Wanting to be a trucker

#1 getting to NYC is a nightmare (stop and go .00002mph traffic for HOURS every morning/lunch time/ after noon rush hour

#2 LOTS of low bridges

#3 Extremely tight streets, AND to make it worse the streets are lined with parked cars!

#4 Lots of restricted routes, which makes it hard to get to places

#5 Dangerous areas to be (crime wise)

#6 Accidents waiting to happen

#7 NO PARKING ANYWHERE, you can end up Out of Hours and SOL without parking...




Here's two examples of tight streets.

This first one here is my video, this was part 3 of a video series of a trip from Conover, NC to St. Paul, MN. Ok so this is St. Paul, MN which is a small city in the middle of nowhere in MN at like 6am on a tuesday morning and look how tight these streets are at the end:


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyyhlA78cj4[/ame]






this one is a video of a freind of mine Dooner Livingstone (i think this is the right one where he had to go forward and back up like 100 times to make a corner in brooklyn)



[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY__vgtmcjI&feature=plcp[/ame]







American Trucker

 

traffic, traffic, traffic, and the STUPID 55mph speed limit!


But HANDS DOWN the worst place to be in this country....DC or within 100 miles of it! Rush our STARTS at 3AM! mon-fri and doesnt stop until 11PM! im not even exagerating, not to mention the yearround construction they are doing there for at least the last 4 years lol




American Trucker

 

I like any trip that pays...but I'm on percentage pay instead of cpm these days. When I was on mileage, I didn't actually pay too much attention to individual trip distance. What mattered was how many paid miles I rolled over the course of the week, and I could get those miles either with a couple of big runs, or a bunch of little runs. All part of the job.

That said, big thousand mile runs are somewhat more relaxing, provided you have enough time to run them without exhausting yourself.

 

me i like long trips, keep in mind im not your average steering wheel holder. I'll do 700-850 miles a day (where the speed limit allows) and i dont and will not run on e-logs so long trips work best for me. It also gives you and your dispactcher more time to find another load. Loading and unloading is a waste of time for 98% of OTR drivers as they dont get paid for it. At watkins on the LTL loads you get paid $20-$25 everytime you stop.


Think of it this way, you can unload monday morning at 7am after doing a reset over the weekend, and grab a 1400 mile load, then unload on tuesday or wen morning, then reload a 1400 mile run then unload and reload friday morning, then drive 1000 more miles by saturday afternoon. Then enjoy your weekend at a truck stop doing a reset and unload monday morning and repete. = 3,800 miles in 6 days of work and you still get a reset...


OR



You can do 300-750 loads and waste hours waiting to get loaded and unloaded, scaleing, etc and have to work all day every day and run off a recap or get lower miles. now IF you work for a company like Millis Transfer that knows how to run a trucking company you can do those little short runs and still do 3000-3500 miles a week, but your working your butt off to do it.





American Trucker

 

also like brsims said, i dont get paid per mile either anymore so i like my nice 415 mile days and go home at the end of the day lol.



American Trucker

 

Thank you

I've have a lucid night tonight. Tomorrow I should be returning to my usual insanity.....

 

there is no need to spend thousands on cdl "training", you can go for city-deliver & short-haul / local which will likely get you going -- to do otherwise is suggestive of those late night movies decades ago about rich people,.....

I drove some on a cdl decades ago & never paid anyone anything for "training" .... I have 100,000 hours in construction industry and can handle equipment much larger than a truck ~ we have these "trainers" arrive at the job who have never been on even a garden tractor spouting drivel that has nothing to do with actuality,..... I reject their work in-toto .....

time behind wheel at any commercial driving job will do more for your long-term than can anything and there are schools that will do the duty for two-fifty......

I guess this place is run by recruiters.......you can do it that way if you want as they at least get you a few hours in the cab so that counts.