What is the average pay for a local driver?

That's pretty decent money for getting home every day. Of course the actual route/stops can make that easy or hard work. Even if it's pretty easy work, crappy equipment/facilities/management could account for poor driver retention.

 

AAA Cooper is a decent LTL company to start off at. The smaller terminals such as the one you are looking into will pay a little less but lately, they have been offering more due to them not being able to keep drivers. You will not be stuck on the dock at AAA Cooper either. They have such a shortage of drivers, that you will be driving everyday. This is not to say that you will not be on the dock at all because you will. More than likely in the morning when the inbound shift is in you will help break trailers and then you can load your own. That is the nice part because you can control what and where is in your trailer and make the load safe enough to where you like it. I will say that AAA Cooper does have a contract with Home Depot and other companies that deliver a lot of crazy freight to residential customers. I would constantly get items such as heavy pallets of flooring and having to move them with a manual pallet jack on a liftgate. The worst it ever got with the freight was one time I did have to offload a four post car lift off of my trailer. The freight was all bundled up and about 20 feet long and about 1500 pounds. It was going to a residential customer who was putting it into his shop at his home. He had no forklift and looked at me like how am I going to unload it? You really have to be able to think on your feet in situations like that. Get a rope, tie one end to the freight and the other end to a tree, and slowly come out onto your liftgate. When the freight reaches the liftgate, lower the gate down almost to the ground and then drive foward some more to get the rest of the freight off and move on to the next crazy delivery.

 

if you arent grossing at minimum $60k as a local driver then you're being royally screwed. $18.5hr x 40hrs x 52 weeks = $38,480 gross..You did mention it was a yard jockey position though, so that's not really considered being a 'local driver'.

 

Even most local drivers who work full-time which for local driving is around 50 hours per week. And there are legit companies that pay overtime, you’ll make about 1300 to 1400 weekly. You’re way under paid. Get a new job

 

When I was local in Los Angeles with only 3 months experience I was bringing home 600-900 every week then when I went local again in Dallas with JB Hunt with 2 yrs experience I was bringing home 800-1100 every week.

 

Local pay varies widely based upon the area. Currently in El Paso, yard jockeys make $15 and local drivers make $16. Here in southern MN, yard jockeys make $20, and local drivers make over $22. In major cities, I wouldn't be surprised to see yard jockeys making $25 and local drivers making over $30.

Its all based upon cost of living and demand for the labor. If there are a large number of drivers wanting to stay home and few jobs available, combined with a low cost of living area like Alabama, $18.50 is reasonably expected. If you were in CA, anything below $25 in a yard is poverty wage.

 

Agreed, most good local jobs where I live are barely paying $900-1k per week. Plenty companies advertising CDL A jobs paying much less. Hazmat fuel hauler jobs at $850 per week are always listed for some reason.

There are probably local jobs where drivers make $1500+ but you won't ever see them hiring as drivers rarely leave and even when they do, there tends to be somebody already lined to take their place as they have a buddy who works there that can "get them in".

 

In the Portland, Or area you are probably looking at 23.00 to 30.00 per hour for local work.

 

@Kingbrown94 --

current fuel hauler here--& home daily.

It's pretty unanimous above (and I would agree with them) -- you are definitely leaving money on the table, especially given the current driver's market in trucking.

Get those endorsements (tanker, hazmat, and doubles/triples), if you don't already have them--& then go shopping for another, better-paying gig.

You will need those endorsements to get the best paying jobs.

Of those jobs discussed above--you'll find that the best-paying of them for the least work is fuel hauling.

But fuel hauling can indeed be a lot of hours.

If fuel hauling is indeed of further interest to you--stick with applying for the private fleets (Love's, Pilot/Flying J, etc).

The private fleets will generally pay better, have better maintained equipment, & better benefits.

Pass up on the jobs that pay "by the load"....and instead home in on the jobs that are paid by the hour--that way, you are paid for ALL OF YOUR TIME--whether you are moving, or not.

The best fuel hauling jobs will also pay OT after 40 hours, as well--Pilot/Flying J is an example of this.

Also--once you switch over to tanker duty--you probably won't go back to pulling boxes, again....

--Lual