If you want the trucking life, nows the time.

[debit.servus]

I've heard company sponsored schools are even worse than I thought:

-Please do through and extensive research (online AND offline!) when it comes to picking a company sponsored trucking school!

-Please do through and extensive research (online AND offline!) when it comes to picking a company sponsored trucking school!

-Please do through and extensive research (online AND offline!) when it comes to picking a company sponsored trucking school!

Don't earn your CDL only to be locked into a bottom feeding trucking company where you can't even pay back your tuition in cash to end your contract, and your only option is to slave for them at considerably less than minimum wage for several months to a year! Instead of researching how and where to get the lowest price for ___, spend that time to research the company sponsored trucking school with the best contractual terms for YOU!

[tx2sturgis]

My advice: 

1- Don't drink the Telsa truck koolaid. Tesla is in trouble as we speak. And the truck itself will not be practical in normal OTR use.

2- Don't get 'suckered in' to company sponsored driver-training schools. They have very poor records and predatory practices. Recruiters LIE.

[velojym]

Heed debit's words. CREngland and others make it so easy to get in, then you end up struggling to keep up with fuel and maintenance, as well as extremely high lease payments... and they still act like the truck isn't really yours. It's a way for them to offset ownership costs, basically dumping them on the "owner/driver" in addition to selling you a truck for way more than it's worth.

These companies run what I call "CDL mills", just giving you enough education to pass a test, then acting like the 'service' was worth a bloody fortune when it comes time to 'pay back', usually in sticking with them for a given time. This is only a thing because they can't seem to hang on to drivers long enough honestly. These CDL mills are one of the reasons so many steering-wheel-holders out there are jacking up traffic, trying to figure out how to find the next gear, not knowing how to take an unusual intersection, or any number of difficulties springing from not having had full training on the trucking art.


Who knows... it might have gotten better since I was a trucker, but I think a lot of research should go into this. Once you're in, it can be hell getting out without a huge debt load on your head.

Fleetline/Dart was bad about 'selling' drivers poorly maintained trucks, without any fuel in the tanks, so you'd start out hundreds in the hole before you even got your first load. They were also bad about claiming a warranty that didn't seem to exist. They, too, "sold" these trucks for 2 or 3 times their actual used value.
This was the one I fell for. I hauled a load in "my" Peterbilt 372 from LA to Denver, losing my turbo climbing the last hill (Eisenhower pass) and had to call to have the load picked up by a local driver and delivered. He got paid for the entire load on delivery, and I got nothing but a $2000 repair bill to replace my turbo. Not to mention the time and fuel I spent.
I put in a request to get the money for my miles, but it got lost in the shuffle and I never got it.

I kept my head above water long enough to get out of the lease, but I would have been far better off finding a cheap truck on my own. Cabovers, at the time, could be had in decent shape for $5-10,000, and I could have done a lot with one. I had the advantage of having gone to trucking school on my own dime, though (student loan anyway), and had a bit more mobility for it.

These days, I'd imagine it's even harder for an 'upstart' independent, as the real victims of over-regulation are the small businesses. The JB Hunts, Werners, and CR Englands have plenty of resources to afford the cost of regulation... it's more profitable for them anyway, as they suck up all the business left by independents giving up on the business.

I loved driving a truck. I didn't care too much about dealing with some of the 'official' aspects, but the trucks, driving, and just seeing the country rocked. Even today, I would recommend it, if only for a year, as a great way to see the country, get to know people from all over, and maybe even use the experience to pick out a nice place to settle. Or... enough experience to know you don't really want to settle in one spot after all.

(This post was last modified: 09-15-2018, 07:40 PM by velojym.)

[Grim Beret]

Rasberry

[debit.servus]

I've heard the DOT is rasing the standard back up with physical requirements. If you're on the border of being disqualified due to physical ailments, now is the time to get in and try it out.

[bigskybob]

Being a truck driver for long haul is going to be gone within 5 years.Automated trucks will rule the roads.Anybody driving a truck now would be advised to find another job.

[MrNoodly]

They couldn't pay me enough to get back in a truck. 30 years ago it was a fun job.

Yeah, I'm not a driver but what I've been reading is that it has become a horrible profession.

"In 1980, the average trucker in America was making an annual salary, adjusted for inflation, equal to more than $110,000 today. Twenty-five years later, truckers make on average about $40,000 a year, working harder, longer hours, and with less job security."

http://money.com/money/4325164/trucking-worst-job/

(This post was last modified: 05-01-2019, 08:14 PM by MrNoodly.)

[tx2sturgis]

Being a truck driver for long haul is going to be gone within 5 years.Automated trucks will rule the roads.

Sorry but that's not correct.

It will probably happen to some extent, in some situations, but not within 5 years. Brand new, normal human-driven, class 8 trucks that are being bought and put into service today, this week, this month, this year, next year, have a 5-20 year service life, average. They will not be headed for the scrap heap 4 years from now. Won't happen.

The media likes to splash headlines about experiments and trials that happen in controlled situations (with a half dozen vehicles running support for one semi-autonomous experimental class 8 truck), but even the experts who know the ins and outs of this, don't see fully autonomous, driver-less trucks replacing human occupied trucks in 20 to 30 years.

Automation can help lessen the workload and supplement the driver in the most boring stretches of more or less straight, mostly flat, divided highways, but it wont replace the human driver in the foreseeable future. 

Truck driver duties include a wide variety of job-related tasks outside of the vehicle, that a computer installed in the cab simply can't do. Plus there are a huge number of laws, rules, and regulations that will have to be changed to even allow this to happen. The FMCSA and the federal and state DOTs move very slowly in changing the regulations that control the motor carrier industry.

Maybe one day in the distant future we will see a small experimental fleet of fully automated trucks running on controlled highways with programmed stops at roadside terminals, but not within 5 years.

(This post was last modified: 05-01-2019, 08:35 PM by tx2sturgis.)

[tx2sturgis]

Yeah, I'm not a driver but what I've been reading is that it has become a horrible profession.

I would not call it 'horrible' but it is nowhere near as good as it was when I started. And it used to actually be enjoyable...but most of the enjoyment is also gone.

I'm retired now...but I've had SIX serious and un-solicited job offers from people who want me in one of their trucks. 

I've paid my dues, let the new guys (and gals) deal with it.

[Rabbit]

Another difficult-to-automate scenario is hijacking. It's already somewhere between terribly hard and impossible to program in the correct response to everything that might happen "naturally" on the road; imagine how difficult an engineer's job becomes when equally-intelligent Bad Guys set themselves to invent "unnatural" situations. Automation doesn't have any common sense; all you need to do if you want to stop a driverless truck and pillage the cargo (as of now, with current technology) is set up a flimsy roadblock in the middle of nowhere and wait. Or, maybe repaint the white lines. For that matter, now that I think about it, there are terrorism possibilities in this sort of thing as well. Stop a fuel tanker, slap on a detonator, then let it drive on to its (likely urban) destination.

No, truck drivers aren't going away anytime soon.