I am a former driver (was OTR from 1990-2001) I came off the roaddue to family reasons. My wife will soon be eligible for her pension and would love to "retire" and travel. A better part of me would love to jump back into the drivers seat. But, I have a lot of concerns as I see a lot of changes in the industry since I've left and more to come. Some examples:

1. HOS has changed, and seems to be on the verge of changing some more. (How do you guys keep up with that?)

2. No idle laws are popping up all over the country, yet I don't see APU's on the major fleets trucks (are these guys expected to freeze/fry?)

3. There are public advocacy groups pushing for black box monitors (kind of a creepy big brother sort of thing.)

4. Mexican trucks are starting to cross the border, which certainly won't help freight rates, and bad rates equal bad wages. (BTW, anyone whos ever seen the Mexican trucks that cross into Nagales knows this is a bad idea.)

5. From reading the boards here, it seems a lot of fleets are getting more restrictive, things like telling drivers where to fuel, when to fuel and how much fuel to buy. (Seems like guys can't run the way they like with a lot of companies.)

So, I guess the question I'm asking, of the experienced drivers here is: If you had to do it all over again, would you?

 

With a lot of aspirin and a big dollop of KY.

Pretty much so, or they expect you to either eat the ticket or pay for idle air out of pocket. Some fleets are starting to experiement with putting APU's on trucks though.

Yes this is coming, but more than likely it will not be anything more than an electronic log book that shows when the truck is moving, but with the handful of trucks each year that crash and burn and take out a school bus or a mini van full of kids because the driver was too stupid to shut it down and get some rest and decided to run 1400 miles straight through what can you expect.

There have not been any crossing yet. Truth is very few Mexican companies want to run the USA. Say it is too expensive and many of their drivers feel the same way. At this point it is a wait and see.

Companies have to watch every dime, now more than ever. Freight rates are still low and highly competitive, so companies try to save money where they can, and fuel is a trucking company's single biggest controllable expense. Also lets face it. Most company drivers will not pay attention to fuel costs, understand where, when and how to buy fuel to get the most bang for the buck. Maybe you might feel a little different if you had to pay $500 + every time you fueled up one of those trucks, or how about 400 trucks every day.

 

A clue to long term prospects can be gained from that accident in the I-5 truck tunnel in California.
There were nine big rigs abandoned by their drivers when the smoke cleared. The Highway Patrol is still looking for them and believe they were possibly illegals. tells ya there is a whole lot of money in trucking?
Now you and me and everyone who is thinking about making a living here has to drop a letter to their politicians demanding everyone play by the same rules.

Nine of 27 trucks involved using illegals or people who can stand a little scrutiny on their CDL?

 

Unfortunately there are still total outlaw companies out there that will employ anyone, regardless if they have a valid CDL or not, or the drivers they hire may have a CDL at the time of hire but soon lose it and then the company plays dumb. "Joe Smith never told me he got another ticket and lost his license." :roll: :roll:

 

Thank you for the answers so far, though it seems most of it is what I expected. Just a few more questions.

1. Are there any small to mid sized fleets out there that run legitimate operations? My past experience (and it's been 6 years) was that you either went to work for a large or medium large fleet and were basically a number in the system, or you went to work for a small operation and were expected to run outlaw. If I jump back in, I'd prefer to find a company small enough to treat a person like family, but without the pressure to bend, or as it were, blatantly break the rules.

2. towords the end of my last run I got some experience with QualComm. Is the "infernal beeping machine"" as annoying as it used to be, or have they improved upon the concept?