Comments By Sno-boy

So like 250 miles out (500 RT) is considered local then? I am wanting to run out a day take my 10 on the road and then back or even 2 days out then back so my 500 mile RT's might not open those type of jobs doors ?? Thanks.

Companies that report to DAC generally do report your miles too. If your running more local, often, that local experience won't count with an OTR company. My company will hire experienced local drivers and let them go OTR but I don't think that's the norm in this industry.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Your miles/time on the road will be verified by the hiring company contacting the company you are currently working for and asking them. DAC is more for accidents/incidents and is updated by the companies. If you put DAC in the search bar at the top of the page you should be able to find info on how to get a copy of it.

Got my CDL late June of this year, been running 36 to 44 hours average a week for a medium sized logistics company hauling for a dedicated company. Probably got close to 10,000 miles solo by myself. My question is, down the road how do I "prove" my miles/experience to apply for other positions other than this company? Does my driving appear on my DAC automatically or what exactly how does information get on your DAC report or is this only for violations and such ? Thanks in advance for the replies.

Do you practice in a huge barren lot with no reference points only cones? I couldn't even get close on offset or 90 degree alley until we left the huge rock practice lot with nothing to use other than tiny orange cones for boundaries. Instructor by design took my group to the actual test facility with streets, curbs, trees and other visual stimuli and I almost did a perfect 90 degree alley on my first attempt. The lack of reference points was making me almost suffer from vertigo or something like that on the practice pad I think. I passed my 3 skills required 2 weeks later with 0 points deducted. P.S. I never could master the practice pad even 2 days before finals but would nail the actual test course for 2 solid weeks on virtually every attempt.

I have been 2 weeks at a truck driving school and my backing and driving is not looking good at all. Next week the class takes CDL test and if we pass CDL they hire us as drivers. I passed written test on first try easy and I found the pre-trip easy. After 3 days I had pre-trip and in-cab memorized easily. Memorizing a bunch of material and passing book tests is the easy part, driving is the hard part for me.

Our school evaluates us before we take our CDL on our skills and tells us if we flunk or pass. I flunked the driving and backing evaluation at school :( About half the students did very poorly on the evaluation; they failed or were very close to failing. I got two college degrees and was working as a Computer Technician at my old job before I decided to try trucking, but I feel really stupid in trucking school and feel like a failure.

Family members are thinking I should give up and go back to my old computer job. I haven't even taken the CDL driving test yet, but the backing and driving evaluations the school gives all their students before they take the CDL is not looking good at all. I have a very hard time judging distances. The instructor will tell me bring the truck within 2-3 feet of this cone I have a very hard time eyeballing distances and will bring it 4-5 feet instead. He will say move 6 feet behind this line. I can't just eyeball how much 6 feet is. Instead of it being 6 feet it will be either not enough like 4 feet or too much like 8 feet.

So I don't know what to do. Should I withdraw or wait it out and at least give myself a shot at the CDL exam and see what happens. I feel so discouraged. This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

One word why this technology is a long way, if ever, off ... Lawsuits

Brett mentioned "ham sandwich" there's and old adage most of us have heard "you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich "

You can extrapolate that out to "you can find a lawyer somewhere to sue a ham sandwich"

Deep pockets of big corporations attract lawsuits like flies to honey. Technology is not foolproof. Kill a carload of children (even if the driverless truck is ABSOLUTELY not at fault) and show a jury morgue pictures of dead and maimed little 10 or 12 year old little leaguers and the plaintiff's attorney closing argument is "yes the soccer mom's van crossed the centerline... but a professional operator (human) has been proven (by expert witnesses) to be able to avoid this type of collision with evasive moves that a driverless truck can't process (regardless of the validity of the argument or not.)

In the legal profession, expert witnesses are known as "liar for hire" and you will see sympathetic juries returning verdicts constantly in the TENS of millions of dollars against these publicly held big tech corporations.

Hey folks! We have our first article release in a new section we've put together called:

Truck Driving News, Interviews, And Happenings:
The People, The Stories, and The News From The Highways Of America

We're going to be doing op-ed pieces, interviews, driver features, and all kinds of interesting stuff.

Our Truck Driving Blog section has traditionally been mentoring-type articles like you would find in our Truck Driver's Career Guide. They are mostly aimed at helping new drivers prepare for life on the road.

This new section will be a much wider variety of things, and we're going to be featuring a lot of interviews with drivers from our forum and we'll be quoting you guys a lot in articles we'll be doing.

Today's release is our first and it was actually a spontaneous one, inspired by an experience I had yesterday trying to get some really simple directions on my phone. It brought to the forefront for me, for the millionth time, the pathetic state of software in our society today, and how utterly absurd the idea of self-driving trucks is today.

So I whipped out an op-ed piece called:

Self Driving Vehicles Are Coming Soon You Say? I Say Please Stop Clowning Us

Have a look and give us your thoughts right here! And if you don't have any thoughts then maybe you could send us a ham sandwich? Maybe some apple pie? Whatever ya got is fine. We're hearty eaters.

Enjoy!

Looks to me if the NYT reporter talked to anyone with a happy, positive thought about this career, they were ignored or not included. There is no way everyone interviewed had a tale of woe, unhappiness, bad health, lousy pay and lifestyle problems. This is a typical NYT "hit" for sensationalism or fitting their political agenda. I have four friends that truck (and recently two of them encouraged me into going to school and driving a truck) and none of the four had these type of negative comments about their career of many years. Bad food choices, like bad lifestyle choices are NOT the exclusive realm of truckers. I have three daughters in their late thirties all with four year liberal arts degrees and not ONE is making close to 50K a year.

The New York Times spent a couple of days at the Petro in Effingham, IL interviewing drivers.

Truckers feel like 'throwaway people'

I have the same ideas .... see the country ... get paid to do it. Motor homes depreciate fast, are costly to operate and I like the idea of not knowing what tomorrow brings.

I started my life living/working on a dairy farm. Then 20 years in the military traveling all over the world. After retiring from the military I worked in manufacturing for 2 or 3 years while I went to school for computers. Did computers for 15 years, 10 of that owning my own company.

Decided I wanted/needed a change, partly because the economy had made it difficult to make a living in the segment of the computer business I was involved in. Not that I really had job burnout from what I was doing, but felt I needed a change. Had wanted to drive big trucks since I had retired from the military, so this was my opportunity since our daughter was grown and out on her own.

So here we are 5+ years later, loving the decision I made to start driving. I consider this job/adventure as being a paid tourist traveling all over this big country of ours. I guess you could say I still had the traveling bug and wanted to be able to see parts of this country I had never been to.

Ernie

Yes, I retired and sold my business almost 10 years ago. I got burned out ...... from being retired. Like others here, I too had always liked the thought of trucking and as an added bonus, getting paid a decent amount to do it. I am in CDL school and my instructor is several years younger than me yet was a 39 year veteran of the Industry. I have no trouble listening nor staying awake in his class but see some twenty somethings classmates dozing off and staring blankly at the walls. He calls them out nicely about that .... but I think I can sense a possible failure in their career choice as I know not being alert and aware is a recipe for disaster in this business.

Just curious. The actual reason I started looking at this seriously, was what I felt was impending job burnout. Some 16 years after I started in this industry, I feel like it's time to close the book. Not just the chapter. The whole darn book. At one point I was somewhat revived by a promotion to management, but ultimately in my gut I know it's time. It's bittersweet for me. So many years I spent sponging up as much information as possible.

Thanks G-Town .... p.s I am really enjoying my CDL schooling so far.

I've seen them around, never talked with any of their drivers though. Here is a link on past threads and the TT review on them: Hogan

Good luck!

Thanks Rainy.

I don't see much on them, must be so small not much feedback on them because of it. Not out nothing to talk to them when I have my CDL in hand in June.

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