Comments By William C.

Boyfriend started with CRST a few months ago. He's with his 2nd co driver already. First one nearly killed them by taking an exit at 65mph and the one he's with now likes to text and watch videos on his phone while he drives. He wants to get those miles and the money like the rest of you but he'd like to run safely with someone who pays attention and knows how to navigate. He prefers a non-smoker. Here's a link to his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/faike.mcfakey?fref=ts

Hope you find a good co-driver, Sounds like he needs a new one ;-)

My roommate is a driver for Schneider. He really enjoys working for them.

Thanks! Thats good to hear... Ive generally heard good comments about Schneider.

Heading to Atlanta next week for orientation with Schneider, then will be slotted in an OTR position out of Jacksonville Florida. Trying to get home things taken care of this week before heading out. Will be reading post here as usual on the forum as it can be super useful. If anyone has recently gone thru orientation at Schneider and want to add anything new, let me know ;-)

I will try and update moving forward, thanks for all of the support, this is a great forum.

Bill

Yes,

I talked with Covenant , plus their recruiter had come out to our school... I did put paperwork in with them, they seemed like a good outfit from what I could tell. The 3 weeks out was the turnoff for me IF I could find something else, and I did with Schneider. Im ok with going solo but it was important to get home as often as I could to start. Talked with a recruiter yesterday and he told me about a company that was hiring teams, 20 days out and 10 days home. He didnt mention a name but based on the orientation cities I think it was Heartland Express. I could def work with that schedule!

I agree, there are advantages to team, for sure. I would not mind it. Im keeping my options open for the next couple of weeks and then will make my move. Yes, the Schneider job out of jax is prob the one you looked at as well. Who are you looking at to go with team wise, and how is their sometime?

I can totally relate! I have a degree and many many years in the tech field and zilch! Have now gotten a few offers after getting my CDL Class A in Feb. I have been pre-approved and ready to go to Schneider as soon as I am ready. Will be doing orientation in Atlanta. Its for a solo seat. Those companies doing 20/10 off are appealing, im looking into those before i finally pull the trigger...

Good luck!

CTL will hire you in the tanker division if you have hazmat and tanker endorsements, they are based in Florida but have many locations.

Bill

Hey, welcome aboard!

Are you gonna be hauling food grade tanker? I pulled food grade for a year one time and it was a fantastic job - really unique form of trucking. I wouldn't pull a chemical tanker myself - don't want to be in chemical plants all the time hauling dangerous stuff. Especially considering the fact that hauling orange juice pays the same (or better) than hauling gasoline or hydrochloric acid.

But yeah, things have changed quite a bit since the 70's. The most profound difference really is the equipment - the trucks themselves and the technology we have for communicating and navigating. The nature of the job and the industry itself haven't changed as much as the equipment and technology has.

The company says "general chemical" transport.... I know they don't pull gas stuff, but not sure on the other yet. I have already done a road test with the company and go for the orientation next week. There is a company in Florida, Indian River that I would have loved to have started with but I needed at least 1 year OTR, so, I think this company will be a great starting point and then I will have more options later ;-) I suspect this is where they start new drivers to see if they can cut it, so , it should be interesting,,,, I figure if I can handle this.... ;-)

It looks like the truck I will be driving will be a Freightliner with an automatic, so that will take some of the stress out of driving the tanker. I go next Tuesday to finish orientation ;-)

PS.. and all that work I put in at driving school to learn to double clutch again lol!

Bill

Hey, welcome aboard!

Are you gonna be hauling food grade tanker? I pulled food grade for a year one time and it was a fantastic job - really unique form of trucking. I wouldn't pull a chemical tanker myself - don't want to be in chemical plants all the time hauling dangerous stuff. Especially considering the fact that hauling orange juice pays the same (or better) than hauling gasoline or hydrochloric acid.

But yeah, things have changed quite a bit since the 70's. The most profound difference really is the equipment - the trucks themselves and the technology we have for communicating and navigating. The nature of the job and the industry itself haven't changed as much as the equipment and technology has.

The company says "general chemical" transport.... I know they don't pull gas stuff, but not sure on the other yet. I have already done a road test with the company and go for the orientation next week. There is a company in Florida, Indian River that I would have loved to have started with but I needed at least 1 year OTR, so, I think this company will be a great starting point and then I will have more options later ;-) I suspect this is where they start new drivers to see if they can cut it, so , it should be interesting,,,, I figure if I can handle this.... ;-)

Greetings all,

New to the forum but have been reading for a couple of months. Enjoyable and very educational, as I just went through CDL School here in Florida (National) and now have my CDL Class A and Hazmat and Tanker Endorsements. I used to drive for a couple of years in the mid 70's and then have had office jobs primarily since then. Put myself thru college in the 80's and a series of tech layoffs and here I am. Some students in the school didnt understand why I was driving again, but for me it was to make some money again and stop collecting unemployment. Tech skills are nice but the job market is tight and being my age didnt help much. So fast forward to today and Im putting my head around this new challenge. This has been a bit of a work culture shock for me but I need to make some money and I do like to drive. I have little OTR exp from the 70's driving from Florida to Michigan for an O/O.. but it was a long time ago. I drove mostly Florida runs back then.

Today my priorities are home time, money is important too, but being gone weeks at a time is not appealing to me anymore. From what I can tell all decent regional positions here in North Florida seem to require some type of recent experience to land. Im going to a company in central florida next week to go thru orientation to drive OTR tanker. They are telling me I will be out 7-10 days and home some weekends. Time will tell.

Look forward to keeping up with the forum and learning from those that have been down the road and hopefully I will be able to add a newbie chapter along the way!