Aspiring Driver With Some Questions ?

Well....I was tryin' not to be the dark little cloud that rains on Jay K's parade...but her it is, down and dirty. My husband has driven all his life for companies. In 1996, I sold my mini ranch,all the livestock,equipment and stored what we wanted to keep. I cleared 70,000.00 on the sale. We put 40,000.00 down on a truck and trailer. We leased on with a company and went truckin'. I had a $30,000.00 cushion in the bank, in case we needed it. For the first few years,we pulled reefer.I hated the shippers and receivers, the eternal hours sitting in dirt lots, waiting for the produce to be grown and harvested, lying brokers, and the whole scenario. So we sold our reefer , bought a flatbed. Better money, nicer shippers and receivers. When the economy went in the crapper, so did trucking. Fuel costs went thru the roof, frieght didn't pay any better, but the company we were with did get us surcharges on all loads. We went thru 5 trucks from 1-97 to 7-13. Team driving puts the miles on them fast. But when it got down to pencil to paper time, we realized that all we were getting for owning our truck and trailer, was the responsibility of all the paperwork, repairs, maintenance, taxes, tags, permits, fuel taxes, the IRS, medical insurance, disability insurance, truck insurance, the list goes on and on. When we started, we ran west coast turn arounds because we LIKED it, and the money was great. In the later years, we ran like that just to pay the bills...All the fun was gone. We were fortunate to be able to pay all our bills, sell our truck for a small profit, and will probably go to work for a company that will offer everything that we had to pay for ourselves, plus some other benefits. The bottom line is this. Trucking by and large is slowly getting rid of the independent owner operators. I'm talking about the guys who have their own authority, or are leased to a company for the benefits they offer in exchange for a % of the load pay. But when you sit down with a pencil and paper, and see it in black and white, you will see that working for yourself (owning your own truck) will pay for the truck (hopefully) but it won't pay you a living wage on top of that. Medical insurance for a couple is atleast $500 per month, our truck insurance was about $500 a month, life insurance is $150 a month, fuel taxes,ton mile taxes per quarter were about $1000...and the list goes on..and on.. Unless you are independently wealthy, or need a tax write off, you don't need to get into owning a truck. It was great back in the day, and I cherish the memories of rebel runing with a line of trucks across CA at 2am, doing 80mph. But if I got that ticket today, I'd be in jail. Sadly, the days of the outlaw trucker are gone. And I'm sure that other drivers can agree with me when I say that you just don't see as many "chicken trucks" on the road today..with all their chrome, lights,air horns, fancy paint, blacked out windows, and gangster seating.....Its just to much to keep up with. When Guyjax sez the profit margin is razor thin, I'd like to change that to surgical scalpel thin.... I truly feel sorry for those new drivers coming up who will never know the freedom of being in a liine of trucks, running acorss NM at 80, with all the lights off, running in the moonlight...or goin' into I80 truck stop, cruise thru the chrome shop and buy whatever you want to hang on your truck. Our dropping trailers, and bobtailing to the nearest lake and swimming until the bbq was done. Now days you can't afford to take your eyes off your trailer.....You new drivers will do fine...but for us old dogs....the thrill is gone...

Lol I forgot about the moonlight runs out west. Those that are wondering what we are talking about back in the day you would have 10 to 15 trucks in a line (convoy) and set the cruise at 80 to 90 mph and turn out the lights through New Mexico and Arizona and Southern California. The moon was super bright. Lite up the road and had no problem seeing and driving. Back then people actually talked on the radio instead of the name calling.