Question:
I've finished about 4 hours of thread-reading now, and feel comfortable enough with what I have read to lay out an initial plan. I stated in a different thread that I am not in the biz, but after reading more, I think that the statement might be technically untrue... maybe. I am working for a construction/Equipment rental company. I drive a diesel Chevy 6500 flatbed truck (like used to tow cars) hauling everything from 2" water pumps to 55j IHI excavators (about 1 ton). My average is about 200 miles a day, most in one day was 350. I'm paid hourly, with OT, at $10. I've only been doing this for about 2 months, and its my first foray into the field. So far I work on average of 55 hours a week.
All in all I'm making pretty good money, take-home of about $520 a week. I love the driving part of it, but half the time I get stuck making 3 or 4 short trips a day, and its a pain driving for only 20 minutes, but spending 45-60 minutes at the beginning and end sweating and working to load, latch, unlatch, and unload each trip.
This company trains employee's to drive. All I have to do is take the written test and get my temp permit, and they will get me time behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler, and let me use their truck to take the class A driving test when I am ready. The 18-wheelers mainly haul double drop flatbeds (I think thats the right term... they call them "Low-Boys") and regular flatbeds. They deliver a lot of big lift buckets, huge excavators, front-loaders, etc...
So, after reviewing these forums, I think I will stay on with my current employer, let them help me get my "A", and get 6 or so months behind the wheel of a flatbed. Then I start to look around for better pay. I do not yet know what, if any, pay raise I will get for driving the big rigs.
I have 2 goals in this endeavor. One, to make more than 600 a week working 35-45 hours a week. Two, get out and drive around the country, experiencing the oft-maligned "Asphalt Cowboy" lifestyle. I am single with nothing pressing keeping me in one place. Parents and a sibling is all. If I can find a job running long distance, crossing the country, getting home for a few days every couple months, and meting or exceeding my financial goal, I will be happy.
So, I pose to you, readers: Does this seem to be a decent way to avoid the New Driver meat grinders I have read so much about? What sort of expectation would I have with a larger trucking company after getting 6 months or a year experience with this local rental company driving an 18-wheeler?
Many thanks in advance for your opinions!

Answer:
Well your already above the norm, you have a plan. Some thing most seem to forget to do. I would say by doing it the way your planning you will avoid most of the grind the majority of newbies get when they go to a big OTR company to train. The only thing to think about is your present income verses OTR driving. It's doubtful you'll see any real improvement for a while. You might get to keep $700 as a driver but you'll spend it down to about the same after road cost.
Just keep a plan going and look a few years ahead if you can and find goals you can work on to really move out of the grind.

Answer:

You are kidding right? Either that or you are dreaming.
Even local truck drivers tend to work closer to 70 hours a week than 40. OTR drivers often work closer to 100 hours a week.
If you want to work a 40 hour week, you need to get an office job - outside of trucking (because even trucking dispatchers average 10-12 hour days behind the desk). .

That is fine, but you won't do it in only 40 hours a week. You will be working 7 days a week, often for 12 hours a day or more. You will work most holidays, and you will not have a set schedule, meaning sometimes you will sleep in the day, sometimes you will sleep at night, and sometimes you won't sleep at all.
But Stuffs is right, at least you are thinking about this stuff - that is more than most truck driver wannabes can manage.
Answer:
Sounds like a great plan. Just do not go looking for a OTR job till you have plenty of Class A time with a carrier that will say you were OTR. The you will have to take OTR training. Not a big deal really.
I think you will see more hours not less. If you are working in heavy equipment rental. The semi trucks tend to work early and get done real late.
You may be seeing more hours then less hours.
You also will be seeing more hook ups and drops.
Over all I think you have a fine plan.202 N Main Street
Summerfield Il 62289
TRUCK PARKING AVAILABLE!

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Not a bad plan. Working where you're at now could also change your plan.You will be making contacts in numerous vocations that"Pay" better than
"trucking" for far less work.
Answer:
The hours-thing is a hold-over from regular jobs. Its a problem I will have to keep working to overcome. I have been trained since my teens on the "normal" work day. Every job I have had has followed those kind of rules. Trucking wont, and it will take time to adjust. I am working plenty of hours where I am, and I would say about 75% of it is behind the wheel. Thinking of it that way casts those hours in a different light. Even tho I am "on the clock", getting paid to sit on my rear and push a steering wheel aint bad. I think I could handle doing that more.
I still havent gotten into how logging works tho, and it looks like I wont have to for several months. I understand why companies dont want to pay for things like layovers, loading / unloading, and detention. I think its wrong, but I understand. Getting into my own bed each night is fine, but I dont mind sleeping in a cab most nights, at some random rest stop someplace. As long as I have internet access (Verizon has an interesting plan) and some books I would be fine. The OTR lifestyle doesn't scare me.
Since I have now delayed leaving my current job, I can relax a little. Maybe in the next 6 to 12 months the industry will improve. Maybe some of the concerns that so many long-time truckers have will be addressed.
After my time reading, it seems that for those who dont mind being Dwellers, there are 4 issues that need to be addressed. Sitting at a dock, fueling, cleaning etc and not getting paid. Loading/unloading stuff and not getting paid, or getting paid peanuts. Giving the first and/or last hours away free in any scenario. And inadequate per-mile pay.
Is there anything in the works to addres these issues? Do we have any lobbying groups fighting for us, any political advocates at all? Or is everyone waiting for the industry to get tired of the turnover and lack of drivers and go about fixing the problems themselves? How can companies find it cheaper to train a series of new people to drive and quit, instead of paying quality drivers enough to encourage them to stay?
I will say this though. It seems like the drivers who have been in the biz for more than a few years have it pretty good. They have the road-time to command higher pay and better routes. It seems to be the new people who are getting abused the most.
I am sure someone has already siad this somewhere, but it looks to me like there needs to be a walk-out in the industry. If even 25% of the drivers in the country would quit (on good terms), the industry would be hurting real bad. Look, their bean-counters aren't stupid. They know most drivers get the shaft. But drivers keep doing it, so why not? If there was a major wa;k-out, companies would have to offer better deals to drivers to lure them back.
Anyway.... up early out of habit even tho I am off today. Hope everyone's got a place to stop today and grab a good meal. Remember our fallen soliders!

Answer:
Akkori, as far as driving jobs, your above the norm Also, your job enables you to meet a lot of people and many job opportunities can become available to suit yor needs and career path.
If you do go OTR all contacts will be lost. There will be only you, the highway and a truck, with some far away dispatcher that worries about loads and in most cases could care less about you.
Good luck,
Big

Answer:

Yes , there certainly are things in the works to address these issues. JoseA, and JoseB will soon be here to drive the wage even lower.

Answer:

except you won't be "on the clock" as much sa you are used to. If you haven't heard it before, remember this phrase: "Work 100 hours, log 70 hours, get paid for 40 hours." This describes OTR trucking.
You say that now, wait until you have to do it 300 nights a year.

You'll go broke if you rely on cellular internet access. Plus, often you will be too dang tired by the time you finally get to stop to sleep that you won't want to do anything but crawl to the sleeper.

That is because you haven't lived it. ALL ROOKIES Are gung-ho about trucking.

You are friggin' hilarious!! Really! Nice thought though, but it'll never happen.

Nope.

Because it is cheaper to let a veteran driver who is making 45 cents a mile leave and replace him with some rookie who will do the same job for 25 cents a mile. Plus, the rookie will take whatever crap the company gives him, whereas the veteran driver would not.

The "higher pay" still isn't what it should be.

BINGO!!
Stupid is as stupid does. Most of what is wrong with the trucking biz the drivers brought upon themselves either directly or indirectly.
The status of the biz today is a result of the dumbing down of the driver pool. Todays drivers are often too stupid to do anything else but trucking, and so of course they cannot quit or walk out and risk their jobs.
Answer:
It is hard to get to the folks when you talk about low pay and bad work conditions.
I like hearing it, it just gets old. Why do folks tell driver that earn well over 75k a year and home every day that there is no money in trucking?
Kinda like the car salesmen that says there is no money in car sales to a guy that moves 25 cars a month at 500 per car take home.
Or the relator that gets out of th industry because there is no money in it, yet they are speaking to a person that is going to confrance for the 1 miilion profit check.
You do what you have to do. The rest of us bottom feeders will be just fine.
The more that get out the better.202 N Main Street
Summerfield Il 62289
TRUCK PARKING AVAILABLE!

Answer:

More on your plan later.

Answer:
Akkori, you have a good plan. Stick with it.
I have trained many a wanna be driver. I say wanna be because about half of them realized too little too late that this was not the life/occupation for them. Many failed to realize the OTR expenses of living. If I had a nickle for every meal I bought a trainee I'd retire today! I can't explain it but money seems to be the big surprise to most. It ain't cheap to live on the road, pay bills at the house, and still have money to send home to Momma!
Good planning on your part will be a key to your sucess or failure but you seem to be a man that plans well into the future.
You sound as if you have a good job and I for another one, encourage you to get that training at a company that you are already established with. Drive for them for about a year after you recieve their training. Job hopping in this industry is a part of the problem don't become one. If a company has offered to train you then they see the potenial in you that you wanted them to see. Give them something back in the way of time on the job and make it an easy trasition for the next guy just as someone has done for you.
Yes this indusrty has lobbist that do little or nothing to help the drivers out here. Its alot like this board. You put a few drivers together and they all know it all and brow beat the next guy for his opinion. Its a never ending cycle and until the know it all shut up nothing will be accomplished.
While still training let me encourage you to pick up as much published material as posible. Make your self aware of the ever changing events and get invilved in the letter writting campains. Speak to your local congressman/woman when you hear of changes in your home state.
This industry went down hill fast when the goverment stepped in a started to control the HOS. I remember the day........................well thats a long store I'll save for later.

Answer:
At the risk of alienating long-time drivers who are making good money, it seems like they may be more effective as a catalyst for change than the hordes of new drives passing through the meat grinder. I have seen a lot of people trying to save new drivers from the disappointment they will feel by encouraging them not to get into trucking. At the same time, the people most likely to benefit from a succesful campaign to limit the new recruits are these same long-time drivers active and making decent money already.
What woudl happen if the national recruiting results are cut in half? Companies will find themselves unable to fill orders as easily, and they will offer more incentive (read:money) to existing drivers to get the job done. This means drivers already making prime money (the amounts crowed about by recruiters to new people) will get even more.
If, instead, half of the long-time dedicated drivers were to quit, with grandiose and loud protestations as to the state of the biz and demands for industry improvements, then companies would have to make do with the terribly inefficient and unsafe masses of new drivers. I would be willing to bet that after their costs rocketed up paying for wrecks and late delieveries, compounded with an even higher cost for training, that they might look back wistfully at the way it used to be. This may well prime the industry for revolution.
I have not yet looked for or seen a proposal for how it "should" be in the biz. I will do so one day soon, but maybe someone could give me the short version? What would be the most perfect balance between giving drivers what they deserve and is most profitable for driving companies and consumers?

Answer:
Chad, if I am reading those right, the top to checks are for $1,600 and $1,300 a week, and the bottom one for $1,300. Wow.

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I learned while the rest were giving Chad a hard time. To many jobs pay 1400 a week and home every day and off the weekends.
There are ALOT of them out there. Some even train you.
The draw back. You have to WORK!202 N Main Street
Summerfield Il 62289
TRUCK PARKING AVAILABLE!