it seems like the purported shortage, combined with the unfavorable conditions described in the article, the pay would be well above the median pay, rather than being slightly above it.

But its kind of like hiring people from other countries to do IT work and soon they will do that for trucking. There is a law where drivers from Canada and Mexico can only deliver loads into this country and take loads out of it, they cant make deliveries from one point in the US to another point in the US. I bet soon they corps will try to do away with that law crying "boo hoo we cant get American drivers" etc and be forced to hire Mexican or Canadian drivers for less pay.

You have one aspect correct but the regulations for IT workers is bad for all workers the way it's being conducted. When you hire a worker who is required to work for you and can't switch jobs the overall pay of all the workers in the same company/occupation is affected. They lobby for more. Then the IT workers can't switch companies themselves. One case had to apply for student-visa, cannot work for the company he helped co-founded.

System needs serious reforms all around. The policies are harmful to all workers, including ones from other countries through systems where they have to work for the company that hired him.

I know they are not all bad. There ARE some who are genuinely concerned for the well-being of the people they hire and employ. But this video makes me sick. How common of a corporate practice is this again?

And if you're an American business, and you move your factory/manufacturing infrastructure out of the country, you should be required by U.S. Federal Law to pay those new workers the Federal Minimum Wage. Not the living equivalent of the Fed. Min. Wage of that third-world country/work force, but the ACTUAL FED. MIN. WAGE (and in U.S. Dollars if that worker wants it in that form). Because if that foreign worker is willing to add his labor to boost the American Economic Sphere of Influence, (and the democratic ideals that inevitably follow from it) that motherfucker should get to live like a KING in his country.

Most of us (yes, I am one) do care, and in fact, HR is weighted with liberals. The PHR study guide I used even referenced this fact and said if you can't figure out the right answer, err on the "warm and fuzzy side." We are not the lawyers. We are not the VPs. We are people trying to do the right thing... trying to find the right person for the job... advising people on their resumes/applications... trying to help someone get out of a bad situation by transferring to another department, etc. It makes me sad how many times I have seem my career vilified here on DU. I quit posting in the Career Help group for that reason.

This should be a place where (especially in an issue-specific forum like Career Help) those with expertise and field experience can educate and inform the rest of us. You're right, you don't control your VP's, and it sucks that they appear not to give a damn about the insights that you and your colleagues bring to your department. Personally, I think that HR departments have a responsibility to contribute to the overall health of a Company that isn't always and singularly profit-driven. It's too bad that your VP's are hired to have a different vision.

We need so many paradigm shifts in so much of our societal structures and it makes me so pissed that it's judged easier (and more profit-friendly) just to maintain the status quo.

Jesus said "Forgive them, they know NOT what they do."; this was reserved for his executioners. It is of interest to note that the money-changers in the Temple received no such plea for mercy.

The money-changers were paying the executioners. I think HR folks are often put in the position of executioners.

...according to Free Market orthodoxy, if the supply of something is down and/or the demand for it is up, then the price goes up.

Hmmm, something isn't adding up.

Oh, wait a minute. I know. The "something" is just labor. Who cares about that. There's no value there to begin with, so how could its value go up?

Do I really need a sarcasm smilie here?

I thought prices rise as demand increases. Where's that marvelous Invisible Hand now?

It's the Not There Hand

For a job that requires can cost at least $6000 to get a license, that is low pay.

many college graduates these days spend 20k+ to get a job that pays minimum wage... $6k for training and license isn't that much

family, so out of work college graduates are unlikely to be able to afford $6,000 for training for the license.

When you are running trucks, you not only have to pay the driver, you have to pay for the truck, the insurance, the dispatchers and order takers, the mechanics to keep it running, the fuel, the tires, the bookkeepers, the safety compliance person, the custodian, the ...

And sometimes you have to wait months to get paid by the shippers, but meanwhile the employees, the insurance company, the finance company, the utilities, and the landlord or note holder for your terminal want to get paid NOW.

And then, if nobody loses a primary customer by messing up a delivery, and nobody ruins $100,000 worth of cargo because they forgot to check the reefer unit temperature, and no one crashes and kills someone, and the DOT doesn't shut you down because some desperate dispatcher is running drivers over hours, you MIGHT make a profit.

Until some clown starts taking over your shippers by offering a nickle a mile less.

Seems to me truckers were making way more than that back in the 90's. Of course, unions were more prevalent then.

As usual, the writers at 'Money' have no clue how to attract more drivers. That would require spending a few minutes in an economics class. When something is in short supply, the price goes up due to demand. My guess is companies offering $50K would be rolling in applications.

I like driving and don't mind keeping my own company. If I could bring my cat on the road, I'd be thinking long and hard about it.

my dad was a truck driver... and I would do it too... my job now isn't too different

nt

Increasingly, American employers-- and their employees, for the most part-- accept the notion that if you pay someone wages, you have the right to demand that they eat shit whenever you want to dish it out for them. When jobs go unfilled, especially during times of high unemployment, it's usually because the jobs suck, the pay sucks, the terms and conditions of work suck, the employers suck, and so forth. Rather than cluck about the American workers who won't take available jobs, the conversation should be about the employers who won't make those jobs appealing enough to attract a work force. I'll bet they don't have any problem filling good union jobs with middle class wages and good benefits.

It used to be if they needed workers they'd up the pay and beni's to fill the holes but alas its not like that anymore and companies dont want to keep good, experienced drivers now a days they'd just pick a person off the street with a new CDL and give him a job.

We're required to discuss management's role in business and that's an excellent point - how can management and HR expect to fill jobs when no one wants to work for the horrendous wages, conditions, and terms being - plus the ability to garnish wages whenever they damn well please to make profit?

I have an acquaintance who is a long haul truck driver and everything about the job sucks. He hates it. He does it because it's all he knows how to do.

I've never known a long haul driver who didn't have back problems and these fugging employees don't even want to provide health insurance.
Fugg em.

Any time you see articles about one field or another having a hard time filling jobs in this economy, rest assured they are leaving out pertinent facts and skewing the data.

We've been so conditioned and hypnotized to be oh-so-grateful to the Almighty Job Creators® for giving us lowly peasants the chance to do their bidding that we're expected to do cartwheels whenever these fucks throw kitchen scraps our way. In reality, it should be the other way around. Employers should be grateful that they have people capable of doing the work necessary for there to even be a business.

why not offer training? or better pay?
To rephrase: there is a shortage of truckers willing to work for low wages and pay for their own training.

That cuts into the profits and risks short changing the stockholders next quarterly dividends. That next bottom line is all important. Much more so than continuing in business for another year or more.

but they make you sign a contract for a year or you pay for the training(they pro-rate it if you work say for 6 months you pay half etc)

They require you to work with them for some set minimum amount of time, but they will pay for training.

One BIG factor is that it is very easy to become ineligible to drive.

http://blog.openmile.com/2011/08/17/csa-2010-for-dummies/

I signed up here to reply to this post. I work for Prime Inc and its the run of the mill trucking company, there are to few loads and the pay stinks and they dont mind you sitting around to wait. I think Unions should be brought back to OTR trucking companies. If you lease a truck you get hosed even more on pay.


You think 37,930 is alot of this kind of job? they used to make tons more then this. If you put me out on the road away from my family you better pay me for my time but they don't care if you sit and dont make money. I think they are trying to drive out high paying jobs and bring in people from other countries for the simple reason to pay them less.


There is no minimal pay in this line of work (mainly)

mad

You are expected to work hellish hours (70+ a week) and they want to pay you less and less.

If I'm working that much, I want to get paid, period. I can't understand how some Americans defend this practice of working people practically to death, then wondering why they won't do it for even less money.

Last edited Tue Jul 24, 2012, 04:24 PM - Edit history (1)

They pretend their is a shortage, but the real problem is they won't offer decent pay for the work they want. Then they can push for more H1B1 workers who will eat their shit for crap wages. And as usual the American workers get screwed while the rich get richer.

is $46,300 with dual income families coming in at $67,348. That says that 50% of the country makes less than $46,300 a year.

http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-does-the-average-american-make-breaking-down-the-us-household-income-numbers/

and sleeping in a truck, eating shit food in a truck stop or whatever you have in your tractor you cook up on a burner. All the while the expenses on the road are way higher then if you were at home. Dealing with the maniacs out on the road (both cars and trucks) its not all that simple. The good paying driving jobs are ALL LOCAL, they are the jobs you want.

from people on DU who are living on $10 a week and say "I would kill for that job!" As you point out, they ignore the conditions and costs associated with that "highpaying" job, seeming thinking that the check will arrive in the mailbox while they sit at home and post on DU.

It's amazing how much one can economize when one doesn't have to deal with the "outside world" on a daily basis. Clothing, food bought at restaurants, gasoline, etc., it all adds up. With very little effort I was able to re-prioritize my needs and downsize my life and scarcely notice the income loss.

I think living in the back of a damn truck for huge amounts of time would be a hardship, and the trucker would be nickle-and-dimed. Hot meal? Gotta buy it. Hot shower? Same deal. Can't stand sleeping in the back of a truck for one more night? Even that flophouse will cost ya. And who pays for the fuel? And the truck maintenance? I suppose it depends on if the rig belongs to the company or the driver.

It doesn't seem like a cushy job to me. I'm guessing those guys earn every dime.

its where you land, most OTR companies i wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I hate at 3am when a whore pounds on the wall of your truck where you head is asking to "clean my truck".

it's hard to live in nyc on $250K.

iow, they're upper middle class telling working class people how much money should be 'acceptable' to do jobs they wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

if one is making more than the average American worker, it could be called decent in comparison to those making $12,000 a year.

Love the 'most people at du who say' line. Please point out where I've ever said that it would be hard to live in NYC on $250K.

and that's the key. It's OTR jobs, not local routes where people can actually have families and time at home. Competition for local drivers is very fierce.

his CDL. He made a tad over $48,000 as a 22 year old.

And I can point out 20 that are owing the company money cause the cant pay their truck payment cause the company cant keep them moving.

I have talked to drivers who were driving before your son was born and tell me its rotten out here and the pay sucks in comparison to when they were your sons age. I dont mean to belittle your son but I bet he didnt see a lot of his home in that time?

single and had no problem with being on the road for 10 days at a time. And yes, I asked a question and you posted to that.

Sure, any number of posters here can point to any number of anecdotes. The new DUer's experience tells her one thing. Your son's experience tells you another. That's fine. Depends on the company, the labor market for that particular company, the relationship between the company and the driver, etc.

The OP observed that there are 200,000 trucking jobs and that at the average pay of under $40,000 these jobs are unfilled. Assuming for the moment that these two assertions are correct, then your son's and MissyCim's observations are in the range that creates that $37,000 average.

As for what one can "live on," that, too, depends. One person's generous $48,000 salary is another person's slave wages. Depends on housing availability and cost, family circumstances, debt, student or training loans, etc.

Almost every single company has 25 as the minimum age at which they hire due to insurance company policy.

How long ago was this, and what is he doing now?

being a restaurant manager. That's a job that pays even less per hour than truck driving. He's majoring in computer science.

I'm not naming the trucking company, but they paid for his certification and he was the youngest in that driving school. Here's what they say on their website:

XX XXXXXXXXXX, one of the largest transportation logistics companies in North America, provides safe and reliable transportation services to a diverse group of customers throughout the continental United States, Canada and Mexico. Utilizing an integrated, multimodal approach, we provide capacity-oriented solutions centered on delivering customer value and industry-leading service.

you didn't tell me he made that almost 20 YEARS AGO thats still way more then they make today.

Then, you also have to work long hours. On top of that, you are never home. Do you expect to get paid? Yes, you do, because that isn't normal human behavior.

If you think it is great, however, by all means sign up for one of those great jobs.

if you figure out what that translates to per hour. Well below minimum wage. For example, a driver is out on the road on Friday and he calls dispatch and is told to sit where he is until Monday then call back for a load. These road jobs pay per mile with a miniscule layover or delay pay. Do this to a driver regularly and sooner or later he calls back and says "fuck it come get your truck". Turnover of drivers is very high. Thats why you see 10 year old signs on trailers that say "We're Hiring!!".

There is a pay shortage not a driver shortage. Same with nurses.

It's most likely a meat grinder.

Trucking companies have permanently affixed "we're hiring" signs.

I dabbled with the trucking idea a few years ago. Then I read the driver forums.

As I suspected. No fucking way.

for such long stretches. The companies could organize this differently or pay a lot better.

to bring in cheap labor from Mexico and Central America. It's inexcusable.

And yes, I knew people in the 80's and 90's who were making WAY more than $37,930 - even THEN.

which are hired to create the idea that there are not enough drivers so that legislation can be passed to import Mexican drivers to haul loads at even lower wages and make zillions of dollars of profits for the trucking companies.

nt

The independent scabs would do it for a little less so they are the ones who eventually took over and brought wages down to where they are at now.

And before that happened the union drivers were what I would consider "Professional", drivers. They were the best in the business.

Same thing happened to us union autoworkers.

Don

was that to make that kind of money they had several driver logs and used speed to keep awake. Now a days more and more compinies are going with electronic logs so there is no way to fudge the books. I think drivers should make a bare min of 75k a year with good health beni's

to the drivers by designating them as owner operators. I read in "The Nation" magazine awhile back that FedEx, a notorious union buster, does this trick. They call their drivers owner operators and thus the drivers are responsible for fueling and repair expenses.

Good to have you

The pay is paltry for the work involved. And I bet on-the-job injuries are frequent.

this CNN story is just propaganda from one side. Here is a long post from the comments section.

The requirements for a CDA are not in themselves too onerous, but the good old republicans turned what should be a 3 week course that costs a few hundred dollars into a giant corporate welfare scam to get a certification that, once secured, is horribly intrusive in the driver's personal life.

Add to this the utter lack of any protection for the workers that are regularly forced to both work with dangerous equipment and to break the law in order to meet the demands placed on them by the companies. When they get caught, it is the drivers that have pay the fines and lose their livelihoods and the company just puts another disposable body into the cab.

So similarly to agricultural work, it's not that nobody want the job, it's that they are not willing to put up with the bad working conditions and large helpings of BS for subsistence wages.

To get my hazmat endorsement and a TWIC card (this allows me to go into ports and refineries) I have to go through a search of my back ground less fun then a full body cavity search.

But in most cases, upkeep for the truck, payment of tolls, food, medicine, basically every expense that comes up on the road is out-of-pocket for the trucker. he can file to be reimbursed by hte company he's hauling for, but they're prone to denying such claims.

When taxes on high incomes and profits are higher, it adds pressure against squeezing for every last buck, and affects the decision making about the mix of carrots and sticks they use with employees. "Carrots" become a better use of resources.

Thanks!

that's a whole lot of money for an unemployed person.

of compinies will train you for free but you have to work for them for a year. I went to a driving school out in CA to get my CDL.

pay for your training up front.

Been there done that.

Just curious.

6 month on the road with no incidents was a resume builder. I paid for my own schooling.

Because it is a job that requires you to be away from home quite a lot.

And companies wonder why people don't want to do such jobs if they aren't getting paid. Being on the road is not fun. I did it for IT, another profession where they want you to be ready at all times, but pay nothing.

That's why these types of jobs go unfilled - it goes nowhere, takes a skill set, and people aren't willing to be paid minimal wages to do them. I wasn't paid minimally, but I was not willing to be on the road 24/7 to go to bfe Iowa, for example, to fix servers.

I didn't mind being on the road at all. Heck, my first trip out of the yard took me from So. Cal. to Vermont. The time constraint was always a challenge and before I left my co-driver and I were in high demand and had graduated to hauling only air-freight.

No, for me it was my wife. We talked every day and did the skype thing and have a good enough relationship so that 20 days away and 10 home wasn't THAT hard... but winter was coming and I had a hard time with the notion of leaving her alone in the snow. We sometimes get as much as 18" overnight and even more if it's a 2-3 day storm.

The driving though? Piece of cake. Sure, it takes a skill set to guide an 80,000 lb truck in 55 mph traffic, but it's something you get used to. Driving outside of the cities though, tunes blasting (there's NOTHING like Pandora Radio!), A/C on high... Nothing wrong with that at all and I met some cool people. Still disappointed I never got to cross paths with A HERETIC I AM but we kept in touch more or less through texts. I bet he would have been a blast to have a cold one with.

denbot is a brand new driver and last time I heard from him he was pretty excited and already making plans to lease a new truck of his own.

I remember 20 years ago we paid over 5k for my ex-husband to get his CDL. We were lucky enough to be able to borrow it from his grandparents.

you drive for them for at least 8 months.

If you quit before the 8 month contract was up though they wanted the whole enchilada.

A relatively inexperienced driver is going to get about $.31 p/mi. DOT allows a company to demand the driver work up to 14 consecutive hours then be off for 10 until you get 70 hours within an 8 day period at which point it all resets. Anybody with a calculator can easily figure out many of the scams used to rip off their drivers. No overtime pay, no waiting time, no expenses. It all comes out of the driver's pocket.

In the end it comes down to the driver grossing about $200 in a full day, but $0 for any waiting time, so it's common to pick up a load deliver it at the destination and then have to sit wherever you dropped for days, living in your truck or paying for a motel, until you can pick up the next load.

On average, if you work for a good company (I've heard many rumors that they do exist) and are working as much as possible and are properly scheduled, a driver will max out his legal earnings at ~$2400 gross every two weeks. Keep in mind that this is for about 120 hours under optimal conditions. Needless to say this doesn't happen and then you have to look at the requirements to falsify logs, drive dangerous equipment, unpaid loading and unloading, bankrupt states looking for every scrap of revenue they can extort, and so on.

Truck driving was once an actual profession where a person could make a decent living, but that was before.

Prices on goods are high. But people that haul those goods don't get paid well. CEO paychecks are sky high. It tells you that the top couldn't give a crap about those at the lower echelons. We all get lower quality due to that attitude.

most if not all companies pay you more then per mile, you get paid while you are getting unloaded and loaded. (40 dollars +) per activity. you also get short haul pay depending on how small the route is. Dont get me wrong a driver with his shit together and a good dispatcher (and leases his truck) can clear 2k a week and drivers who work for moving companies MAKE TONS of money if they own their own truck.

including a lot of owner-operators, that still make a decent living. But the general environment in the south and here in the west is completely hostile to the drivers. I can go down to the Flying J and find 10 drivers that don't get any of that for every one that does.

We can't look at the exceptions and say, "see, it's not that bad". Today's exceptions used to be the norm.

Long haul trucking tears up the roads and over-worked drivers are a public safety nuisance. This country used to haul nearly everything by rail.

plus, you'd have nothing to wipe with.

plus, when's the last time you saw a rail siding at your local gas station?

back

I am talking about "long haul" stuff. And I stand by my statement! Railroads are union too you known. Ever hear of the UTU?

civilization would eventually collapse (supply chain) if trucks stopped rolling.

arguing this point is stupid and your statement is stupid simply because it conflicts with basic reality.

talking about this the other day. did he call you bubba? lol.:

It's another black is white, day is night scam that benefits one and only one group.

I doubt enough of us will catch on before it's too late.

so more oil needed, for trucks, tires, road maintenance etc.

And a lot of the sidings, short lines, and the like are just gone.

ok no more OTR drivers but you'd have to hire a ton more local drivers to deliver from the rail yards (which you have to now build 1000's more) to the stores.

Twice in my life I have LITERALLY had a railroad in my backyard, less than 40 feet from the house.

It effing SUCKS! The whistle, the roaring engine, a dozen times a day...it does a number on your nerves.

As long as I don't have to live within 3 or 4 miles of a railroad track, I am cool with the idea.

truckers made more than that. Wages have stagnated for a lot of professions, or have downright dropped. It's the new normal. They have us all by the short hairs.

but i ain't pissing for nobody.

for your ability and expertise, fuck em. If shit costs more, it costs more. Hell, the cost of things like food have gone up exponentially, but truckers aren't paid more - only CEOs.

to the drivers by designating them as owner operators. I read in "The Nation" magazine awhile back that FedEx, a notorious union buster, does this trick. They call their drivers owner operators and thus the drivers are responsible for fueling and repair expenses.

Fed Ex does that to avoid paying their drivers time and a half overtime. Use UPS

An owner operator is just what it sounds like: a driver who owns his own truck. And not only is the driver responsible for fueling and repair expenses, he's also responsible for truck payments and insurance. Better: he has to pay to lease the company's trailers, or own one of his own. There are a LOT of companies that are 100-percent owner operator, like FedEx and Landstar.

It's not like FedEx takes guys coming in and tells them, "hi, you're an owner-operator now, here's your truck, if you get a flat get out your checkbook." Not at all. When you go to work for FedEx, you have to show up in a truck with your name on the title.

weird sleeping hours. Messes with your internal clock fur sur. I couldnt do it. Not now.

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You start a non-profit organization whose goal would be to house, train and place people who are currently homeless in these long haul trucking jobs. The trainee would get a job and a place to sleep all at once. They would be able to mostly bank their paychecks helping them get back on their feet.

I know that many homeless people have mental and/or drug problems (my wife has volunteered at a shelter for years) and would not qualify for a CDL but at the rate foreclosures are going there might be some interested.

????

The corporations are not looking to hire more Americans. This is just a ploy to lobby for Mexican and Canadian truckers on American roads.

and if you look at some of the truck from Mexico that are on the road, you'd shit your pants

The luckiest people are retirees who get to enjoy life. If you are rich but work 70 hours a week your life sucks too.

I've known more than one person who was definitely not happy with retirement, even though funds were more than adequate.
I enjoy being part of the social environment through work.
Some days do suck, but so do some weekends, and so do some days on a vacation.

One who depends on retirement before life can be enjoyed may be in for some disappointment.

I love my work. The more the better. I'll retire when they nail the lid shut.

and the living expenses take a chunk of their earnings. You pretty much need to buy every meal at a restaurant and you even need to pay to take a shower if you are sleeping in your truck. If not then you are paying for a hotel/motel room.

Also, you only get paid when you are hauling a load. So if you drive halfway across the country you need something else there waiting for you to drive elsewhere, then the cycle repeats.


You don't really need that training course to get the license. You need to pass the test and the course helps you to do this. It can be argued that you can't pass the test without the course but that isn't really true. If you know someone who has a rig who will help you practice, and you study for the written test and safety check on your own, it is possible to be certified without the course.


There are also different classifications of CDLs and then additional certifications beyond that. Air brakes for example, or hazardous materials.


As you can see, I am not jumping at the opportunity.


Edit to add: there are also drug tests and lots of them. These don't effect me, other than the time it would take to have them done, so it slipped my mind.

Why that much to learn to drive a vehicle?

a couple of nonsensical posts blaming Obama of course, but quite a few have the right idea:

If the maintenance on those trucks isn't good, you end up with problems like carbon monoxide poisoning; a state trooper realized that was what was wrong with a friend, and he ended up in the hospital, the truck impounded. If you have any kind of problem with the spine, the rattling around in a truck isn't going to help you.

Braking problems are another problem, and that happened to my father; the brakes seized on the downhill, and his truck ran into a family sedan. It wrecked his mental state for driving the big rigs, trust me. You don't want to hear the rest of that vicious tale.

A lot of those trucks have radios that are supposed to track the vehicle and the load, but can be tuned to pick up conversations in the cab.

This isn't a job that many people would want to do; you eat in restaurants, pay for showers and beds, have to stop to use the convenience, need to pack and do laundry on the road. You do get to see a lot of the country and if you read the news, get a change of viewpoint every now and then. But you also get a steady diet of reich wing radio and lousy music!

My son and his three best friends are newbie truck drivers.

Friend #1 and 2) signed up with a teaching trucking company operating out of Utah. After two (four?) weeks of training, they put you on the road solo. These companies require you to work for them a year, if you quit before that time, you're on the hook for the cost of your training. Based on promises of recruiters, they decided to go "owner operator" in which you are leasing the truck from the company, pay for your own fuel and expenses and operate as a subcontractor. The both lost their asses and essentially worked for free for a 9 months and had to reimburse the company for their training expense. Both still drive trucks, one on a western regional route and the other for a septic pumping company. They got a CDL from the experience with the training company, but nothing more.
Friend #3) signed up with the same teaching trucking company, but ignored the recruiters and went the "company driver" route. He has worked there for a year, 4 weeks on the road and 4 days off (!) and does get a meager paycheck, but the company dings him for all manner of stupid bullshit. Last month during the heat wave in the south, the company withheld $360 from his paycheck for "excess idle" because he idled his truck too much in order to maintain an 80° cab temperature during his sleep time.
My son (22) worked for the same Utah company as a company driver, but within a few weeks of paying off his tuition, through referral, he went to work for the same company as friend #1) He's on the road now for a week or two at a time, on a regional route into Canada with frequent stops near home. The company is still exploitive (as is the rest of the industry) but he does at least now make a living wage. He had the benefit of the experience of friends #1 and #2 and so avoided many of the pitfalls.

He won't make $40,000 this year, but maybe next year.

Longhaul sucks in part because of mandated downtime. There are several DOT clocks running concurrently, X Hours of driving in Y period of time. Sometimes, the clocks align in such a way that you're stuck in Bumf*ck kansas for 36 hours.

There are many mis-conceptions posted here about trucking from those not in the industry, and one of them is understanding the 'median wage' for truckers.

The BLS uses the numbers for ALL truckers, including Unionized drivers with years of seniority, specialty carriers, and other niche skill, highly-renumerated drivers.

They also include the pay of people like me in their figuring, which is rather disingenuous as even though I am a driver, I also own the company.


Throw out the top ten percent, then re-work the numbers.

See what you get.

Most common carriers don't pay anything near those bigger numbers, even with years of service.


There are plenty of trucking forums out there with company drivers posting about their real-world experience driving for some of these companies if you want to get a feel as to what is actually going on in the industry.

must have experience.

So how do you get experience straight out of trucking school when no one wants to hire you because you are not experienced?