Conflicted (to Drive Or Not To Drive)
Topic 2356 | Page 1
Ryan, Welcome to the forum!
You are still very young, and you've got a young family. I am 53 years old, and I just started driving a truck for a living this past year. The reason I'm telling you that is because I just want you to realize that this career will still be around long after I'm too senile to even know what a big rig is. I don't know you or your situation in life, but I do know that truck driving is tough on families and marriages. Of course it can be done, and is done by many in your situation, but I'm glad that I got my kids raised before I started this job. You can start a truck driving career at just about any age. I saw a man get hired the same week that I did who was seventy three!
You will miss all the things that a young family enjoys doing together. The baseball games, camping trips, fishing with your kids, ballet recitals, whatever it is that you guys would be doing.
I'm not trying to discourage you, just want you to think about the ramifications of being an absentee dad - because like it or not that's what you will be.
On the other hand if you and your wife could agree on a plan where you worked an over the road job for just one year and then you had a plan to find a local driving job that might work better. But to be honest with you even the local jobs require long hours, and the time you have at home will be mostly spent sleeping so that you can get up an hit it hard the next day. If you could find a local job that gave you the weekends off that would really be great.
Just some things for you to think about while mulling this decision over.
Over The Road:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
Thanks Old School, these are things that have been keeping me a little distant from the profession, I work at a distribution center at the moment, and previously as well, my current job is ten hour days, which is not too bad, the previous one was mandatory 72 hr weeks, which was hard enough, but I switched jobs as I was told I would be hired as yard horse, where the training is provided, and no cdl is requires as the company owns all surrounding roads except, which I would not be allowed to cross, but instead they put me in the warehouse, stacking pallets, the current position is great workout but nowhere near the position I applied for, this is very discouraging to me and also another reason for resparking my interest in the career, I DEFINATELY want my cdl and if I have to take an otr job for a year as you stated to get it paid for I would have very little choice in the matter, then get a job at one of the sand mines or concrete truck or similar, I have experience with towtrucks firetrucks and boxtrucks, but when you hold a cdl the job market is much much higher, and I am just very tired of just scraping by and not having the means to give them what they want in life
CDL:
Commercial Driver's License (CDL)
A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:
- Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
- Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
- Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
Also a little off subject, but is there any way to get this western star off as my pick and put a nice truck up there, I noticed that thing on there and about died lol
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Ok so I have been rolling this over in my head for years now, and realize that the longer I don't get on the road the more I kick myself for it, I love to drive, I have always loved to drive, all my life if there was something that I had an opportunity to drive I HAD to drive it, I have always loved the peterbilt 379 extended hood with the round headlights and dreamt of driving one for a living, I have driven many many different types of vehicles, only to go back to not just wanting but itching to drive the real deal,
unfortunately life doesn't make things as easy as just go to the school and do it, not only I there the financial dilemma, BUT I am now 26 years old and have 3 kids, 1 turning 10 soon, 1 is 6, and 1 is turning 3 soon, and might even possibly have the 4th on the way,
from what I have seen there are several companies with the option to get the financial part taken care one way or another, the hard part is- are there any companies that have a reasonable amount of hometime? again funds are an issue to work in as well, but mainly I have not been away from my 3yr old for more than 2 days ever
any input would be great thank you very much in advance