Important Or Not

Terminals. How many a company has or if there are any near your Home of Residence. Why is this important or unimportant? Also for the experts besides Hometime, Pay and Training is there anything else you would tell a rookie is very important to look for. My CDL School I went to would tell us to look up safety score on FMSCA and cpm. That is the only thing they really preached of importance.

Terminals are convenient, but not important. On home time there are a number of places you can park your rig. I have a friend that parks his truck at a warehouse down the road from him. They don't charge him, but he's offered to pay. Truck stops are usually willing to let you park for a couple of days for a fee.

Safety score is a toss up. It's a collection of moving and DOT violations incurred by drivers that also fall on the company. For example you decide to drive a truck with a bad air leak and DOT catches you, the companies score will take a hit even though they never about the leak. Never drive a truck if you feel it's not roadworthy and protect your license.

CPM doesn't matter that much. Some companies have a higher CPM and offer no bonuses or deadhead pay. Other companies pay a lower CPM but offer bonuses and pay deadhead miles.

Hello, I find, in my opinion, that its not the amount of terminals that is important, its where they are located. If a companies terminals are strategically located throughout the country, with a larger network of trailer drop yards, it is better than having a large network of expensive terminals with large yards.

Like with my former company, they had several terminals, about a dozen or so terminals, and a few small "shop only" terminals with a maintenance shop, safety dept, logs, and a couple other admin offices spread out throughout the country. As far as home time, as long as I parked at my local truck stop, I was fine, unless I had a "high value" load, then I would need to deliver it before going on home time or securing it at a secured drop yard.

What I would suggest to a rookie is find out what major truck stops your company uses to fuel and sign up for their rewards cards to get free showers and points. Also, find out if your company uses truck stops shops, such as the TA/Petro shops for maintenance and inspections, this way not only do you get your company to pay for it, and for any extra fluids, bulbs, tires, etc., you get the points (and shower credits) to use towards in store purchases. I had always got my maintenance done at my local TA on weekends while on home time so I don't burn my clock and get in a reset.

Also, whatever company you go with, I found that if your company offers a dedicated account, you will usually get paid a few cpm more, plus safety pay of a couple cpm, plus stop pay, plus unload/assist unload pay, which all adds up to a larger total cpm average. Also, most of the ones I saw at my old company offered weekends off. My last account I averaged over 60cpm and 2200-2500 miles a week with weekends off. And your company may have an account near your home so you can be home on your days off....

Hey Cecilia, we all understand the overwhelming feelings that are associated with choosing that first trucking company to work with. Honestly, none of the things you mentioned are important considerations. I've never had a terminal near my home. Typically I spend very little time at any of my company terminals. There's little reason for an OTR driver to be at a terminal. I go to one when it's time for maintenance on my truck, and occasionally if they are in an area where I need to park for a ten hour break. Otherwise, I never use them.

Safety scores give you no idea about what it's like working for the company. Western Express had a terrible score when I was there, yet I had a great experience and built a solid foundation for my career while working there. I wouldn't focus on CPM either. Rookies are just beginners. We have so much to learn. Your focus needs to be on making sure Cecilia develops into learning how to be successful at this. Nobody's gonna hold your hand, and it's going to make no difference what name is on the doors of your truck.

Here's what you focus on right now...

1) How often do you want to get home?

2) What type of freight do you want to haul?

3) What regions of the country do you want to run?

That's it. Nothing more. That makes it simple. Don't get distracted from those three things. They are what's important for now.

Don't be frightened that you're going to make a bad choice. Go with a major carrier and apply yourself diligently to working at getting a grip on how this career works. Avoid the naysayers as if they had a highly contagious disease. They do, and it spreads like wildfire. We don't want to see you deteriorate into one of the folks who do nothing but complain and constantly search for a different company. It's a never-ending futile search that has no good ending.

The only way you'll be satisfied with this career is to figure out how to be good at it. That takes a lot of effort from you. Nobody hands that out or provides that ability, so don't count on the company as being critical to your success. Great drivers are content and very successful. That's what you want to be. You will discover that there's a lot of malcontents out here. You'll also find them focused on all the wrong things.

Right now focus on those three things I mentioned. That's all you need at this point.