What's a reasonable otr cpm for a brand new driver

Any rates good as long as its not slave labour.

 

I believe Crete is hiring rookies at 46cpm for 48-state OTR. Penny per mile raise every year as long as you're willing to run a reasonable minimum number of miles. As of Monday the trucks are getting turned up from 62 to 65. I've been here for a few years now after working for the dreaded Swift and I have few complaints...There are worse places to work for sure and I'm not aware of many companies that pay rookies that well. Just my 2 cents.

 

It is definitely a huge responsibility, but once you do a few loads, most everything is pretty much common sense when it comes to load securement. Still get a load every now and then that has me scratching my head, but if the customer doesn't have a specific way they want it secured, I take pictures and ask a few buddies what they would do. Flatbed typically pays better per mile though, because of the responsibility involved.

 

I loaded a huge gear that is part of a ski lift. Took it from California to some ski resort on top of a mountain in New York. It was so large they loaded it at an angle and welded angle iron to the trailer to hold it in place, then I added chains. Some crazy stuff goes on flatbeds.

 

You made $.36 a mile and brought home me $1200 a week? That's about 250,000 miles a year.

 

My opinion (which is usually different than most) I wouldn't return a phone call to a company paying $.36 a mile. You'd have to kill yourself to make $40,000 a year and that doesn't account for the cost of living on the road and the quality of life. If you figure the amount of hours he'll put in to earn that he could easily get a full time job and a part time job making $12 an hour and be ahead without the headaches. These big corporations rely on a steady stream of people like your husband (and I mean no offense to him) to keep in business and it brings our whole industry down. Screw them and they're $.30 a mile wage every darn one of them.

 

$.36 cpm plus accessorial pays. Tanker drivers also don't sit around waiting for loads. They unload then hit the road and the pay is usually the same, loaded or empty. You'll never see tanker drivers sitting at a truckstop hoping their dispatcher can find their next load.
How many van,reefer,flatbed drivers, unload maybe in Seattle,WA then call in empty and the dispatcher says, "OK, bring it back to the terminal" which in my case was Nashville,TN. That's why I wish I had gone tankers early in my career or right out of driving school.

 

Must be a lot of accessorial pay, I didn't realize that most tanker companies payed by the mile.

 

Some pay percentage, but I've never worked for percentage. I worked for Tankstar.
Some drivers belittle Schnieder, but those tanker drivers make big money. @19d posted some pay stubs to prove it.
At the Tankstar terminal where I worked, I made less than any of the OTR drivers and still could make $65K. Some made $72K. My long overseas vacations cut into my annual pay. Trimac Transportation drivers running coast to coast can make over $100K.

 

I see 50 cpm thrown around here a lot. Really? Would you [as an employer with 100% of the risk and liability] put someone with zero real-world trucking experience in YOUR $180k rig and say "good luck! Hope you make a lot of money and don't tear anything up or kill anybody!"

It seems some here like to play fast and lose with someone else's monopoly money.

I seriously doubt it. Let's be realistic and reasonable and remember what we're talking about. With 6-12 months solo experience with no incidents, then we can have another discussion about stage 2 level pay expectations.