Considering the life

[truckme]

I am considering going to school for a CDL and have several questions:

1. What kind of first year salary can be expected if paying for school is not a problem? What can be expected after a couple years?

2. What is a typical day like for a solo or team OTR driver. Do you do any loading or unloading? I read about going a week or so without a shower...is that really necessary or is that a training thing?

3. Are there laws restricting the amount of driving you can do in one day and are they enforced by your company?

4. What are the negatives or your general complaints with the industry that one should know coming in.

This board has been a great source of information and thanks in advance for any replies.

[shahan]

1. $35k
2. No loading or unloading. You can usually shower everyday without a problem.
3.you can drive up to 11 hours in a day and have to take a 10 hour break before the next day. Thats all the rules I know. The rules are enforced by your company.
4. My complaint is that I can never find a parking spot after 6 pm. But I am from the northeast.

[BanditsCousin]

$25-40 is a broad range, witha median of 35K (as stated above)

Some companies require unloading some of the time, and the driver is usually compensated for the labor.

[RiverCritter]

I too am considering the life. I recently retired from the fire department and I still many years before I can draw a pension without big tax penalties, but my old job was killing me...

Anywayz, I was wondering why are truckers so heavily recruited? Is it because the industry is really growing that fast, or are alot of truckers quitting? I hear that turnover is a constant issue and loyalty to an employer is virtually nonexistent in trucking. I'd like to know why that is before I go to school (or choose a different career).

Thanks,
RC

[BanditsCousin]

Drivers are heavily recruited because the companies need warm bodies to fill the seats. With wages as low as they have ever been for truckers, its no wonder some companies have 100%+ tunover. Growth has a little to do with it, but its mostly the OTR lifestyle is what causes turnover.

[RiverCritter]

Banditscousin wrote:

With wages as low as they have ever been for truckers, its no wonder some companies have 100%+ tunover. Growth has a little to do with it, but its mostly the OTR lifestyle is what causes turnover.

I wonder if the schools cranking out umpty thousand drivers every month is part of what keeps wages low for truckers... but that's prob'ly a whole 'nother topic.

And aren't there plenty of alternatives to the OTR lifestyle to go around? Like dedicated runs and in-state routes that have you home more often? I would expect to be OTR while a rookie, but it sounds like a driver can gain seniority fast enough to get a local or dedicated run after a short while. What should I expect after I get out of school and start working?

Thanks again,
RC

[Haddo]

I am considering going to school for a CDL and have several questions:

1. What kind of first year salary can be expected if paying for school is not a problem? What can be expected after a couple years?

2. What is a typical day like for a solo or team OTR driver. Do you do any loading or unloading? I read about going a week or so without a shower...is that really necessary or is that a training thing?

3. Are there laws restricting the amount of driving you can do in one day and are they enforced by your company?

4. What are the negatives or your general complaints with the industry that one should know coming in.

This board has been a great source of information and thanks in advance for any replies.

Here is a report about the industry.

The truck transportation industry in the U.S. is experiencing a shortage of drivers of long-haul heavy trucks that has become a limiting factor in the operations of many freight companies. With the number of active truck drivers employed in the United States on the decline, the industry is faced with a critical driver shortage. In particular, long-haul trucking companies face higher risks of driver shortages than short-haul trucking companies. Research has found that the trucking industry will need to hire about 85,000 truck drivers each year for the next seven years in order to catch up with the number of drivers it is losing. If trucking companies had their way, there'd be double the number of drivers on the road...in order to meet the country's hauling demand.

Driving a long-haul truck is arguably the loneliest occupation a person can have. Even for the truckers who are able to make ends meet on the road, there's still the lifestyle factor: many say it's just difficult to spend so much time away from home. A South Carolina truck driver suggested that although the pay is good, the job is rough. If a person has a family or a spouse, truck driving can make family life very difficult.

The American Trucking Associations says there are 1.3 million long-haul truck drivers on the road today. "The driver market is the tightest it has been in 20 years," said ATA President Bill Graves. "It's a major limitation to the amount of freight that motor carriers can haul. It's critical that we find ways to tap a new labor pool, increase wages, and recruit new people into the industry...." The ATA noted that the current shortage seems larger to the industry because of a high degree of driver 'churning,' or moving from carrier to carrier. Large truckload carriers reported an average turnover of 121% last year."

10% of all the major fleets have trucks sitting up against the fence because of a shortage of drivers. Three quarters of all the goods in America are shipped by truck and deliveries nationwide are being slowed because of the problem. Trucking companies are scrambling to find drivers by offering signing bonuses and 401K's. The average annual starting salary for a long haul driver is $50,000 while union drivers make on average about $60,000.

Of the 3.4 million truck drivers on the road, 1.3 million are long-haul truckers, the driver segment most severely impacted by the shortage. Global Insight, the economic consulting firm conducting the study for ATA, predicts over the next 10 years, economic growth will generate a need for a 2.2% average annual increase in long-haul heavy truck drivers, or 320,000 jobs overall. Another 219,000 must be found to replace drivers 55 and older who will retire in the next decade, putting total expansion and replacement hiring needs at 539,000, or an average of 54,000 new drivers per year for the next decade.

The trucking industry is hauling more freight than ever. Total annual tonnage hauled by truck is expected to increase to 13 billion tons by 2016 from 9.8 billion tons in 2004. Finding drivers will grow more difficult in coming years as adverse demographic trends limit the size of the pool of workers that traditionally fill truck-driving jobs. One-fifth of all heavy-duty truck drivers are 55 or older, replacements must be found for nearly all of these because only a small fraction of heavy-duty truck drivers work past 65. The ability to replace these drivers will be further constrained by insufficient growth of new entrants into the labor force,. More importantly, the number of men aged 35 to 54, which make up the primary driver demographic, will be flat or declining over the next 10 years.