What's the real story with trying to become a truck driver?

1). A lot of carriers are pretty picky about employment lapses . How long were you self employed and can you document it ?
2) If you want to try the trucking industry avoid ALL the megacarriers . See my thread in the Trucking News forum on the surge in turnover .
3)That statistic is the average pay for all drivers in the industry . It varies very much for newbies from around less than 1500 miles a week at $.26 a mile to the lucky few that get good jobs paying over $45,000 a year .
4) It's mostly the large carriers that subscribe to DAC . Stick with smaller carriers and you won't have to deal with it . Research carriers well and either get a good opportunity or stay away .

 

You seem to have a loathing for the government. If you can extend that loathing into a belief that you know how to do EVERYTHING better than anyone in the government can, then you can get a CDL automatically with no training or schooling at all. Oh wait I forgot, you not only have to believe you know how to do everything better than the government, you also have to believe that everyone with a CB radio wants to hear you and only you talk about it for hours on end.

Portions of the previous paragraph may contain sarcasm.


Ok now on to your questions.
1. Do not under any circumstances sign a training contract with swift or CRST or any other trucking company. Ever. Go to a driving school on your own to get your training.
2. Do everything you can to avoid working for swift or CRST or any other mega-sized carrier. You have a much better chance of being
treated right at a smaller company.
3. First year salary can vary quite a bit depending on what type of driving you're doing. You can reasonably expect to make 30k-35k the first year, but you should be prepared to make closer to 25k just in case and be pleasantly surprised if you make 40k or more.

 

In this economy it's not like it was 10 or 15 yrs ago when you could quite a company in the morning and be hired by another by noon, carriers are more picky about who they hire. I agree with most of the responses that have said "stay away from Swift or CRST" because with them you're just a number and they don't care about you what so ever.
Best bet is to look on Graigslist and get into a smaller company maybe doing Belly Dump or something like that; they usually don't care about your past so much; as long as you have some idea of what you're doing and you have a pulse you're good to go.
remember that there is really no gray areas in trucking: you will either love it or hate it.

 

I dont see a problem signing with swift,or crst,but u do not going to make that much money your first year,best thing get your cdl on your own and find training with other carriers on your area.

 

I think they get those stats by averaging all their best drivers and then round up. Very, very rarely do newbies make $40,000 their first few years. Not saying it can't be done, its just rare. It takes a very unique individual to accomplish that and they usually have an extensive trucking background before even getting into the game.

 

I netted about $39K at KLLM my first year. Doing low 1500+/- miles a week regional work!

Mikeeee

 

I have only but one question for you right now. What is motivating you to get into trucking aside from your trialing times with your record concerning governement jobs? You see the reason i'm asking you this is so that you can determine yourself if your getting into this industry for the right reasons. Anything you do for the 1st time as you already know with the wrong motivation, chances are it's not going to be a good choice. Consider that before jumping into this right away. I've seen professional people leave their positions in the corporate world to get into trucking and once they got started, some are still driving loving it and then there are some that have gotten right out of it due to the fact that it wasn't what they anticipated it to be. Although, if you do decide that this is something that you definetly want to do, like the gentleman wrote in the above msg, stay away from the biger trucking companies such as:

Swift
Werner Enterprises
JB Hunt
C.R. England
Schneider
Prime
Crete Carriers

These are just a few that i have mentioned as an example, search out the smaller companies that generally do not use DAC Services. Best of luck to you in all your endeavors.

 

Would you be so kind to list those smaller companies


that don't use DAC ??

 

i have 1 car accident on my mvr that was 29 months ago do you think werner will deny me im waitn to hear back
oh and i jus graduated cdl school 3 weeks ago so i will be new to the trucking game