistically expect to make 60-65k (which is a more than decent living).

9. As far as team driving, some of the megas require you to do it but many do not. I never had to drive team (except when I chose to with my wife as co-driver). I would hate teaming with a stranger and no amount of money could convince me to do it. However, when you first start out you may have to spend a few weeks with a trainer. Most OTR companies will require you to spend some time on the road with a trainer. It's miserable, but it's only a short time, in the grand scheme of things. Get thru it and you'll never have to do it again. I was lucky to have had a great trainer at my first gig and, while I didn't particularly enjoy sharing a truck with him for 5 weeks, he did teach me a whole lot about the right way to do this job.

Hope this helps. If you have any other specific questions, feel free to ask.

 

I use a 4G LTE set up with unlimited data.

Although I'm technically allowed only 8g for hotspot use, there are ways around it so I have access to unlimited hotspot data. I also use VPN and antivirus. The whole set up costs me - no joke - under $73 per month. And yes, I get it all written off.

Edit: To answer your question, it really depends on where you run. I haven't tested my connection in every possible truck stop in every possible location. So, you may have to pay the day-use fee at a truck stop from time to time if internet access is important to you. With a good ISP, however, this should not happen often.

Flying J used to have pretty good buffets at certain locations (others were awful). When they were forced to merge with Pilot around 2009, they replaced the buffets with Dennys.

Right around this time, TA and Petro also started to reduce the quality of their buffets. I suspect this is due to: 1) TA and Petro merging; 2) no more competition in the buffet dept from Flying J.

I don't know what your health is or if you even care. But sitting in a truck all day (and burning very few calories), gorging yourself at a buffet, then going to sleep is a sure fire way to get fat.

I personally don't hit buffets anymore since I learned so much about nutrition. I cook/prep 99% of my meals on the road. Now there are little gems throughout the country who serve good food; those are worth visiting as a special treat.

This way, I save money, keep my weight in check, and stand less risk to food poisoning. Food poisoning on the road is sheer misery.

A MAJOR BUDGET KILLER FOR AN OTR DRIVER IS EATING OUT FREQUENTLY.

If you think you will only be providing "an hour or two" unpaid labor each week, you are in for a rude awakening. Drivers such as myself and others here who have paid our dues don't have to put up with that garbage.

Unfortunately, rookies like you, unless you get extremely lucky, will work many unpaid hours in any given week. This is a reality you must brace for.

You need some redundancy. And a good old fashion atlas won't crash or lose an internet signal.

There WILL be times when the atlas will not only save you, it can also make you more efficient and safer at your job. If you want I can give you two specific examples.

The industry standard is for every 50 gallons you fuel, you'll receive 1 shower credit. Once your learn to trip plan efficiently, you can plan your fuel stops so you'll never or rarely run out of shower credits.

However, if you're micromanaged and told you can fuel only at specific places for specific gallons, this will make things harder.

I also belong to a gym with 24hr access (except holidays) and locations throughout the country. I know which ones to visit to get in a workout and shower.

And I listen to audio books while driving in non-congested areas. It's a great way to educate myself. In heavy or questionable traffic, I turn it off.

 

Think about it this way, the reason there is a shortage of truckers and that the turnover is so high is because it ain't no bed of roses. It works for some but not for most. Will it work for you? There's only one way to find out...

 

Actual, honest-to-goodness, unlimited cellular bandwidth is hard to find, and whatever you bring on the truck will get shaken like a martini, so carrying portable hard drives is risky. If you decide to do it, make sure you have backups at home, as the hard drive is at risk for failure, with all the abuse it's likely to take.

I use Net10, which is limited, but fairly ubiquitous, and not too expensive. Once I've used up my high-speed bandwidth, I get about 64kbps, which is enough for email and chat, or Web access if I'm really patient. It suffices for IRC. If you can get ahold of one of the grandfathered Verizon unlimited plans, that's pretty good. I've heard good things about the grandfathered AT&T unlimited ipad plans, too. Make sure that you get an unlocked phone/tablet, as none of the carriers want you to have a wifi hotspot with that kind of bandwidth. Get a separate T-mobile tablet, with their free 250MB plan, to use as a backup, in case you forget to pay your cellular bill. 250MB won't get you very far, but it's enough to get online to pay your cell bill, and if your cell service gets shut off because you forgot (or were broke), you'll be glad you have the backup. Also, if you break your phone, at least you can still get email out, or maybe make a Google Voice call, through Hangouts or something, on the backup tablet. Put all of your devices in the best cases you can find, because you will drop stuff, getting in or out of the truck. Otterboxes for phone and backup tablet, and there is a rubberized thing, sold by Rand-McNally, for the 8-inch (not the 7-inch) GPS tablet, for like $20.

They sell a Rand-McNally 8-inch GPS tablet that mounts to your windshield, for about $500. It's an Android device, so you can load VLC or some other media player on it, and play your audio books or whatever, that way. It's wifi-capable, so if you have the cellular bandwidth, you can also run Iheartradio, or something like that, if your media collection proves inadequate. It has a slot for an SD card; I have a 128GB card in mine, and it mounts like an external hard drive, to my computer, for loading new media content to listen to.

You *will* want a good bluetooth headset - probably more than one. Radio frequency noise generated by the truck itself, or by USB inverters, will create noise on the audio line, if you try to run an audio cable to speakers, so you will want to use Bluetooth for your media. I have yet to find a Bluetooth speaker that is consistently loud enough to overcome the noise of the truck itself, so that I can hear my media. Your mileage may vary, depending largely on the volume at which your media was recorded. You will also want a headset to use to talk on the phone; noise in the truck will actuate the phone's microphone, cutting off the speaker, and interrupting whoever is talking to you, so that it sounds like they keep cutting out - so a good, high-quality Bluetooth headset is a must, if you are going to talk to anyone on the phone.

AC inverters (those "transformers" that you mentioned) are company-policy-dependent. Some carriers will not allow their use at all, some will allow you to use the ones that plug in to the cigarette lighter, some will allow the big ones that are hooked up directly to the battery, some will provide one of these pre-installed on your truck, and some come with APUs (the independent generators that @Chinatown mentioned). Bring a few USB batteries, because virtually everything depends on the truck electrical system, and things do happen to the truck electrical system. Have a little backup power to carry you through those times - and so you can call for help, when it happens.

I was in exactly your same situation, when I got into this business, some years ago. This is the benefit of my experience, as it relates to technology in the truck.

In general, you are going to have to spend about your first 90 days making almost no money, and living with other people, either in the truck, or at a training terminal. Be very careful with your money during this time. If you have a lot of nice gizmos, other people may want them, so save the buying of toys for when you get your own truck. Also, chances are that you will be making a lot less money than you think, during this period; so hang on to enough money to keep yourself fed, and to get yourself home, if the need should arise. Carriers (and trainers) do not always care enough to get you home, if they decide that they are done with you - and again, if you have a lot of stuff, you have to find a way to get it home with you, as well.

Another warning: always be prepared to be required to get off of the truck with little or no advanced warning. Even when you get your own truck. If/when a carrier terminates you, they will typically call you into a terminal before they tell you, and then give you 30 minutes to an hour, to clear your stuff off of the truck. They will not necessarily bring you in to a terminal that is convenient for you to leave, from. They do this to ensure that they don't have to send someone out to recover the truck from wherever happens to be convenient for you to leave it, when you get off of it. If you don’t have enough bags to carry all of your stuff, it will sit in a pile on the ground until you find a way to move it, or they throw it away. If you don't have a vehicle with which to remove it from their grounds, they may throw it away. Be very, very careful about making yourself too much at home, because even if you have been with them for years, it's still not your truck, and they have no reason to care about your stuff. Stay mobile. Keep back a reserve of cash, in case you need to rent a car to drive away in with your stuff. Keep a supply of canvas bags (I recommend military-style parachute bags) to throw your stuff into, for rapid removal. This is especially important, if you are planning to invest in your own comfort, and you intend to have nice things on the truck.

It's not a terrible plan, what you are doing. I have to say that I very much miss IT, but I don't miss the constant job insecurity, or vacillating between being seen as a highly valuable human resource, or unqualified piece of garbage, by people whose major in college was beer tasting. Be conscious of your DAC report; carriers can basically put whatever they want in there, and it follows you around like a credit report - and like a credit report, nothing you have to say about it, matters. It's not a great living; 70-80k is doable, after a few years, but it's up near the top end. Like IT, a lot of the high-paying job advertisements are vaporware, but there is a pretty consistent demand for experienced drivers. Also like IT, that is likely to change in the forseeable future, with outsourcing and drone vehicles, as well as 'platooning' and automated driverless vehicles. But it doesn't require a large investment of time or money to get into the business, so it's not that much of a loss, if we have to get out - just kind of a challenge to figure out what the next thing will be. Good luck to you!

 

The trucking industry is extremely variable from one job to the next. The amount of micromanagement will vary based on the policies of the company you haul for, as well as the person assigned to manage you. You might get someone who only wants to talk to you once per load, or you might get one who calls you every morning at the end of your 10 hour break asking if you've hit the road yet.

Even with the most micromanaged combination of company policy and driver manager, you'll have plenty of time to listen to audio books. Just make sure you can hear what's going on around you as well as avoid being distracted.

 

Just think of it as free housing and a paycheck and you should be fine.

 

"Driver Managers" schedule your loads in ways that sometimes constrain you into running at hours that you may find inconvenient. Some drivers like to run at night because there is less traffic, and it's easier to find places to park during the day; others feel that it is harder to sleep during the day, and so they would rather drive when it's light, and sleep when it's dark. Your dispatcher may not leave you with the option that you prefer. Micromanagement, in trucking, consists largely of setting you up so that you don't have options to choose from. It does not typically involve constant harassment. Most dispatchers don't have time to constantly bother you, and you can always use the excuse that you were busy sleeping, or driving, or otherwise unavailable to answer the phone, anyway. So yes, you can be micromanaged, and still be free to listen to your audiobooks...

 

Wow. That is an unbelievably gross oversimplification, that really only applies if you are a homeless person with no personal possessions...

 

I've had different laptops and never had a problem. Between shocks, air ride suspensions and air bags cushioning the cab there's no shocking blows. Lots of movement but no different than if you're holding it while walking.

10 and 14 hours - 14 hours is the window of time in which you can drive once you start your work shift. 10 hours off duty is the minimum time needed to be able to start a new work shift.