Why do OTR megas pay so little for 70 hrs worked?

Everybody has to start somewhere

 

6k/month works out to almost $1400/week
Bit of a difference there

 

Why you ask,because they can.You're going to learn that general trucking companies are cheap.As long as they can decide on drivers pay they'll pay the very minimum and put other things in their ads and website to make it sound liike you'll be making big money.

 

I've drivers that complain and they make $1800.00/wk clear.

 

And what's wrong with being unsatisfied with your station in life? Maybe they're worth more, who knows. $100k is $60k in the 90s.

 

To answer the OP's question:

Everybody, (except some folks here) in this industry is complicit in misrepresenting how the piece work pay system in OTR trucking works. People are in the business of selling trucking school and an underperforming job. where turnover is around 100% or more.

Some driver's can't come to terms with the fact they make minimum wage or less, and simply lie to themselves and others about their real income. I think we have seen that here in this thread.

Still others cannot do the simple math it takes to figure out how much their wage would be if they got paid hourly with overtime.

 

He put a extra 0 by mistake.

 

That's a good point. So I'll do a basic example lol

3000 miles at 40 cpm = $1200
3000 miles @ average speed of 50 mph = 60 hours
With time and a half after 40 you are earning right around $17/hour for drive time only.
Add up all the additional time spent working without compensation and an average drivers true rate of pay is around $15/hour.



*If you guys reply to this with some bull #### like "I'm a supertrucker and I can average more than 50 mph and I make more than 40 cpm too!" you're missing the point.

 

I guess people see big numbers and it whoooos them. $6k is only $72k a year..

I know a company guy here at Prime that is making close to $80k. He's doing that by training. He ALWAYS has a student on his truck. As a trainer

One of my friends I knew before I came to Prime was company, never trained and did $63k as a solo driver his last year here. That's $1,2k/ week average which if you divide that by a averge of .50/mile its only 2,400 miles a week.. Not really hard for a driver to do, tbh .

I used .50 cent because the lightweights at prime pay .47/ mile but you also have fuel bonus.

I'm just about to upgrade to my own truck in Oct, but if Im not making at least $1k/wk average after my 2nd month which is $52k/year then I'll reading the riot act to my FM as to why Im not getting the miles.. TBH I expect to be averaging over $1k a week..

I actually had this talk with my current FM already, letting him know exactly what Im expecting from them. IMO $50-60k as a company driver is decent pay for a 1st year. If I cant average $1k a week then I move on, because the only reason for me to not make that much would be lack of miles and Im not doing otr for less than $1k/wk average..


To the OP...
How many jobs do you think are out there where its possible to make $1k/week with no experience prior to starting? Unless you can walk into a white collar job there isnt many..

 

Pushing 3k miles a week every week is a stretch, but like others said. Mentor can make it pretty easy, also some dedicated accounts can have you burning miles every single week.