Just trucking along

Anybody thinking about becoming a truck driver be prepared to be away from home for about the first 2 months at least. Depending on where you go, plan on about 3 weeks of school and anywhere from 2 weeks to a month with a trainer. Then with any luck you will get your truck. Then depending on where home is you may get a load that delivers near there and be given a 48 hr break. Or you may get a load that will let you stop at the house to say hi to someone,grab a few things you may need in the truck and leave so you can make your delivery appointment somewhere down the road.
Companies training programs vary alot. Some will have you in a truck within a month(avoid these at all costs,no matter how good they make it sound) and some may take a few months before they let you out on your own.
Like VM said in his blog,recruiters are liars. They will say whatever they want to get you to hire on. If you want to know what a company is like go to a truckstop and talk to drivers. Not just ones from that company,many will tend to talk the company up because most have referal bonuses.Don't be afraid to ask drivers what they think of other companies. They will be brutally honest about what they think of other companies. VM won't have many good things to say about one of the places he worked at as will I.
Alot of companies advertise they pay for your training.WRONG!!You will be working for an extremely low rate pay for about the first year and be run real hard.That's how they get the training costs paid. You will make the company alot of money your first year or two.
As far as team driving,good luck.If you are thinking about doing a husband and wife team,save yourself some time and just get divorced and each go your own way. If you plan on teaming with a good friend, plan on finding a new friend in the near future. Truck driving is extremely hard on relationships and I would say it increases 10 fold when your both together 24 hrs a day 7 days a week. In order to make good money as a team that truck has to roll around the clock. So that means trying to sleep while the truck is bouncing down the road.You will have all the noise from other traffic and the truck slowing down and speeding up. My wife and I teamed for 5 yrs and after about the first 6 months I had finally passed out from exhaustion.Luckly we were on a load that had plenty of time to deliver. When my wife had her 10 hrs of driving in she wasn't able to wake me up. She said I was out for just over 16 hrs! She knows when I'm sound asleep because I snore something fierce. The one thing that kept us from divorce court was getting home every other weekend.The only time we seen each other when at home was at bed time. After that we would be ready to head out again. We quit teaming because a big company bought the place we were working at and they had the bright idea of teams staying out at least a month at a time. We now drive solo and home every weekend.
Another thing you can expect is wanting to quit and work for another company in less than a year.You will be hard pressed to find a driver with a few yrs experience to still be working for the same company they started out with. In this business the grass does always look greener on the other side of the road. The first year is the hardest to get through. You will be getting extremely frustrated alot for the first few months. Then things will gradually start to get easier. Once you get that first year in, you will be doing things with ease that seemed hard at the start.

Category: General

My wife is finding out how much fun longhaul is. She has been running alot of miles lately so that she can take off for 5 days and not burn any vacation time.She is going to take a driving course to get her motorcycle license. Well she has been out for the last 3 weeks now and this last weekend she wasn't able to get a 34 hr reset. She took a 2 stop load down to Houston,Tx. She made both stops and picked up her next load. That left her with only 3 hrs left for her 70.The problem is they want the load in the Detroit,Mi area by early tomorrow. The broker said it has to be there and she told them no way.Needless to say she was quite upset.It took awhile to get her settled down and not to worry about when it delivers. It took 2 dispatchers a few drivers and myself to get her settled down and to get the load there when she can legally do it. I've been enjoying this whole thing. It brought back memories of when I ran all 48 states solo.I don't think she is going to do this again too soon!!

Category: General