Class A Truck Driving Questions

[DOC]

They are talking about OTR for the first year after 6 months training with no pay. My question is, if over the road as boring as it sounds?

[DFBrews]

They are talking about OTR for the first year after 6 months training with no pay. My question is, if over the road as boring as it sounds?

Yes! Think about it 600 miles plus a day back and forth through the suck that's the bread basket of the us. Living in a tiny sleeper Home every month for a couple days if you are lucky. If the truck breaks down you could be stuck in bfe until it is fixed 2 weeks at least for something major. Not trying to discourage but trucking is not easy the saying in our shop is there is alot of sadness in trucking.


Look into doing around town stuff. Hauling fuel glass mixer driver stuff like that. It is hourly instead of by the mile

[JohnTRourke]

try united states truck driving school in wheat ridge (i have no idea how close that is to chuck norris training camp). you need 160 hours (IIRC) which is basically 3.5 weeks to get it (per law). I paid cash for mine so it wasn't as expensive, but plenty of other people had straight up gigs with truck companies to drive for that your training was paid for (if you stayed with them driving, only fair). http://www.ustruck.com/

Truck drivers work 60 hour weeks for 40 hours of pay, just realize that.

You need to not be a felon, have a clean MVR, pass a drug and alcohol test and a physical, but they'll tell you this BEFORE you start.

[husky390]

you need 160 hours (IIRC) which is basically 3.5 weeks to get it (per law).

Is that new? Damn, I shoulda kept mine even though I wasn't using it.
I drove locally and it was okay. Traffic is a flat out bitch in a big rig and this was in Phoenix which IMHO is a helluva lot easier to get around in than Denver. I made a couple OTR trips to Texas a few to California, plus I delivered some fire trucks from South Dakota to Az.
OTR was not as cool as I thought it would be. Scale house operators are flat out asshole's, especially in Raton N.M., Cops can be a PIA, and I freaking HATE truck stops now. Just the smell of them makes me want to vomit and now, even when on vacation I try to avoid them.
Also, there's nothing worse than driving on I-10 east of El Paso with no rest stop in sight and having to piss so damn bad your eye's are going to explode out of your head! Breakdown's are a consideration too like others have mentioned. Our step deck trailers ate tires like no other. I blew one out in El Paso and was stuck at a truck stop for 4 hours waiting for a new one. That cuts into your day.
Anyway's, I started out with a small towing company and we worked our way up into buying flatbed rollbacks and step deck dove tail rigs. We hauled construction equipment for the local rental companies. It's up to you, but you may want to look at towing companies and construction rental companies. It's possible you could work your way up through them and get a CDL and the best part is you're local.

Good luck to you.

[JohnTRourke]

Is that new? Damn, I shoulda kept mine even though I wasn't using it. .

no, that's just for the school.
if you can pass the test and the drive test, you just pay for the drive test and get it.
but actual school has to be at least 160 hours (It's right there at 150/160 hours)