Considering The Change To A Trucking Career - Input Welcome!

Hello all! My husband and I are seriously considering a change to a career in trucking, and this website has been incredibly insightful. I have a few questions, and would appreciate any answers or insight.

1. My husband is 60 years old (but in amazing physical health, no medications, no injuries) and a Canadian citizen. Will he have issues getting a job offer?

2. We want to stay together as a team, but can't afford the schooling so we'd be going to a company sponsored school. Are there any tips or tricks to ensure that we are hired as a team?

3. We live in Florida - are there hiring freezes here that anyone is aware of right now?

I'm sure I'll have a million more questions as I progress, but these were my top 3. Thank you for your help, and for having such a great site for guidance and real world information!

Barbara

You have a few possible problems: Your husband is a Canadian citizen...does he have a current US drivers license ?? FL isn't the best place for frieght....there are companies who haul out of there, and there are trucking schools in FL...but getting a company that will hire you with oyur home base in FL may well be a problem. Your husbands age is not a problem....alot of drivers are well over 60 !! Will you be wanting to drive team ?? If so, you may have a better chance getting a company to hire you with a FL home base. You can go to school together, but when you go over the road with your trainer, you will be going in separate trucks for the duration of your road training. You will then be able to run as a team. WELCOME to TT !!! and ask all the questions you have !! thats what we are here for !!!

Thanks Starcar! Hubby has had his FL drivers license for over a decade now, and he's worked legally in the US for more than 40 years. We definitely want to work as a team, but I figured we'd be training separately. Will it be possible to have a company agree to keep us together as a team before we start training, assuming of course that we both successfully complete the course? I know trucking companies want teams, so I'm assuming it's in their best interest to keep us together. I'm just nervous about us both giving up our jobs at the same time! I'd love to hear from any teams who went through a company sponsored school together. Any advice?

Thanks Starcar! Hubby has had his FL drivers license for over a decade now, and he's worked legally in the US for more than 40 years. We definitely want to work as a team, but I figured we'd be training separately. Will it be possible to have a company agree to keep us together as a team before we start training, assuming of course that we both successfully complete the course? I know trucking companies want teams, so I'm assuming it's in their best interest to keep us together. I'm just nervous about us both giving up our jobs at the same time! I'd love to hear from any teams who went through a company sponsored school together. Any advice?

Barbara, your concern is really nothing to worry about. Assuming you and your husband will complete training, you will definitely be able to drive as a team. Companies LOVE husband/wife teams. You will be gone 4-6 weeks training separately but after that you will be together. There doesn't need to be any signed agreement. The companies give the drivers what they want. For example, if I wanted to team drive with Starcar but we are both solo then they would route us to a terminal and we would be assigned the same truck as a team. It's really not a hassle or a nuisance to become team drivers and you'll encounter no resistance from the company about you two wanting to team drive - I promise you that.

You two will enter training at the same time so chances are you two will be upgrading at roughly the same time.

I understand your concern about you both giving up your jobs at the same time, but after training you both can choose what you want to do. When I upgraded, I had the option of team driving. Even now, I still have the option of team driving. Team driving is the greatest profit for any company simply because the truck never stops moving. The company doesn't make any money if the truck is sitting there. It's in their best interest to have that truck moving 24/7 and only a team can do that.

So honestly you have nothing to worry about. The company will not get in the way of you two wanting to be together as a team. They'll actually love you a little more for being a husband/wife team.

Daniel would never team with me......He'd haveta relocate......his MINT PLANT

Welcome aboard Barbara!

A lot of couples have your concerns over being separated during the training phase but I feel that's actually a really good idea. By having separate trainers in separate trucks it not only reduces the stress on everyone involved but it also give you and your husband different perspectives on how things are done. Like most things, in trucking there are many ways to get the job done. So getting different perspectives will allow you guys to compare notes when you're finished training and out on the road together.

That's a good perspective Brett. If a husband and wife team went through all the same training the wife would never have the opportunity to tell the husband he is doing it wrong

If a husband and wife team went through all the same training the wife would never have the opportunity to tell the husband he is doing it wrong

Indeed!

Well.....for you "Smarties"......TSB trained me to drive OTR....and I STILL found things he did wrong...like pulling to close to 4 wheelers infront of him at a stop. Then, when traffic starts moving, forgetting the 4 wheeler is there, and running into them !!!

Women can get very inventive when the times get tough......

Behind every good trucker...is a woman in the sleeper, telling him he should have taken that left !!!

Bret if i had a man that looks like you, i'd probably follow in my rv.