Why did you decide to become a trucker ?

I rode local with my dad a few times when I was real young, dump truck and flat deck hauling cement slabs.
Later I found myself driving to Florida, California, Alaska on holidays. So I figured I might as well get paid for it. So now I'm a professional tourist.

 

I have always been hauling items from farm tractors to small steam locomotives. Since I already had the knowledge of securing loads and the mowing business seemed to have stopped (the recession). I thought it would be a way to make some money during the between time that grass wasnt growing, or snow wasnt falling (plowing driveways). I feel I also was pretty naive about the work. As my name says......... Loves the drive. I just didnt care about the part of trying to find the destination with the terrible directions.

 

I was getting to old for a paper route lol

 

I was very attracted to trucking due the amazing 40 or less hour work weeks (days only), lack of manual labor, and PHENOMINAL pay.

 

And now your a swift recruiter

 

Phst, I wish!

 

I started at 19 as something to do after I decided to not continue my university education in business and after a summer of roofing. I landed a local gig right off the crack. When automotive died in 2008 I hit the open road in a ratty old 2000 Volvo for an owner operator. Loved the job didn't care the truck was a pos going down the road. 2009 got a company driver position pulling reefer in a 6nz w900L. Black with 8" straight pipes. Eventually the bullheaded side of me got the better and now I'm an independent o/o. I love the industry and there is plenty of opportunity to make a good life out of it.

 

Future was college pushed by parents to go into more debt. At that time in the 80's Baltimore was beginning to see jobs that provide a trade for a life time eviscerated and then turned into towers and condominiums. Being a Deaf Person who graduated a School for Deaf in those days I only knew of two others who handled class B dump trucks locally under the old class B.

One day I got up got the 2500 dollars loan from uncle sam and went downtown to Haven street to go to school there. 4 months later I had my class A. My family were several hundred at the time and most showed discrimination when they realized that they will encounter me in my 18 wheeler at some point in the future. The more People told me deaf do not go trucking, the stubborn I got and resolved to get to it anyway. Eff them.

School was one thing. Going out and working in a 18 wheeler was completely something else across the USA. If I worked and had money, all was well. If not? Then we look for another company large and small.

1994 nearly destroyed the Industry when hundreds of thousands of old class A licensed people essentially turned their backs on Bill Clinton's CDL laws. That opened up a path for me to stay in the industry.

Over time I have had a taste of being a O/O for a while until discrimiantion destroyed that. No problem I keep going. Coming to Arkansas was the big break through. I became a homeowner with a wife who also joined me on the road until 9-11.

All and all it was a life, I would do it again without regrets. Ive been very lucky to get this far as I did. Satellite comms solved all sorts of errors and lost time and late deliveries exposed by faulty telephone conversations

The biggest for me were two things. Visiting all over the USA and parts of Mexico and Canada. sometimes I would stay a whole winter over I 10 running pipe one way and chain the other while everyone else spun out in the snows. Might not see home for 9 months or more until the next winter. That was the time to sit home, get rested and ready to go for another year.

Fast forward to today. Driver cameras, abuse of newbies etc and a industry wide migration towards Automatic and so on will further damage the Trucking Industry as more laws are tighter to the point of it's not worth going out. Ive gotten what I could out of it over several decades. It's enough.

 

3rd generation. College degree us a out as useful as toilet paper today. It pays the bills.

Oh and I'm not a truck driver. I'm a car hauler, and yes there is a difference.

 

Got run off by FedEx when I was 50 (I was a manager), sent out 3-400 resume's and got 3 replies, so I started trucking as a last resort..........best thing that's ever happened to me.
I started as a company driver with Schneider, then went to lease, then bought out my truck and have never looked back. I am ruined as any kind of 'employee'......I go where I want to go, when I want to go, and make more money than I ever dreamed of.
I got lucky.