Wondering about the Physical

As long has you have the strength and mobility to operate the pedals for 11 hours is what they look for and is what the DOT medical form asks. The physician might ask you questions relating to that and what your doctor has to say about it. If you have pain issues you can't take narcotics and drive. Other than that you are good to go.

 

Check with your doctor, but sounds to me like you could pass a regular DOT physical without any trouble.I know an O/O without the use of one leg,had his truck modified per DOT approval, got medical ok, and he went back to trucking. You might have a problem with a company's own docs, afraid of workers comp claim. You will just have to try.

 

Go with a company that has automatic transmissions. There's a bunch of them. You should be OK.

 

DOT requires employers to do a 10 year background verification to make sure you don't have some secret CDL suspended from another state. It's hard to do today but that is the purpose of that old rule.

You can get on the social security website or call and get a proof letter of disability that would suffice to covering that time frame.
https://secure.ssa.gov/apps6z/BEVE/main.html

Your problem is going to be discrimination in the fear of you being a liability. Though against the law it's hard to prove when anyone can be hired and fired at will. They just throw your application in the trash can and move on to the next.

On the social security website there is good information about returning to work and you might even get support from a case representative that knows how to deal with discrimination. You are allowed to try working for 9 months without losing your disability status to see if you are really able to work.