Question:
I'm new to this forum, and hope to be new to trucking.
I've wanted to be a driver since I was a kid, and never got around to it. Now's my chance.
I'm an ESL teacher, currently living in China, and my wife recently got her Green Card (she's Chinese). We want to live in the U.S. but I don't want to teach there. And I have no idea what else I can do for a decent living there.
My current plan is to go to Swift Transportation, have them train me and see how that goes. I haven't read a lot of good about Swift here, but then again, on a very similar forum for ESL teachers, the school I work for quite happily gets slammed all the time. I reckon that anyone who treats me well will be an OK company to work for, and so far, they have done so.
I have some questions, though. What is the demand for truckers really like in the U.S? Are they that hard to come by? Why is the turn around so great? Seems like a really good job to me.
It's a little like teaching ESL, I suspect, in that it seems a really great, romantic thing to do, living and working in other cultures and seeing so many new places and so on, but then reality sets in and people just want to go home after a while.
Well, I don't expect to see a lot of new cultures and all that, but driving OTR no doubt gets tiresome for most after a while and they just want to be at home. Is that about it?
For what it's worth, I never did get tired of teaching or living in China (or Mexico or Lebanon or Indonesia). But my wife wants to settle down, and we don't want to raise kids in China. Plus, there really isn't any sort of retirement plan for ESL teachers.
One more thing - I'll be 42 this year (in June) , and I'm looking to go to school in November. Am I too old to get started in this thing?

Answer:
Welcome to Truknut and the Newbie forum,also called Fantasy Island by some.

Too "smart" will be my first comment. Don't waste your
Education or "Life" in an unrewarding,dead end job is my second.
I'm sure further opinions/comments will follow.
Answer:

You can do anything you put your mind to do. Most people's limitations are self- imposed.

Every company has their group of happy dwellers, as well as naysayers, but from what I have heard and know about Swift (but never having driven for them) their bad reputation is deserved.

Demand is high. That is why there are so many outfits putting people with little training and no experience out on the highways.

People to fill the left seats of the nations trucks are not hard to come by. Good drivers, they are hard to come by.

Pay and work conditions are crappy, drivers are always looking for greener pastures. And truck companies are promising the moon and delivering pig manure. Alot of people get into the biz thinking it will be just like BJ and the Bear, and end up leaving once they get a dose or two of reality in the form of 100 hour work weeks for $400 pay, and not getting home to see the family but for a day or 2 every few months. Alot of old timers with valid CDLs and spotless driving records get out of the biz never to return because they can make more money and be home more often doing something else.

Used to be. Certain small niches in the biz still are. But unless you like long hours for short pay, never being home to see the family, working weekends and holidays for no extra pay, etc ad nauseum, it isnt really a good job.

Sounds about right.

When your most important and intimate conversations with your wife take place on a cell phone when you are parked in some ratty truckstop 1000 miles away from home but your wife is in your comfy bed at home alone (you hope), you havent had a good nights sleep in over a month, its Wednesday morning and you've already put more than 40 hours on duty but your check this Friday may only be a couple hundred bucks, and when you finally do get a weekend at home, you find out that a weekend consists of getting home Saturday afternoon and leaving out again Sunday morning for another month on the road, yeah, most people would really rather just go home and be done with that crap.

If you do go into trucking, dont have kids - you wont be home enough to parent them - your wife will, essentially, be a single mother. And there isnt much of a retirement plan for alot of truckdrivers either. Many of them end up working until they drop dead. If you are into statistics, you will find that truckdrivers have the shortest average lifespan of most professions. All that bad truckstop food, lack of sleep, and sitting behind the wheel 10, 12 or more hours a day catches up to a body.
No. There is no maximum age - so long as you can pass the DOT physical exam (because without a valid medical card your CDL is worthless and invalid), you can drive a truck.
Answer:
Almost all the big training companies are equally bad. However, it is really hard to get started in trucking without going to one of them. I always recommend a truck training school offered at many of the community colleges. The bigs all recruit them, but so do some of the smaller and medium sized companies.
What really regulates who drives a truck in America are the insurance companies. They will demand a clean driving record for at least two years. The bigs self-insure so they get around that limitation.
If you go to one of the big CDL mill/trucking companies, learn as much as you can, work long and hard, keep your driving record clean, and then try for a better outfit. BEWARE THE LEASE PURCHASE SCAMS! Most of them offer/push them very hard. If you go to one of them (the bigs) you will realize why they have the turnover rate they do. They are not good places to work.
Keep in touch here if you can. You can glean a lot of good info here. You just have to take the anti-trucking attitudes of some with a grain of salt. Trucking can be good, trucking can be bad. You have to pay your dues and wait through some crap to get the better positions. If you look at trucking as just a job, I would suggest you try something else. If it is just a job, you will soon grow to hate it. If you have that burning desire in your gut to be a trucker, you will make it. I am not a truck driver because I drive a truck. I drive a truck because I am a truck driver.
Good luck.Sometimes you have to dig through a lot horsesh#t to find the pony.

Answer:

Hey, who you calling old timer?

Answer:
What they said.
A lot of folks are coming into trucking in mid life. You're actually a very good age.
Some are seeking an adventurous new way to live, trying to test themself, prove something to themself, or sometimes it's a career choice of last resort -- the ones who end up hating it the most.
Some of us thrive on the life out here on the road, do good work and have found a niche where we make damn good money -- but we're probably twisted to begin with, have suffered sacrifices in the process most wouldn't put up with....and we are certainly the exception.
The majority of new drivers hate it in short order, and move on to something else. That's why there's such high turnover. Statistically, you won't last long.
You're married, apparently a good communicator and have 40+ more years to live.
I'd run with that, and re-invent yourself with some education as just about anything but an over-the-road truck driver.
It's not what you think it is.
.http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sect...onusWeek.php#tabs

Answer:

Apparently, neither was being an ESL teacher.
Answer:
Being an ESL teacher is OK. In fact, I'm sort of at the top of the ladder as such, which isn't that high. And I'm getting to an age when 'm starting to think about what I'll do when I get old. Plus, my wife and I would like to live in the United States again.

Answer:

Trucking is NOT the place you want to be when you get old. That's best left to trucking's true "old-timers" who just can't keep themselves from doing what they've done all their lives. But it's tough doing this when you get old.
You're reaching your life's "peak" of mid-fifties, when you've got both the life experience and enough residual youth to hit your full potetial.
Trucking's a sad place to spend it, in my opinion, unless you've been here all along. Surely there's something better you can do with your background and relative sophistication? You're an accomplished teacher. That resume is worth a lot in fields you probably haven't even consideed. Have you thought about hiring a carer counselor? I'm serious. Find out what you're worth before selling yourself so short as to go into trucking.
.http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sect...onusWeek.php#tabs

Answer:
Darn, looks like Shuffler has finally adapted to what others have been saying for a long time.
There isn't much future in truck driving.
I've met plenty that have changed careers at an older age because driving has gone so far down hill. The pay is poor, traffic is getting worse, The DOT hounds you, and many companies are getting to big to give a care.

Answer:
Exactly the same advice I've given for years. http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sect...onusWeek.php#tabs

Answer:
Shuffler wrote:

I wasn't talking about what to do for a living when I get to my older working years. I'm not afraid of hard work. I meant when I get past retirement age, when I'm too old to work at all. What then? There is no sort of retirement package for an ESL teacher so far as I know. Not where I'm at. And, again, we want to live in the United States.
Really, I'm not here to get career advice. I'm here to find out what it's really like driving a truck for a living. By and large I'm getting the impression that it sucks. But I'm getting that impression from the same sorts of people as the ones on my ESL discussion forum who say that teaching ESL sucks. In other words, the very people who would say that regardless of their job. I don't know you folks in particular that well, even to the point that I could expect to on a discussion forum. But I suspect that a lot of you would gripe about being a movie star.

Answer:

I'm sorry if I misunderstood. Most OTR (over the road) truck drivers are non-union. There is no retirement, other than what you save and invest on your own. What few union retirement jobs still exist tend to attract high seniority drvers. At your age, by the time you got one there'd be little opportunity to build significent retirement benefits.
The industry attracts drivers by promoting an image of romance and glory -- and more than just a little exhaggeratinyon when it comes to earning potential and time off, etc. Our agenda here (most of us) is to counter that PR by telling the other side of the story. Fact is, few folks really like this work enough to do it very long. Not because it's hard work, but because it's rather meaningless and requires tremendous patence, wasted time doing nothing, and time away from home -- that kind of "hard". That's why the turnover is so high. We're trying to help you by presenting things as we see them from the inside. Fair warning if you should decide to join us out here -- and the kind of input many wish they'd got before investing thousands in truck school, going through the whole thing, and then discovering it "sucks" -- for them.
Hey -- I like living out here. I can tell endless storie about how I love the highway (and sometimes I post them). But the ramblings of a happy carny worker like me isn't going to help you make a good decision. I asume you're a relatively normal guy who wants a normal life -- you sound like one. We, for the most part, are not. And the fact that we assume you might not be circus material like us, is probably a compliment.
You asked for our input. You got it. Hope you take everything into consideration and make a wise decision for you, your wife and your future family.
.http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sect...onusWeek.php#tabs

Answer:

There isn't any retirement package for truckdrivers either. Many of the larger companies have a 401k that you can particiapte in. Other than that, you are on your own to save up for your retirement. Which is one of the reasons many truckdrivers drive a truck until the day they die. They cant make enough money to save a substantial amount of it, and they cant make enough money to get out of trucking long enough to consider another line of work that would be more profitable.

I certainly would gripe about being a movie star - but then again, I have never wanted to be one. I dont understand what the desire of being one is. Sure the money is good if you are big, but the crap you have to put up with for that money. I'd rather have the money without the fame and the BS that goes along with it.
I gripe about trucking - it isnt the only job I gripe about. I used to like trucking once upon a time. But it wore me out. Apparently I dont have as high as tolerance for BS as many people do.
You are right, there are alot of people who will gripe about anything and everything. trucking is full of them. Go into the drivers lounge of most truck companies, and you will hear drivers (edited) and griping about the company. What I nver understood, is why these drivers stay if they hate it so much. Because while I did and do alot of griping about trucking, I also did something about it, I quit driving a truck. I dont do things I dislike, I cant understand why people gripe and (edited) but who wont take any action to change anything. Well, that isnt true, i do understand - griping is MUCH easier than actually taking a risk and taking action. A case of "the crap you know being better than the crap you dont know".
I admire your desire to take action and change your life. that is something most people wont do, no matter how miserable they are. But I hope you aren't limiting your considerations as far as what to do with yourself. If you were single, with no family, no education, and no money, you'd be prime truckdriver material. But I think you have more potential. And you have a wife, and you want children. Those things are not very compatible with trucking, at least not long haul trucking. And unless you manage to sqeak in with a union company, I think you can make more money doing other things than a local truck driver could.
Just my opinion, take what you will from it.
Answer:
I do appreciate the input. I really do.
Perhaps it's best now to admit the whole story. My wife is actually in the U.S. now, with her Green Card. I was there for most of 2006, but I had such a hard time finding gainful, meaningful employment that I returned to a relatively good job as the head teacher in China.
The wife's still in Phoenix with no desire or intention of coming back, and I'm afraid that I may be losing her. I need to get back to the U.S. and find something that I can do that isn't selling insurance or working in one of those payday loan places (you know - the ones that require 500+% interest on repayment). Trucking seemed like something I can do to earn a decent living for me and my family. The truth is, I'm scared out of my mind that I'm going to lose my wife, and at the moment, I don't get "home" to her at all. I'm in China ans she's in Phoenix. Trucking would be a vast improvement over that.
With all that in mind, what have y'all got to say?: