Good for you. I'm trying to get out to. Did my year so CDL school is paid for. I want to move on.

 

Trucking is the Hotel California of jobs...

"You can check out anytime you like...but you can never leave..."

 

So true. I know from first hand exp.

 

Trucking was once a good trade but I steer young folks away from it now unless it's their destiny or something of that nature. Nowadays I advise em' to get their butts in school and learn something that pays better and gets em home more often and with more of a future in it. I tel em' trucking will always be around if you want to try your hand at it. But the older you wait to go to school, the harder it gets.

Why just last week I was sitting in the truck eating a subway sandwich at the Pilot and liseting to the XM radio when a young man and his girlfriend walked up to my truck. He says "Hey there mister tell me about driving them big rigs up and down the highway." I says to him "you see all these trucks parked here well them guys are waiting around for work." Then he says "well I wanna buy my own truck one day and start my own business." And I say "well I hauled steel for the same rates or better than alot of these guys are getting in the year of our lord 2009 so what do you think about that?" He says "your kidding right" I told him hell no I ain't kidding. Then I say think about the prices of cars and houses and milk and cheese and such things why they've all gone up up up. Then he asks "well how come trucking money never went up." and I say too many trucks on the road. Back when I hauled the industry was regulated by the ICC but now any Tom Dick or Harry can buy a truck and beat the rates down to nothing. Its all supply and demand. It's nice when you go buy all that cheap stuff at the store but not so nice to haul that cheap stuff for the cheap rates these brokers are quoting in this day and age.

Oh well, it is what it is.

 

i wish i had listened to some of the regular customers in the pizza store i used to be a general manager of. some of those regulars were truckers and their spouses. they begged me not to get sucked into the black hole and to stay at the then time gig.

 

meh, the road is where I belong.
Some people are cool where I live, the rest aren't worth getting sent to jail or the hospital over.

In the meantime though, I just signed up for the short-term, 6 week general-ed courses that have been offered.
I've been renewed to the thought of getting an education in case the trucking situation as a whole, stays flat.

Cool thing I like about the short-term college courses is that I find it easier to stay focused due to all lessons being taught day, after day.
That and all the students in these courses have the common goal of finishing up quick and skipping the rest of stereotypical "college life".

 

You need to find something that you enjoy doing for a career. Once you gain some experience you can earn an above average income in this business unless we are in a depression. This is not the only career where incomes have dropped in recent months. It should rebound, but will not come up much, if at all, until the economy improves. I would rather work at something that I enjoyed for a little less money than make more and dread going to work every day. There is no reason anyone who works at it should not be successful in this business. There are career's where you can make more and others where you can earn less. Find something you enjoy doing and the money will come.

 

Maybe. But can you tell me another industry were you'd make the same money you were making 34 years ago? Before anyone calls me a liar, yes I still have my settlement sheets from 1975 where I was haulin for $1.50 per mile out of Cleveland OH. Now in 2009 I check the load boards daily and I see loads today going for alot less than I hauled for in 1975. Ain't that a shame? 34 years later and guys are runnin freight for less money than I did in 75'!!!

I'd rather work at something I enjoyed that paid better than driving a truck and living out of it but hey that's just me. And yes those jobs are out there if you got the right skills and education, which is why I tell younger folks to go to school. Trucking will always be around. Plus alot of the skill is gone from the job cause these days they got the computers telling em where to go, the automatic trannys, the electric logbooks, and the whole nine yards. I tell you, the rigs nowadays damn near drive themselves. I was readin in Popular Mechanics when I was on the crapper last week where they got these newfangled sensors that;s supposed to be able to back a truck into the dock. Ain't that somethin? You just get your setup then press a button and Robby the Robot puts the truck into the hole for ya'!

 

If it was invented by a driver, I wonder if that will make it any different.

 

There is no question that the rates are not the same as they were 30 years ago. I think some of this has to do with non trucking people own and run these companies. Thirty or so years ago we mostly had people running trucking companies who founded them and drove the truck themselves. Now you have so many who have never sat in a seat running and making decisions about the industry. We had more smaller trucking companies and independents than today. Now we have more mega carriers. Some of these people will run for next to nothing to keep their trucks moving. We also have a lot of people who have no common sense and apparently don't know how to balance the books who go out and buy a truck. Thirty years or so ago rates were regulated. Today it is every man for himself. It was much more difficult to get your authority prior to deregulation. Today anyone with $300 can get their authority. It isn't a prerequisite to be a good businessman. You can place a lot of blame on low rates but it comes down to they guy who owns the truck. If the owner refused to haul at cheap rates then the rates will rise. It is basic economics, supply and demand. I wish things were different, but that is what happens in a free market. By the way, shippers used to pay more for an air ride trailer and those that were longer. Now air ride 53' trailers are common place.




I agree that much of the skill that we grew up with is no longer there. Technology is a two edged sword. Skills are developed over time. When technology takes over the skills then there is no reason for us to develop or hone our personal skills. When I grew up we could not use calculators in the higher math classes in high school or college. We had to use a slide rule. Today's students are forced to use a calculator. The result is that should something happen to that calculator the student could not do his homework. I wonder how many new drivers who have gained a dependence on GPS would fare having to go back to using a map and find their own route?

With lower levels of skills you diminish the professional status of any profession. If anyone can do a job then their is no reason for a company to pay for the higher skills of a worker. When I started we had more of a "Get R Done" attitude. Now, many drivers don't know how to get along without their cell phone, qualcomm or GPS. If something went wrong on our truck we tried to fix it ourselves. If we couldn't then there was usually another driver who stopped to lend assistance. Drivers don't even bother to stop and check on another driver who may be having trouble on the side of the road today.