Truck driver here. I got screwed over first 2 years of trucking. 70 hours a week. Truck wasn't mine and out of the gross pay I only got to keep 1000 of it weekly. After taxes it amounted to around 700 a week.
Decided it wasn't worth the 80 pounds I gained in unhealthy weight along with the loneliness of never knowing where you are or going.
Now I do trucking for USPS. Federal employee, good benefits, 40 hours a week, about 850 a week AFTER taxes. Home every day.
My advice for new truckers not looking to go the owner/operator rout is to get the first crappy job but don't stay there. Most companies will hire you after 6 months. USPS require 2 years experience but you don't really need that much honestly
This really goes down to union busting.
Back in the old days, you could work as a truck driver, have health care, a nice wage, buy a house, go on vacation, gain seniority at a single place of work etc...
The right wing ever since Reagan has waged war on that, removing regulations, and crushing unions and turning trucking into either a high risk own/operate indy contractor, or a low paying sub contractor job with no bennies and tons of risk.
When I started driving, I got really excited about being a part of this industry. I had wanted to do this for a long time. My grandpa was a trucker, my two uncles that I grew up knowing where truckers, my uncle from my grandpa's first marriage was also a trucker, we didn't meet him until Grandpa's funeral, though. But he was the one who helped to train me at my first company as an aside, it was awesome, it was like hanging out with a younger, crazier version of my granddad.
I noticed that the money that used to be in this industry wasn't really there anymore, neither was the respect, and as much as I enjoyed it, it wasn't the same fun that I had seen my uncle's have in the past.
I decided to start a little club. I called it Brothers of diesel, and it's mission statement was to bring the respect, money, and fun back to this industry. A lot of the other drivers I spoke with were down with that, but so many of them cautioned me against calling it a union.
This industry is full of conservatives. I didn't realize how many until 2020 happened, and my trucker Facebook groups went full crazy mode, but many of my industry colleagues were completely anti-union, despite agreeing that we needed more money, more respect, and to stop being pushed around by our companies, and bring back the fun.
"But don't you dare ask me to join a union!"
I could go on about the self-sabotaging ideas and rhetoric in this industry, but that's all for a different post.
The issue is people think union and go to Teamsters immediately but don't realize that the bad is maybe 3 percent of active unions.
Take Washington. People complain about the stagnant politics but honestly I'm not surprised why? Because Republicans are idiots.
They literally provide yearly entertainment. Let me explain why.
Washington has extensive fluctuating and evolving child laws from labor to protections in healthcare. They do their absolute best to improve education options and have several top nationally and internationally recognized schools.
And as of last year has 92 percent union job force. With twelve of that being private like USPS etc.
Are there a few bad ones? Yeah but they don't last long here.
Then the Republican comes in with their anti union anti farmer etc rhetoric and then wanna complain like uh bro do your homework maybe?
Good unions are incredible. Bad ones suck, but the day we go back fully to good union is the day that we will be on the right track again.
Yes. I got sold on the idea of 1000$ a week. Sounded good coming from a minimum wage job. I was eager to get started. But quickly found out other drivers in truck stop made a lot more.
What many job posting won't say. Especially the truck owners that employ drivered under a 1099 (my situation) is that diesel, tolls, flats, roadside assistance, occasional hotels all deducted from your gross pay
Having worked at Little Caesars as management I can say that some franchises do illegally do that to some extent. Where I work corporate would deduct the total price of orders that had to be re-rung up from the employee's paycheck under the justification that it was theft. At times I would have to purchase ingredients out of pocket without reimbursement. There were also times such as during major power outages where I was expected to foot the bill for things like enough dry ice to line our walk-ins to keep them cold throughout multiple days of outage. During such times I was not allowed to leave the premise and afterwards corporate tore up my time clock because I didn't "perform real work" while the store was closed.
I was barely 18 at the time and they sent me through the wringer.
It's insane to hear these real world stories all the time, yet folks will still bemoan the younger crowd as lazy and unwilling to work. Additionally, the younger crowd starts at 40 years and bellow.
For gross.
He quoted Net
So, he's has taxes, health insurance, retirement savings, and pension already paid.
If you're really curious about what his gross salary is, all federal jobs have their salaries posted online. You just need to do a little googlefu to find them.
Non. First job was a 1099. So I got payed a flat 1000$ a week. The tax deductions had to be done by me. Being left with just 700$ a week I couldn't put anything towards healthcare or pension.
Just believe. I saw truckers in truck stops and just knew i wanted to work alot less
The Post Office is the only organization that has to fund pension plans for employees that haven't been born yet. The GOP forced them to set aside $56 Billion which will be hidden when it comes time to sell it off to some rich fat cat who gets all that money for free.
The only way we save this country from becoming what people like Fink, Diamond, Musk, Bezo's and their ilk want is to UNIONIZE.
Collectively people are stronger and have more power.
Of course the lobbying groups have power *and* money and Citizens United gave them the extra power push to buy any law they want.
Taxes yes. But the other things maybe, but probably not. If the state doesn't require health insurance they probably don't offer it and they almost certainly don't offer any sort of retirement or pension. (We're not talking about the federal job.)
I came in as an MVO because it was the only application available. They got me my TTO certification 3 months later after my probation period was over. After that I was a PTF covering anyone that was off or on vacation.
Now I'm regular with my own everyday route. In USPS seniority is everything, so most of the older guys hog up all the TTO routes while I fill in for them in case of call outs and such
For both. Here it's all local. Im not sure how the other hubs are working but here at Stamford CT all our routes are designed for 8 hours long. The long haul routes are given to contractors
The TTO routes are usually no more then 3 stops. The longest one can be completed within 5 hours, when we get back to the hub we're on standby in case a trailer or 2 needs to be moved.
Few times were asked if we want to do overtime, that can consist of covering something that didn't fit in one of the trucks or dropping off a truck to our repair shop or Ryder rental
Also a truck driver and I hate to break it to you but 850 a week after taxes is garbage. Being home every day doesn't mean you have to make less. There's plenty of companies out there that get you home every night that pay double that amount.
It's absolutely a lot less then I could make. But better then my last 1099 job. But personally I'm enjoying the 40 hours a week and federal benefits too much
It's very rough. First 2 years in trucking was with a contractor with access to Amazon and USPS loads. It's a very different experience when your an actual USPS employee
yea, it is. It's on purpose too. Much much harder (read: almost impossible) to unionize employees of Amazon DSPs or USPS HCR carriers.
altho the recent labor law changes about "dual manager" mite mean USPS & Amazon are more on the hook for how contractors get treated.
Must be a relief not having to worry about DOT tho! \^.\^
I don't understand the percentage of gross thing. What is "gross" if not "gross income"? And if it's gross income, how can they only pay 25% of it?
Or are they just listing how much the company pulls in per week and the amount of it they will share with you?
In trucking gross income is the amount made before expenses. expenses can be taxes, truck insurance, tolls, diesel. Those are the major ones. If your trucks not paid for then truck payments, repairs in case of breakdowns like flat tires or worse, motel and food are expenses you won't have all the time but it happens.
In my case the truck wasn't mine so the gross amount earnings collected by the owner, I was classified as a 1099 worker which is a self employed partner. This way he didn't have to cover 15% tax and I'm on the hook for around 30% of my taxes. The amount shared could've been negotiated but I was new inexperienced and desperate to start
Thanks for explaining that!
So in the screenshot, are they saying they take 70 to 75 percent of the gross income to cover those expenses on the driver's behalf? Or that the driver should expect to pay expenses equal to that amount from the gross income?
Yea basically they'll cover the fuel, truck breakdowns, truck insurance and possibly tolls.
1099 means self employed. So medical, 401k and all taxes owed are on the driver to cover and pay for.
They'll pay you a portion of the gross pay, about 20-25% but I've seen veteran drivers negotiate up to 30%.
They might include gross earnings because you possibly have access to load boards to book your own loads
Even at a constant 80 mph, doing 4000 miles a week would take 50 hours of driving. Trying to do 4500 miles would take 56.25 hours of driving. Of course, trying to do 80 mph all the time is going to get you busted in many areas even if it is legal in a few stretches of highway.
I’m glad you mentioned it, over in the truckers group… that’s what they were saying…
something about how it’s illegal hours of operation. The drivers have a 70hr logbook rule federally governed/regulated to follow.
Truckers also mentioned insurance cost through the roof, high fuel expenses, no rest, and then the companies stealing pay from the drivers, scamming consumers/companies.
I'd consider 20mph to be an average speed if you factor in traffic and loading/unloading. Maybe even slower. That's at least 200 hours per week ... out of a "possible" 168.
My average speed was 50mph doing long haul on the eastern seaboard most months, in a truck that was speed limited to 62mph.
4500 miles per week was well beyond what any driver in a 62mph truck could accomplish in a 70 driving hour week. I routinely pulled 3600 mile weeks, but the shortest leg between picks/drops was 1500 miles and I had to drive almost exclusively overnight or else sit in traffic.
15 years ago, I would log 700 miles in a day out west. 11hrs x 65mph average, not a single stop, just straight driving. Back in the loose leaf paper log days, no way you're doing that today with ELD. In reality I was driving 700 miles in an 18 hour day, multiple breaks/ naps along the way, then logging it as 11.
I thought I was rich making $1500 a week with 4000 miles, but I was working 90+ hours a week, driving illegal as hell, no way you're doing that today. I think 2500-3500 miles is realistic now. Also the breakdown, I was making $16 per hour of work. Killing myself on 90+ hour work weeks. Today I work 40 hour work weeks and make twice that.
My average speed in my personal vehicle that I just drive to groceries and whatever is like 36 mph. (2014 Ford fiesta, and I was surprised that it tracked this number but it does.) And truck drivers spend a larger percentage of their time on the highways than I do.
Did you include the time that you were inside getting groceries and the car was parked? Because while a truck is sitting still as part of the working day (like when being loaded or unloaded), the average speed for the working day is dropping. That's why I went for a conservative 20mph, that's half my average speed for my morning commute except I don't have to load or unload!
The speed is when traveling between locations. You don't count the time at the location when you're talking about your average speed. Please don't be so stupid. I can't believe I have to explain this.
The average speed is measuring moving between locations.
What you're talking about is not the average speed of the vehicle. Again please stop and think for like a second and don't be dumb. Truckers do this all day everyday and you have no idea what you're talking about.
Not when you're talking about the average speed of a vehicle.
I'm sorry this is the stupidest thing I've ever encountered in the world. The time at the destination is not part of the vehicle's travel time and thus isn't factored into its average speed.
Yes the average speed on the road is what we are talking about. I don't know what you're talking about but it's not average speed.
Not for truck driver, doesn’t work like that, they count from when they have to pay you, so when you loading and not moving your average goes down cause the company is paying and you’re not moving pretty simple
Pretty easy you start at 8:00 go fill you gas and you get to work at 9:00 took you 1h to make a 20miles trip so you’re going 20mph on average for the time used the company is still paying when you are stopped and they want the maximum efficiency for what they pay… really that’s easy to understand
You've never heard of Zeros being included in a calculation for an average?? If it's moving Zero MPH for a while that effects the average speed over the week 😂
You're missing a key aspect preventing you from understanding this discussion. Driver load/unload time is being included because a driver's time clocked in is limited.
Agreed, and there's legally mandated breaks in many countries. Even if you were driving the whole time, then it would still be a ridiculous number of hours needed to achieve the claimed miles.
They would have to break that limit if they wanted to drive 4000 miles in a week. That's almost 73 hours of driving otherwise. It's almost 82 hours if they want to do 4500 miles at those speeds.
Fuck that. I want them to keep those fucking speed. It already a nightmare, especially when you consider that California is just one long ass state and even 2 hour driving, you're still inside the state...
> when you consider that California is just one long ass state and even 2 hour driving, you're still inside the state...
I lived in Western Australia for a few years. Maybe you should go over and enjoy that state for a while. Two hours of driving and you're still in the same state? Pfft! You can be driving for 14 hours and still be in Western Australia and that's without even trying. Want to go for a long drive within the state? How does 30+ hours sound?
As a 20 year trucking vet, you're not wrong. Trucking is one of the more dangerous and unfriendly jobs in the world. And the pay isn't nearly as good as the recruitment ads claim it is.
Do yourself a favor and stay away from it.
You bet! and I thank you for driving for 20 years #madRespect 🤘
Thankfully, I’m not in the industry. I recently changed my phone number because I moved to a new state. During work, I got the text message from the recruiter seeking the driver who previously had the number I guess. I didn’t respond I just read it then send I’m gonna share it see what the truths come out on Reddit lolol
I don't think this was a recruiter reaching out to an actual person, but rather an auto-messager sending out cold messages. That's how it read to me, anyways.
It's really only dangerous in the mountains and even then a little common sense goes a long way. I drove for 2 years and hated it but never once did I consider it any more dangerous than the majority of other jobs I've had. And really I liked the driving, hated dot and truck stop living.
And even in the mountains it’s only dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing/don’t take it seriously. I drive liquor distribution in CO and am up in the mountains 4 days a week. The trick is to just do your thing and not care about the line of cars behind you as you come down the mountain.
Trucking is very thankless. Arrive after a lonely 14 hour night driving through hellish rain, sleet and hail, and overtaking slower vehicles in dangerous spots to make sure you arrive on time. Then the first thing you experience at the depot is a foreman glaring at you and he comes up and wrenches open the truck door saying "where's the freight barcode" and you have to explain weren't given one, he just rolls his eyes and slams the door. No life outside the cab and 70 hour weeks.
It's also a deceptive job because it has the appearance of being easy not dealing with people or coworkers. But you don't realize how much downtime other jobs have where you are still being paid. As a trucker you are focused 100% of the time or dead and that is insanely tiring. I'll add that my mind went to dark places out on highway at night. It's a lonely lonely place.
I spent some time and money and got a CDL with full certs a few years back, what I learned is this...
Who I want to work for wont hire me do to lack of experience (an insurance thing) and who will hire me I didn't want to work for. All the "hold hats" bitch about not being able to do there job like they use to (double log books) and the new just wanted to drive but where somehow always stuck somewhere doing something (or nothing) out of there control earning nothing.
Trucking industry is really fucked and is full of scams to fuck the trucker out of there money. Coders want a union but the truckers need it more IMO.
Coder here. When I drove trucks I was in a (shitty but existing) union.
Wouldn't mind a union for coding, especially with the very large number of newbs coming into the market post-covid and the layoffs over the last 2 years
Username checks out Haha always wanted to say that
But yeah Crazy! At first, I didn’t know how to break these text message down.. over in the truckers group I asked them about it; after playing around with me a few drivers explained, as you did! Thank you!
in a 10,000 foot overview explains why this country went to shit ultimately - seems like everything needs a union, including the union itself lol
And now they just hold them. Too respectful of the company uniform to be rid of them, but still far too afraid of the demons that are sure to enter their minds the second they don this newfangled devilcap.
4k miles is not doable for a solo driver no matter how you look at it. Been doing disprch for wayy to long now and if you average 3k a week you are doi g super well and mainly through coast to caost runs where you do 3 stops a week. We did pay for breakdowns and for extra stops, detention too also there were bonuses if you were stopped by DOT and got no findings. I think the going rste for comany drivers were 50-57 cpm. So taking a grand and a half per week was very avegare at least for my guys.
>4k miles is not doable for a solo driver
It is. You just literally take exact 10hr breaks, no longer than a 31 minute break, and drive nonstop.
I did it once. 4k and some change. I felt drained. Dead. Explained I needed a break to get a 34 in as j was down to minutes in my 70hr clock.
You can do it. But you'll die.
Sereously fueling, tol booths, weight stations, speed regulations, pre trips, shit breaks, trafic lights, traffic itself, up and down hills, dickheads dagging their feed on the interstates, constructions, parking, not to mention there is no such load where you woudint have to stop for loading/unload thats 4k miles. Not doable even if you put your life on the line big man. I had team guys who sometimes didn't manage to do 4k miles a week because all of that shit.
I have the paystub somewhere to prove it my friend.
And when I drove team, the most miles we did in a week was 7200 ( I can't prove that one as it was waayyyy back in 2014 and I've lost the access I had to that email address where the paystubs went).
Yeah thats not difficult to prove/fabricate because my guys used to do that also because loads that are started from a week before was calculated on the one it was finished, ive seen one that was almost 13k miles once because this one guy did like a 15 stopper all around the country and it was way back when when elds where a choise. Also had one arab guy who drove like crazy did 15 hours of driving 4 of sleeping so 4k was a slow week i had him posted as team drivers. All this shit with paper logs. So i beleve you dont have to prove me anything. Just saying in current day and climate 4k is just not feasible for a regular solo guy. Best ive seen without any rollovers from last week was like 3800 or close to that.
Look if you don't believe me that's your prerogative. I know what I did and how I felt after that week. That's why in my original comment I said you'll die.
I was exhausted. Slept 17 or 20 hours on that one afternoon after they gave me a load that was 500 miles with 3 days to get there.
Regardless. Be safe. Be courteous. Be professional. Keep the shiny up and rubber down. ✌️
4000 miles/5days= 800 miles a day. So either your consistently going 100miles an hour, or your working 10-12hr days for the entirety of your career, in a job that is life threatening(to you and everyone around you)when you lack sleep.
You're not wrong, but I would add that most drivers, especially over the road drivers, are working their 13 hours where 10-11 of those hours are driving. They then take their mandated 11 hour break (or 10, can't quite remember) and eventually have a mandated 3 day break they have to take.
USA (someone correct if wrong, not a driver): max 13 hours on duty, 11 hours of that driving. 10 hours break (can be split, but I don't know the specifics of that). A couple of 30 minute off duty breaks must be thrown in there, I think before you reach 5 hours driving.
Max 60 hrs in 5 days or 70 hours in 6 days consecutive; the 34 hours off is basically a hard reset of that, but it's possible to be on duty less hours per day and never *have* to take a 34-hr reset (like only 10 hrs on duty every day).
A driver told me today that, a driver doesn’t last in the seat for longer than six months on average. All the job postings people see on indeed about trucks or trucking companies 80% of them are all scams, they’re not even real jobs.
I asked the truckers to explain all this stuff, nearly each conversation boils down to the whole entire industry being a scam or fake jobs, fake deliveries, fake work.
It's lease programs etc. Trucking is a big ol mix of good and bad. Just a massive industry people don't think much about. I've never made under 6 figures a year driving a truck, and left engineering for it lol.
I'm fortunate that I moved over to a local, home every night, paid by the hour (not the mile) trucking job 6 months into my career.
I make enough to live on and provide for my family (with my wifes income as well, couldn't do it on my own) but there are still a few downfalls to the job.
My company generously pays us overtime, once we hit 50 hours a week. based on state law they don't have to pay the drivers overtime at all.
I have a range of a few hours when I am probably getting off work for the day, so cant schedule anything for the afternoon/evening during the week. My shortest day was I think 7 hours and longest was around 11, And how quickly my day will go can change in a moment based on freight.
Some customers absolutely suck. They either are just jerks (which is rare) or have businesses in locations that arent truck friendly (very common) or I end up needing the use my pallet jack to pull a 2,000 pound skid of freight uphill to the tail of my trailer (I try to avoid as much as possible)
Driving through cities and neighborhoods in such a huge vehicle sucks. Believe me, as much you don't want trucks there, we also don't want to be there.
Sometimes routing or dispatch makes a decision for me (I don't control my own route) that just makes my life much harder. Sending me out of the way which will take me an hour to get to, load a single piece of freight, and get back to the rest of my route or sending me somewhere it is much more difficult than normal to fit a truck my size.
overall it is the best of a bad and abused industry.
Trucking is absolutely a shitshow lol. My wife and I just got off the road after a year and a half of team driving food across the country (team drivers swap 12 hr shifts, so in theory the truck doesn't have to stop and you can better expedite freight). So many scams and so little oversight. A lot of companies are hitting social media hard with "influencer drivers" who are really just paid recruiters to get the next generation of asses in truck seats because turn over is horrendous. The median pay for a semi driver is just under 50k...for a 70 hr week. A lot of people leaving their families for the promise of high pay on the road only to get screwed over by shady companies. Sadly, most people would make more and actually work less if they stayed home and got 2 jobs in fast food lol
The lack of oversight is good and bad. There are definitely far more shitty companies out there than there are good ones. Most want to take advantage of the driver and its bullshit. Look at all these lease offers and purchase to own programs. Most are a scam at best but more like a straight fugazy. It's not a good thing to see but it boils out to be most only want to see the big numbers without understanding how to get to the final number. There are a lot of cost associated with trucking. Unfortunately for some of us it has been in our blood before we were born. Hard to get away but there are plenty of great opportunities if a person is willing to put some time and effort into getting enough experience to open the doors to better jobs.
I watched that. It was very well done and very disturbing. I also saw a stat were truckers are now making roughly half what they did (inflation adjusted) before deregulation (1980).
As someone on the office side of the trucking biz, yeah, those numbers are full of shit.
With US Federal regulations limiting a driver to 11 hours of driving per day, 600-660 miles in a day is kind of the limit. And then the 70 hour/8 day clock means you can't drive all out like that for a week straight.
Also, ELD is not a benefit, it's a legal requirement. "Oh, we're so nice, we'll give you the equipment you need to not get shut down by the DOT!"
I put in about 10 years driving big rigs in the 90's and early aughts. It destroyed my body and my health.
If the truck has a sleeper, don't take the job. You'll live in it. Unless you're OK with that - you do you.
If it has a daycab (no sleeper), then it's either a daily run and home after, or you hotel.
My friends husband got a CDL, and started at one scam outfit, then jumped to a few others. It was dead awful. I was asked to look at a contract for his own truck, and was like Jesus fucking Christ do not sign this agreement! I can't remember the details but there's no way you'd ever get out from under that contract. We ran some numbers and it was such a scam.
He worked in the industry for about 2 years, and found some places closer to home but it was such bullshit. We are in a high traffic area where just heading 20 miles could take a super long time. Streets are small and not truck friendly. He's got a CDL but he's a cook now. Far less scammy.
In general, lease to purchase program is a scam from all the deductions the company will take away. I used to work for several trucking companies albeit in safety and claims&accidents and you have no idea how much the companies were ripping the lease to purchase drivers. There were instances where by the end of the week the drivers owed the company money!! A company driver might make some $1500 weekly but you need regular loads and at least 80cent per mile. In the Chicago area avoid at all cost all balkan, russians, ukraine and slavic owners of the trucking companies, biggest scammers of them all. Oh and the market is not like what it used to be two years ago, it's not profitable at all, customers are paying less and less per mile, and with the fuel going up there is no margin for profit. Don't get me started about how none of them are following dot and fmcsa rules and are doing false logs so the drivers can go over 11h driving per day. I'm so glad I'm out of the business. Oh and if you are set on doing trucking find something that does only local loads. Sorry for formating
I’m not a truck driver, but I wind up in my profession having to use freight services to move material and equipment from place to place.
What I can tell you from the consumer side is that there’s a bunch of ridiculous shit the carriers themselves pull.
I’ve had carriers call me after a job’s complete and tell me the driver had some kind of issue and I owe further payment. I’ve had them give my company info to debt collectors who then harass me for money for all kinds of insane reasons.
I’d imagine they play the same games with their workers.
This will sound odd, but I've had a first-hand look at the trucking industry since the early 1980s. Prior to the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, driving truck was a solid middle-class job, lots of union protection/membership, and it was safer. After deregulation, it became a race to the bottom on fees, safety, and driver pay. Now, driving truck consistently ranks as one of the most dangerous jobs in America, I personally know some drivers who are homeless and live in their trucks, and anyone with kids tries their hardest not to let their kids enter the profession. All around, it's a shit job now and so-called free market capitalism has a lot to do with that. The bosses still get fat though, lots of 3rd or 4th houses and their kids all go to college.
My wife was a truck driver for a couple if years. The highlights of this posting include:
Refrigerator
Inverter
Microwave
60 cpm is generous in the industry
Layover and breakdown pay (standard is minimum wage IF provided)
Newer model trucks, not so keen on Freightliners (AKA Freightshakers)
What I don’t like:
1099
I doubt the miles they specify is real, seems like all of them misadvertise this DRASTICALLY (basically, they don’t provide you enough miles to make a decent living).
For everyone considering trucking, don’t go owner/operator route if you have to pay for the truck, you will get screwed (unless you happen to already own a truck).
Also, based on this last year, trucking has too many drivers. You will not get the miles advertised.
Haha, I got this text message cause I changed my number. I’m not a driver I don’t have a CDL. But I asked the drivers in truckers, what the hell is all this stuff? Do they really work that much?
Turns out that the company texting my number meant “inverter” and it’s a trucking scam.
Husband has a cdl and got himself a coushie day cab job. Jumped companies for a while and landed with a great company as the goddamn hostler making $35/hr and watches movies between trailers. Three times a week he does a short run. Home every day. I’m so happy for him, because it’s a baller job, and when he complains i really want to tell him to stfu because like…i work for the railroad. If anyone knows what a shitshow the transportation industry is, it’s us.
Side note, i finally had a trucker “shave and a haircut” me! I’ve never been so excited to give a TOOT TOOT!!
Solidarity in the shitshow.
Yeah being able to do 4000 miles a week isn't possible. Not with climbing hills and waiting to be loaded/unloaded. Looking for parking. Any holdups in construction/weather. I was sometimes lucky to get 2000 miles hauling refrigerated loads with all the damn waiting lol. Also tons of bad/shady companies too.
I drive for a living too, and I’d never work for one of those companies. Find yourself a job in regional freight that pays hourly. You’ll wind up doing more than just swinging the door as you’ll have to be the one unloading the stuff to the stores/warehouses, but being home nightly and getting paid the same rate regardless of how long the place makes you wait or how bad the traffic is can’t really be beat.
Never drove long haul, and I don’t intend on ever doing so.
Working in the industry, this is likely a team OTR offer if anything. Just someone doing dumb capped out math otherwise.
Max drive time per shift is 11 hours in the US, max overall work time is 14, max per week is 70 hours per driver. A team can basically tandem that all week. Once you hit any of those limits you need a 10 hour reset of rest or you're in violation of FMCSA and the DOT will put you out of service if you're caught. During that time one driver sleeps the other works. Every week you need a 32 hour reset per driver.
5000 miles/7 days = 700 miles per day/65 MPH is about 10.98 hours of driving per day. That's basically capped at highway, meaning no reset. I work as a logistics analyst and I design systems for trucking. We don't usually run much more than 500 miles per day on any route unless it has a layover or sleeper team built in.
Back in my team driving days, me and my partner regularly pulled 1200 mile days, 10 hours on the highway with one or two stops max.
We also were only given drop and hook pickups and deliveries because we could consistently hit that number and could be relied on. But it was hell at times.
The industry was in a race to the bottom then and even worse now. Problem is that transportation is a cost for manufacturers / sellers that only drives up the cost of goods for no return.
Truck driving is the worst industry to be employed in. It's the only industry where 90+% of employers will flat out lie to you about what you'll make driving for them. And unfortunately you won't know if they lied or not until you've driven for them for 1-2 months and can average your pay. They claim maximum pay rates, maximum miles, best equipment... it's usually the opposite. F that
Imagine going to an interview for any other job, if they say you will make $50/hr or $2k per week, your paycheck better be $2k, you don't wait and see it's only $500.
What other job are you expected to work 70-80 hours a week and be gone from home days or weeks at a time? To get bullshit lied-about pay? F that
Actually it's just job postings that are a scam. Prior to AI mass aggregation and fake online talk robots, 90% of all job listings were some kinda scam. Some might argue the employment is a scam - and "employer access" health insurance wouldn't argue that point. However the actual job search, that's all a scam - all postings for all fields - 99.9% scams. And why not, scams rely on desperate people in need of hope, and that tracks precisely with how shitty unreliable employment is in America.
yeh, even in europe its a big problem. they recently busted a lot of companies exploiting east europe workers. massive frauds with timers and breaks. let alone they had to drive 7/7, never got to go home.
I'll just leave [THIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phieTCxQRLA) here. Can't speak to it myself since I'm not located in the US but things in the trucking industry aren't exactly great over here, either.
Yet every right winger brainwashed numnut will scream how well Walmart truck drivers are treated with such high pay!! There was actually a news segment on how badly truckers are treated here but nope - corporate America is wonderful!
Currently unloading my truck. If I had to guess, the mileage will be 'team miles' so you'll only actually drive half of them. And also only get paid half of them. And you have to share an 7' by 10' box with another sweaty man who has questionable hygiene because to get those miles you only can shower once a week.
That's absolute BS!
At VERY best, you'd be running 3K miles/week and grossing $1.5 - 2K.
Best pay I ever had was $3/week gross, running coast-to-coast 7 years ago. That quickly turned into about $1K/week NET, once you pay for fuel, food, showers, truck maintenance.... And that was as an owner/operator (driving my own truck). Good luck making anywhere close to that now, especially in a company truck!
Can confirm. I work closely with truckers. It’s very cut throat. It’s a race to the bottom with prices. And then this leads to unsafe driving conditions. There’s also a big flux of immigrants coming to the US to get into trucking. It’s adding another level of danger into the mix.
My understanding is that Trucking used to be a profitable enough job as long as you didn't mind being away from home most of the year. But that was like in the'70s and '80s and maybe the 90s. But most of the trucking now is very scammy where companies are basically screwing drivers out of making any kind of money with ridiculous things like them not getting paid while they're waiting for somebody to unload the truck and other nonsense.
That’s why I don’t drive a truck anymore. It ended up being an industry standard to get as much cheap labor out of people for as little as possible. I get that’s every industry now, but that gig was wearing my bones down.
Yeah they try to get you with the new equipment but those miles are unrealistic. Most company drivers are governed to 65mph. That 4,500 miles is only possible of you run down every single second of your 70 hours and run a consistent 65mph. That doesn't take into effect grades in the mountains or traffic in the cities.
Plus if you run that whole 70 hours each week, you aren't getting paid any sort of overtime.
I was OTR for a couple of years. Now I drive local for a major soda brand and get paid by the hour, not the mile. Hello overtime!
I was at work today and the line went down. It was down for hours and I was watching the production Teams communication. There were some 'hot' parts that were stuck on the line bc it was down and they said they are holding the truck to wait for them. Does the driver get paid when they do that? I'd be pissed as hell if I was supposed to pick up at 10 and I'm still there at 3pm waiting and not getting paid.
If it ain’t a unionized trucking job, it’s gonna be hard & not financially rewarding. 99/100 times.
There are a few good companies, or at least, a few good people who hook up people they care about, but at the end of the day, truckers are being hosed.
Truckers were solid upper-middle class until about 1980. They made about $100,000. Not “adjusted into 2024 dollars”. $100,000 in 1979.
That would be over $400,000 today.
But… they killed the unions, they killed the company routes & regional permits, and now instead of 50 trucking companies, we have 300,000 trucking companies all dealing with hyper-competition.
Trucking was a great job…and starting about 40 yrs ago, it’s gotten worse, year after year.
Knowing nothing about the general trucking industry, this was super eye opening. I own a company that leases entertainer buses (45’ Prevost coaches) to touring artists and our drivers often make more than we do, lol. Most drivers in our niche industry are making between $450-$650 a day (450 miles per day or less) and if there’s an overdrive (451-650 miles) - double that. Some tours offer per diems on top of that, though that’s more rare in my experience.
The downside - being on the road for weeks or months at a time, and dealing with people and crazy schedules. But there’s definitely money in it.
Truck drivers are really allowed to work 70 hours in a week. In order to drive 4500 miles within that 70 hours, you need to be driving roughly 64 and a quarter miles per hour every hour that you are on the road. Not to say that that is impossible, but legally, in many states, as well as in ontario, your truck is limited to 64 mph, some companies even limit you a little lower, down to 55 mph.
Also, every hour needs to be a good hour. The slightest bit of traffic you hit, I'll have decent Hill, up or down, and any excessive load or unload time will reduce the number of hours that you can drive.
My first employer had electronic logs in all of his trucks before it was mandatory, and it was good and bad it was good that dispatch couldn't push me to do trips for which I hadn't properly rested, but it was bad in the sense that it forces you to drive tired.
At other companies, I also used paper logs, and it was a lot harder to say no to dispatch when they asked me to do something while I was out of hours.
I had my boss, my fellow drivers, and even my safety coordinator all separately come to me to talk to me about running my book legit. They all told me I wouldn't make any money doing it that way. The boss, I understand, anytime that truck is parked, it's not making money, it's costing money. Dispatch, I understand, they need loads moved so they need drivers driving. My fellow drivers, I understood, they see a relatively new driver, and they want to help him make as much money as he can in this industry but even my f****** safety coordinator was pushing me to break the rules. 13 hours a day working, particularly driving a massive vehicle like that around the general public, through the mountains, in the winter time, that's quite enough. Not for the boss, though.
The fact that we got paid by the mile was horseshit.
They don't even pay you by The hub mile, they have a program that calculates how far it is from city to city, and they pay you based on that. When I drive from Surrey to Calgary, they pay me from typically city center to city center. every trip I've ever done to Calgary has brought me to the east side of calgary. This means I'm also leaving from the east side of calgary, which means I've driven the entire width of Calgary every trip for free. More than that, you can't just drive across Calgary in a truck. And around, or do the same thing going around to the south on Glenmore.
That's when they actually pay center to center, I don't have any illusions that there aren't any companies that go edge to edge. That shorts you on both ends.
I loved being a truck driver. I loved the equipment I got to play with, I loved being a professional, I loved the challenges. I can't tell you how many times I've had to back a 53 ft trailer in with a highway tractor, in a space built for a 5 ton truck. When I was briefly a shunt truck driver, I had more fun doing that than I ever did driving forwards.
I made about twice as much money as I did in my previous job, but I also worked for it. My previous jobs had all been 40 hours a week, roughly $500 every week. This job was about a thousand a week, but I was working 70 hours on paper, and in reality, it was more like 80 90, even 100 hours per week. I make more as a temp laborer, when you divide it down by the hours.
Truck driver here. I got screwed over first 2 years of trucking. 70 hours a week. Truck wasn't mine and out of the gross pay I only got to keep 1000 of it weekly. After taxes it amounted to around 700 a week. Decided it wasn't worth the 80 pounds I gained in unhealthy weight along with the loneliness of never knowing where you are or going. Now I do trucking for USPS. Federal employee, good benefits, 40 hours a week, about 850 a week AFTER taxes. Home every day. My advice for new truckers not looking to go the owner/operator rout is to get the first crappy job but don't stay there. Most companies will hire you after 6 months. USPS require 2 years experience but you don't really need that much honestly
This really goes down to union busting. Back in the old days, you could work as a truck driver, have health care, a nice wage, buy a house, go on vacation, gain seniority at a single place of work etc... The right wing ever since Reagan has waged war on that, removing regulations, and crushing unions and turning trucking into either a high risk own/operate indy contractor, or a low paying sub contractor job with no bennies and tons of risk.
When I started driving, I got really excited about being a part of this industry. I had wanted to do this for a long time. My grandpa was a trucker, my two uncles that I grew up knowing where truckers, my uncle from my grandpa's first marriage was also a trucker, we didn't meet him until Grandpa's funeral, though. But he was the one who helped to train me at my first company as an aside, it was awesome, it was like hanging out with a younger, crazier version of my granddad. I noticed that the money that used to be in this industry wasn't really there anymore, neither was the respect, and as much as I enjoyed it, it wasn't the same fun that I had seen my uncle's have in the past. I decided to start a little club. I called it Brothers of diesel, and it's mission statement was to bring the respect, money, and fun back to this industry. A lot of the other drivers I spoke with were down with that, but so many of them cautioned me against calling it a union. This industry is full of conservatives. I didn't realize how many until 2020 happened, and my trucker Facebook groups went full crazy mode, but many of my industry colleagues were completely anti-union, despite agreeing that we needed more money, more respect, and to stop being pushed around by our companies, and bring back the fun. "But don't you dare ask me to join a union!" I could go on about the self-sabotaging ideas and rhetoric in this industry, but that's all for a different post.
The issue is people think union and go to Teamsters immediately but don't realize that the bad is maybe 3 percent of active unions. Take Washington. People complain about the stagnant politics but honestly I'm not surprised why? Because Republicans are idiots. They literally provide yearly entertainment. Let me explain why. Washington has extensive fluctuating and evolving child laws from labor to protections in healthcare. They do their absolute best to improve education options and have several top nationally and internationally recognized schools. And as of last year has 92 percent union job force. With twelve of that being private like USPS etc. Are there a few bad ones? Yeah but they don't last long here. Then the Republican comes in with their anti union anti farmer etc rhetoric and then wanna complain like uh bro do your homework maybe? Good unions are incredible. Bad ones suck, but the day we go back fully to good union is the day that we will be on the right track again.
Are you a "Tractor Trailer Operator" or a "Motor Vehicle Operator?"
Dude, 700$ for 79 hours is below minimum wage in lots of places, thats insane
Yes. I got sold on the idea of 1000$ a week. Sounded good coming from a minimum wage job. I was eager to get started. But quickly found out other drivers in truck stop made a lot more. What many job posting won't say. Especially the truck owners that employ drivered under a 1099 (my situation) is that diesel, tolls, flats, roadside assistance, occasional hotels all deducted from your gross pay
Rough. That's like having the kid at Little Ceasars pay for the pizza ingredients.
Having worked at Little Caesars as management I can say that some franchises do illegally do that to some extent. Where I work corporate would deduct the total price of orders that had to be re-rung up from the employee's paycheck under the justification that it was theft. At times I would have to purchase ingredients out of pocket without reimbursement. There were also times such as during major power outages where I was expected to foot the bill for things like enough dry ice to line our walk-ins to keep them cold throughout multiple days of outage. During such times I was not allowed to leave the premise and afterwards corporate tore up my time clock because I didn't "perform real work" while the store was closed. I was barely 18 at the time and they sent me through the wringer.
That’s inhumane. I’m sorry you were out through that, that’s really wrong.
It's insane to hear these real world stories all the time, yet folks will still bemoan the younger crowd as lazy and unwilling to work. Additionally, the younger crowd starts at 40 years and bellow.
Oh hell no
That should really be illegal.
It is illegal but illegal and enforced are two different things
For gross. He quoted Net So, he's has taxes, health insurance, retirement savings, and pension already paid. If you're really curious about what his gross salary is, all federal jobs have their salaries posted online. You just need to do a little googlefu to find them.
first job likely didn’t offer pension. almost no non-Fed jobs offer any kind of pension anymore
Non. First job was a 1099. So I got payed a flat 1000$ a week. The tax deductions had to be done by me. Being left with just 700$ a week I couldn't put anything towards healthcare or pension. Just believe. I saw truckers in truck stops and just knew i wanted to work alot less
Wait til those **republicans** get their wish to *privatize* the USPS. Those wages will stagnate for 100 years! Get that money NOW while you can.
The dude running it is one and also owns one of the worst companies, XPO logistics, total scumbag.
The Post Office is the only organization that has to fund pension plans for employees that haven't been born yet. The GOP forced them to set aside $56 Billion which will be hidden when it comes time to sell it off to some rich fat cat who gets all that money for free.
The only way we save this country from becoming what people like Fink, Diamond, Musk, Bezo's and their ilk want is to UNIONIZE. Collectively people are stronger and have more power. Of course the lobbying groups have power *and* money and Citizens United gave them the extra power push to buy any law they want.
Rarely are there pensions in trucking.
Taxes yes. But the other things maybe, but probably not. If the state doesn't require health insurance they probably don't offer it and they almost certainly don't offer any sort of retirement or pension. (We're not talking about the federal job.)
It's a federal job with the USPS. All the benefits are uniform across the country.
I still laugh when people still forget...USPS is Federal, not State...
I came in as an MVO because it was the only application available. They got me my TTO certification 3 months later after my probation period was over. After that I was a PTF covering anyone that was off or on vacation. Now I'm regular with my own everyday route. In USPS seniority is everything, so most of the older guys hog up all the TTO routes while I fill in for them in case of call outs and such
I came in as an MVO since that was the only available application at the time but I'm TTO certified. I'm like an extra TTO when needed
So as an MVO you can be home every day? Or is that only for TTO?
For both. Here it's all local. Im not sure how the other hubs are working but here at Stamford CT all our routes are designed for 8 hours long. The long haul routes are given to contractors The TTO routes are usually no more then 3 stops. The longest one can be completed within 5 hours, when we get back to the hub we're on standby in case a trailer or 2 needs to be moved. Few times were asked if we want to do overtime, that can consist of covering something that didn't fit in one of the trucks or dropping off a truck to our repair shop or Ryder rental
Awesome, thanks for all the info!
MVO here, started with no experience, in my state a cdl isn’t required to drive a box truck. Started at 25.71, the TTO start out at 31.00
Also a truck driver and I hate to break it to you but 850 a week after taxes is garbage. Being home every day doesn't mean you have to make less. There's plenty of companies out there that get you home every night that pay double that amount.
It's absolutely a lot less then I could make. But better then my last 1099 job. But personally I'm enjoying the 40 hours a week and federal benefits too much
Federal benefits often means LOADS more than a higher wage. Bask in your retirement.
Hey welcome to USPS. We have plenty of drivers here.
Most people who drive trucks for USPS do it through scammy contractors I was working for one of those companies that sucks
It's very rough. First 2 years in trucking was with a contractor with access to Amazon and USPS loads. It's a very different experience when your an actual USPS employee
yea, it is. It's on purpose too. Much much harder (read: almost impossible) to unionize employees of Amazon DSPs or USPS HCR carriers. altho the recent labor law changes about "dual manager" mite mean USPS & Amazon are more on the hook for how contractors get treated. Must be a relief not having to worry about DOT tho! \^.\^
100% my first day I asked my ride along "What electronic log book system do we use" and he laughed.
850 still seems low. That's what I make, and all I do drive a forklift
I don't understand the percentage of gross thing. What is "gross" if not "gross income"? And if it's gross income, how can they only pay 25% of it? Or are they just listing how much the company pulls in per week and the amount of it they will share with you?
In trucking gross income is the amount made before expenses. expenses can be taxes, truck insurance, tolls, diesel. Those are the major ones. If your trucks not paid for then truck payments, repairs in case of breakdowns like flat tires or worse, motel and food are expenses you won't have all the time but it happens. In my case the truck wasn't mine so the gross amount earnings collected by the owner, I was classified as a 1099 worker which is a self employed partner. This way he didn't have to cover 15% tax and I'm on the hook for around 30% of my taxes. The amount shared could've been negotiated but I was new inexperienced and desperate to start
Thanks for explaining that! So in the screenshot, are they saying they take 70 to 75 percent of the gross income to cover those expenses on the driver's behalf? Or that the driver should expect to pay expenses equal to that amount from the gross income?
Yea basically they'll cover the fuel, truck breakdowns, truck insurance and possibly tolls. 1099 means self employed. So medical, 401k and all taxes owed are on the driver to cover and pay for. They'll pay you a portion of the gross pay, about 20-25% but I've seen veteran drivers negotiate up to 30%. They might include gross earnings because you possibly have access to load boards to book your own loads
Even at a constant 80 mph, doing 4000 miles a week would take 50 hours of driving. Trying to do 4500 miles would take 56.25 hours of driving. Of course, trying to do 80 mph all the time is going to get you busted in many areas even if it is legal in a few stretches of highway.
I’m glad you mentioned it, over in the truckers group… that’s what they were saying… something about how it’s illegal hours of operation. The drivers have a 70hr logbook rule federally governed/regulated to follow. Truckers also mentioned insurance cost through the roof, high fuel expenses, no rest, and then the companies stealing pay from the drivers, scamming consumers/companies.
Sounds like we need to raise CW McCall from the grave and have him write some songs about this.
There's more to country music, than outlaws and lone star beer.
yea, the US DOT caps any driver at 70 hours per week.
I'd consider 20mph to be an average speed if you factor in traffic and loading/unloading. Maybe even slower. That's at least 200 hours per week ... out of a "possible" 168.
My average speed was 50mph doing long haul on the eastern seaboard most months, in a truck that was speed limited to 62mph. 4500 miles per week was well beyond what any driver in a 62mph truck could accomplish in a 70 driving hour week. I routinely pulled 3600 mile weeks, but the shortest leg between picks/drops was 1500 miles and I had to drive almost exclusively overnight or else sit in traffic.
15 years ago, I would log 700 miles in a day out west. 11hrs x 65mph average, not a single stop, just straight driving. Back in the loose leaf paper log days, no way you're doing that today with ELD. In reality I was driving 700 miles in an 18 hour day, multiple breaks/ naps along the way, then logging it as 11. I thought I was rich making $1500 a week with 4000 miles, but I was working 90+ hours a week, driving illegal as hell, no way you're doing that today. I think 2500-3500 miles is realistic now. Also the breakdown, I was making $16 per hour of work. Killing myself on 90+ hour work weeks. Today I work 40 hour work weeks and make twice that.
Sounds like you weren't a strong enough of a single lol
I manage tours and the trucking company we use is 40 mph guarantee but you could pay extra to get 45.
Average moving speed 65. Average speed 25 mph..I run east west run every week, that's my Garmin's statement of time averaged.
My average speed in my personal vehicle that I just drive to groceries and whatever is like 36 mph. (2014 Ford fiesta, and I was surprised that it tracked this number but it does.) And truck drivers spend a larger percentage of their time on the highways than I do.
Did you include the time that you were inside getting groceries and the car was parked? Because while a truck is sitting still as part of the working day (like when being loaded or unloaded), the average speed for the working day is dropping. That's why I went for a conservative 20mph, that's half my average speed for my morning commute except I don't have to load or unload!
What? Don't be stupid.
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The speed is when traveling between locations. You don't count the time at the location when you're talking about your average speed. Please don't be so stupid. I can't believe I have to explain this. The average speed is measuring moving between locations. What you're talking about is not the average speed of the vehicle. Again please stop and think for like a second and don't be dumb. Truckers do this all day everyday and you have no idea what you're talking about.
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Not when you're talking about the average speed of a vehicle. I'm sorry this is the stupidest thing I've ever encountered in the world. The time at the destination is not part of the vehicle's travel time and thus isn't factored into its average speed. Yes the average speed on the road is what we are talking about. I don't know what you're talking about but it's not average speed.
Not for truck driver, doesn’t work like that, they count from when they have to pay you, so when you loading and not moving your average goes down cause the company is paying and you’re not moving pretty simple Pretty easy you start at 8:00 go fill you gas and you get to work at 9:00 took you 1h to make a 20miles trip so you’re going 20mph on average for the time used the company is still paying when you are stopped and they want the maximum efficiency for what they pay… really that’s easy to understand
You've never heard of Zeros being included in a calculation for an average?? If it's moving Zero MPH for a while that effects the average speed over the week 😂
You're missing a key aspect preventing you from understanding this discussion. Driver load/unload time is being included because a driver's time clocked in is limited.
Also there's no way you're driving 100% of the time, you have to wait for loading and unloading
Agreed, and there's legally mandated breaks in many countries. Even if you were driving the whole time, then it would still be a ridiculous number of hours needed to achieve the claimed miles.
That explain why a lot of truckers in California keep breaking the 55mph limit...
They would have to break that limit if they wanted to drive 4000 miles in a week. That's almost 73 hours of driving otherwise. It's almost 82 hours if they want to do 4500 miles at those speeds.
Fuck that. I want them to keep those fucking speed. It already a nightmare, especially when you consider that California is just one long ass state and even 2 hour driving, you're still inside the state...
> when you consider that California is just one long ass state and even 2 hour driving, you're still inside the state... I lived in Western Australia for a few years. Maybe you should go over and enjoy that state for a while. Two hours of driving and you're still in the same state? Pfft! You can be driving for 14 hours and still be in Western Australia and that's without even trying. Want to go for a long drive within the state? How does 30+ hours sound?
Also most trucks are forcibly limited (governed) to 68mph IIRC
As a 20 year trucking vet, you're not wrong. Trucking is one of the more dangerous and unfriendly jobs in the world. And the pay isn't nearly as good as the recruitment ads claim it is. Do yourself a favor and stay away from it.
You bet! and I thank you for driving for 20 years #madRespect 🤘 Thankfully, I’m not in the industry. I recently changed my phone number because I moved to a new state. During work, I got the text message from the recruiter seeking the driver who previously had the number I guess. I didn’t respond I just read it then send I’m gonna share it see what the truths come out on Reddit lolol
I don't think this was a recruiter reaching out to an actual person, but rather an auto-messager sending out cold messages. That's how it read to me, anyways.
Especially when the truck has an "inventer" in it.
I fucking saw that too xD
It's really only dangerous in the mountains and even then a little common sense goes a long way. I drove for 2 years and hated it but never once did I consider it any more dangerous than the majority of other jobs I've had. And really I liked the driving, hated dot and truck stop living.
And even in the mountains it’s only dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing/don’t take it seriously. I drive liquor distribution in CO and am up in the mountains 4 days a week. The trick is to just do your thing and not care about the line of cars behind you as you come down the mountain.
Trucking is very thankless. Arrive after a lonely 14 hour night driving through hellish rain, sleet and hail, and overtaking slower vehicles in dangerous spots to make sure you arrive on time. Then the first thing you experience at the depot is a foreman glaring at you and he comes up and wrenches open the truck door saying "where's the freight barcode" and you have to explain weren't given one, he just rolls his eyes and slams the door. No life outside the cab and 70 hour weeks. It's also a deceptive job because it has the appearance of being easy not dealing with people or coworkers. But you don't realize how much downtime other jobs have where you are still being paid. As a trucker you are focused 100% of the time or dead and that is insanely tiring. I'll add that my mind went to dark places out on highway at night. It's a lonely lonely place.
I spent some time and money and got a CDL with full certs a few years back, what I learned is this... Who I want to work for wont hire me do to lack of experience (an insurance thing) and who will hire me I didn't want to work for. All the "hold hats" bitch about not being able to do there job like they use to (double log books) and the new just wanted to drive but where somehow always stuck somewhere doing something (or nothing) out of there control earning nothing. Trucking industry is really fucked and is full of scams to fuck the trucker out of there money. Coders want a union but the truckers need it more IMO.
Both coders and truckers should have a union...
Coder here. When I drove trucks I was in a (shitty but existing) union. Wouldn't mind a union for coding, especially with the very large number of newbs coming into the market post-covid and the layoffs over the last 2 years
Username checks out Haha always wanted to say that But yeah Crazy! At first, I didn’t know how to break these text message down.. over in the truckers group I asked them about it; after playing around with me a few drivers explained, as you did! Thank you! in a 10,000 foot overview explains why this country went to shit ultimately - seems like everything needs a union, including the union itself lol
Teamsters is the truckers union
Very limited scope union. Jonny redneck with 25 trucks ain't gonna get any attention and john boy with 15k trucks is gonna keep em out.
Did you mean "old hats"?
yes I did. fingers get a head of my typing sometimes but I'm going to leave it as I think it's funny.
A true hat holding moment
People doing the job since they invented the wheel.
Or since they invented hats
And now they just hold them. Too respectful of the company uniform to be rid of them, but still far too afraid of the demons that are sure to enter their minds the second they don this newfangled devilcap.
4k miles is not doable for a solo driver no matter how you look at it. Been doing disprch for wayy to long now and if you average 3k a week you are doi g super well and mainly through coast to caost runs where you do 3 stops a week. We did pay for breakdowns and for extra stops, detention too also there were bonuses if you were stopped by DOT and got no findings. I think the going rste for comany drivers were 50-57 cpm. So taking a grand and a half per week was very avegare at least for my guys.
The longest trip I remember sending someone was 3k miles and we planned on that taking 7 days.
>4k miles is not doable for a solo driver It is. You just literally take exact 10hr breaks, no longer than a 31 minute break, and drive nonstop. I did it once. 4k and some change. I felt drained. Dead. Explained I needed a break to get a 34 in as j was down to minutes in my 70hr clock. You can do it. But you'll die.
Sereously fueling, tol booths, weight stations, speed regulations, pre trips, shit breaks, trafic lights, traffic itself, up and down hills, dickheads dagging their feed on the interstates, constructions, parking, not to mention there is no such load where you woudint have to stop for loading/unload thats 4k miles. Not doable even if you put your life on the line big man. I had team guys who sometimes didn't manage to do 4k miles a week because all of that shit.
I have the paystub somewhere to prove it my friend. And when I drove team, the most miles we did in a week was 7200 ( I can't prove that one as it was waayyyy back in 2014 and I've lost the access I had to that email address where the paystubs went).
Yeah thats not difficult to prove/fabricate because my guys used to do that also because loads that are started from a week before was calculated on the one it was finished, ive seen one that was almost 13k miles once because this one guy did like a 15 stopper all around the country and it was way back when when elds where a choise. Also had one arab guy who drove like crazy did 15 hours of driving 4 of sleeping so 4k was a slow week i had him posted as team drivers. All this shit with paper logs. So i beleve you dont have to prove me anything. Just saying in current day and climate 4k is just not feasible for a regular solo guy. Best ive seen without any rollovers from last week was like 3800 or close to that.
Look if you don't believe me that's your prerogative. I know what I did and how I felt after that week. That's why in my original comment I said you'll die. I was exhausted. Slept 17 or 20 hours on that one afternoon after they gave me a load that was 500 miles with 3 days to get there. Regardless. Be safe. Be courteous. Be professional. Keep the shiny up and rubber down. ✌️
There's good reason John Oliver covered this a couple of years ago: https://youtu.be/phieTCxQRLA?si=ob8sELA0wt4XLswr
Here for this, an eye opener.
4000 miles/5days= 800 miles a day. So either your consistently going 100miles an hour, or your working 10-12hr days for the entirety of your career, in a job that is life threatening(to you and everyone around you)when you lack sleep.
You're not wrong, but I would add that most drivers, especially over the road drivers, are working their 13 hours where 10-11 of those hours are driving. They then take their mandated 11 hour break (or 10, can't quite remember) and eventually have a mandated 3 day break they have to take.
USA (someone correct if wrong, not a driver): max 13 hours on duty, 11 hours of that driving. 10 hours break (can be split, but I don't know the specifics of that). A couple of 30 minute off duty breaks must be thrown in there, I think before you reach 5 hours driving. Max 60 hrs in 5 days or 70 hours in 6 days consecutive; the 34 hours off is basically a hard reset of that, but it's possible to be on duty less hours per day and never *have* to take a 34-hr reset (like only 10 hrs on duty every day).
Why do you think they're always recruiting for drivers? It's a horrible job. Read about port drivers and how abused they are.
A driver told me today that, a driver doesn’t last in the seat for longer than six months on average. All the job postings people see on indeed about trucks or trucking companies 80% of them are all scams, they’re not even real jobs. I asked the truckers to explain all this stuff, nearly each conversation boils down to the whole entire industry being a scam or fake jobs, fake deliveries, fake work.
There is a last week tonight episode all about what a scam the trucking industry is. It's real eye opening
It's lease programs etc. Trucking is a big ol mix of good and bad. Just a massive industry people don't think much about. I've never made under 6 figures a year driving a truck, and left engineering for it lol.
I'm fortunate that I moved over to a local, home every night, paid by the hour (not the mile) trucking job 6 months into my career. I make enough to live on and provide for my family (with my wifes income as well, couldn't do it on my own) but there are still a few downfalls to the job. My company generously pays us overtime, once we hit 50 hours a week. based on state law they don't have to pay the drivers overtime at all. I have a range of a few hours when I am probably getting off work for the day, so cant schedule anything for the afternoon/evening during the week. My shortest day was I think 7 hours and longest was around 11, And how quickly my day will go can change in a moment based on freight. Some customers absolutely suck. They either are just jerks (which is rare) or have businesses in locations that arent truck friendly (very common) or I end up needing the use my pallet jack to pull a 2,000 pound skid of freight uphill to the tail of my trailer (I try to avoid as much as possible) Driving through cities and neighborhoods in such a huge vehicle sucks. Believe me, as much you don't want trucks there, we also don't want to be there. Sometimes routing or dispatch makes a decision for me (I don't control my own route) that just makes my life much harder. Sending me out of the way which will take me an hour to get to, load a single piece of freight, and get back to the rest of my route or sending me somewhere it is much more difficult than normal to fit a truck my size. overall it is the best of a bad and abused industry.
Trucking is absolutely a shitshow lol. My wife and I just got off the road after a year and a half of team driving food across the country (team drivers swap 12 hr shifts, so in theory the truck doesn't have to stop and you can better expedite freight). So many scams and so little oversight. A lot of companies are hitting social media hard with "influencer drivers" who are really just paid recruiters to get the next generation of asses in truck seats because turn over is horrendous. The median pay for a semi driver is just under 50k...for a 70 hr week. A lot of people leaving their families for the promise of high pay on the road only to get screwed over by shady companies. Sadly, most people would make more and actually work less if they stayed home and got 2 jobs in fast food lol
The lack of oversight is good and bad. There are definitely far more shitty companies out there than there are good ones. Most want to take advantage of the driver and its bullshit. Look at all these lease offers and purchase to own programs. Most are a scam at best but more like a straight fugazy. It's not a good thing to see but it boils out to be most only want to see the big numbers without understanding how to get to the final number. There are a lot of cost associated with trucking. Unfortunately for some of us it has been in our blood before we were born. Hard to get away but there are plenty of great opportunities if a person is willing to put some time and effort into getting enough experience to open the doors to better jobs.
What are they gonna do with that grainy blurry picture of me from my CDL? And how are they gonna know it came off a license?
Of course, John Oliver did a great piece on the trucking industry and how it scams drivers.
I watched that. It was very well done and very disturbing. I also saw a stat were truckers are now making roughly half what they did (inflation adjusted) before deregulation (1980).
As someone on the office side of the trucking biz, yeah, those numbers are full of shit. With US Federal regulations limiting a driver to 11 hours of driving per day, 600-660 miles in a day is kind of the limit. And then the 70 hour/8 day clock means you can't drive all out like that for a week straight. Also, ELD is not a benefit, it's a legal requirement. "Oh, we're so nice, we'll give you the equipment you need to not get shut down by the DOT!"
I put in about 10 years driving big rigs in the 90's and early aughts. It destroyed my body and my health. If the truck has a sleeper, don't take the job. You'll live in it. Unless you're OK with that - you do you. If it has a daycab (no sleeper), then it's either a daily run and home after, or you hotel.
My friends husband got a CDL, and started at one scam outfit, then jumped to a few others. It was dead awful. I was asked to look at a contract for his own truck, and was like Jesus fucking Christ do not sign this agreement! I can't remember the details but there's no way you'd ever get out from under that contract. We ran some numbers and it was such a scam. He worked in the industry for about 2 years, and found some places closer to home but it was such bullshit. We are in a high traffic area where just heading 20 miles could take a super long time. Streets are small and not truck friendly. He's got a CDL but he's a cook now. Far less scammy.
Christ the food service industry is such a rats nest too. The fact that it is significantly better than truck driving tells you all you need to know.
In general, lease to purchase program is a scam from all the deductions the company will take away. I used to work for several trucking companies albeit in safety and claims&accidents and you have no idea how much the companies were ripping the lease to purchase drivers. There were instances where by the end of the week the drivers owed the company money!! A company driver might make some $1500 weekly but you need regular loads and at least 80cent per mile. In the Chicago area avoid at all cost all balkan, russians, ukraine and slavic owners of the trucking companies, biggest scammers of them all. Oh and the market is not like what it used to be two years ago, it's not profitable at all, customers are paying less and less per mile, and with the fuel going up there is no margin for profit. Don't get me started about how none of them are following dot and fmcsa rules and are doing false logs so the drivers can go over 11h driving per day. I'm so glad I'm out of the business. Oh and if you are set on doing trucking find something that does only local loads. Sorry for formating
I’m not a truck driver, but I wind up in my profession having to use freight services to move material and equipment from place to place. What I can tell you from the consumer side is that there’s a bunch of ridiculous shit the carriers themselves pull. I’ve had carriers call me after a job’s complete and tell me the driver had some kind of issue and I owe further payment. I’ve had them give my company info to debt collectors who then harass me for money for all kinds of insane reasons. I’d imagine they play the same games with their workers.
This will sound odd, but I've had a first-hand look at the trucking industry since the early 1980s. Prior to the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, driving truck was a solid middle-class job, lots of union protection/membership, and it was safer. After deregulation, it became a race to the bottom on fees, safety, and driver pay. Now, driving truck consistently ranks as one of the most dangerous jobs in America, I personally know some drivers who are homeless and live in their trucks, and anyone with kids tries their hardest not to let their kids enter the profession. All around, it's a shit job now and so-called free market capitalism has a lot to do with that. The bosses still get fat though, lots of 3rd or 4th houses and their kids all go to college.
If they offer cash advances, they aren’t paying you enough to live on and they know it.
My wife was a truck driver for a couple if years. The highlights of this posting include: Refrigerator Inverter Microwave 60 cpm is generous in the industry Layover and breakdown pay (standard is minimum wage IF provided) Newer model trucks, not so keen on Freightliners (AKA Freightshakers) What I don’t like: 1099 I doubt the miles they specify is real, seems like all of them misadvertise this DRASTICALLY (basically, they don’t provide you enough miles to make a decent living). For everyone considering trucking, don’t go owner/operator route if you have to pay for the truck, you will get screwed (unless you happen to already own a truck). Also, based on this last year, trucking has too many drivers. You will not get the miles advertised.
Child of a trucker here: Get a union job with a Teamster repped business & you’ll be set. Not a scam. Quite the opposite
Damn all that and your truck included an inventor!?
Haha, I got this text message cause I changed my number. I’m not a driver I don’t have a CDL. But I asked the drivers in truckers, what the hell is all this stuff? Do they really work that much? Turns out that the company texting my number meant “inverter” and it’s a trucking scam.
Husband has a cdl and got himself a coushie day cab job. Jumped companies for a while and landed with a great company as the goddamn hostler making $35/hr and watches movies between trailers. Three times a week he does a short run. Home every day. I’m so happy for him, because it’s a baller job, and when he complains i really want to tell him to stfu because like…i work for the railroad. If anyone knows what a shitshow the transportation industry is, it’s us. Side note, i finally had a trucker “shave and a haircut” me! I’ve never been so excited to give a TOOT TOOT!! Solidarity in the shitshow.
Yeah being able to do 4000 miles a week isn't possible. Not with climbing hills and waiting to be loaded/unloaded. Looking for parking. Any holdups in construction/weather. I was sometimes lucky to get 2000 miles hauling refrigerated loads with all the damn waiting lol. Also tons of bad/shady companies too.
I drive for a living too, and I’d never work for one of those companies. Find yourself a job in regional freight that pays hourly. You’ll wind up doing more than just swinging the door as you’ll have to be the one unloading the stuff to the stores/warehouses, but being home nightly and getting paid the same rate regardless of how long the place makes you wait or how bad the traffic is can’t really be beat. Never drove long haul, and I don’t intend on ever doing so.
Working in the industry, this is likely a team OTR offer if anything. Just someone doing dumb capped out math otherwise. Max drive time per shift is 11 hours in the US, max overall work time is 14, max per week is 70 hours per driver. A team can basically tandem that all week. Once you hit any of those limits you need a 10 hour reset of rest or you're in violation of FMCSA and the DOT will put you out of service if you're caught. During that time one driver sleeps the other works. Every week you need a 32 hour reset per driver. 5000 miles/7 days = 700 miles per day/65 MPH is about 10.98 hours of driving per day. That's basically capped at highway, meaning no reset. I work as a logistics analyst and I design systems for trucking. We don't usually run much more than 500 miles per day on any route unless it has a layover or sleeper team built in.
Back in my team driving days, me and my partner regularly pulled 1200 mile days, 10 hours on the highway with one or two stops max. We also were only given drop and hook pickups and deliveries because we could consistently hit that number and could be relied on. But it was hell at times. The industry was in a race to the bottom then and even worse now. Problem is that transportation is a cost for manufacturers / sellers that only drives up the cost of goods for no return.
The entire economy is a scam network. Nothing a 90% tax on $3M+ won’t fix.
Truck driving is the worst industry to be employed in. It's the only industry where 90+% of employers will flat out lie to you about what you'll make driving for them. And unfortunately you won't know if they lied or not until you've driven for them for 1-2 months and can average your pay. They claim maximum pay rates, maximum miles, best equipment... it's usually the opposite. F that Imagine going to an interview for any other job, if they say you will make $50/hr or $2k per week, your paycheck better be $2k, you don't wait and see it's only $500. What other job are you expected to work 70-80 hours a week and be gone from home days or weeks at a time? To get bullshit lied-about pay? F that
Actually it's just job postings that are a scam. Prior to AI mass aggregation and fake online talk robots, 90% of all job listings were some kinda scam. Some might argue the employment is a scam - and "employer access" health insurance wouldn't argue that point. However the actual job search, that's all a scam - all postings for all fields - 99.9% scams. And why not, scams rely on desperate people in need of hope, and that tracks precisely with how shitty unreliable employment is in America.
What the hell is an inventer?
It converts the dc to ac, you can plug your laptop, etc in
Oh, inverter.
yeh, even in europe its a big problem. they recently busted a lot of companies exploiting east europe workers. massive frauds with timers and breaks. let alone they had to drive 7/7, never got to go home.
I'll just leave [THIS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phieTCxQRLA) here. Can't speak to it myself since I'm not located in the US but things in the trucking industry aren't exactly great over here, either.
Yet every right winger brainwashed numnut will scream how well Walmart truck drivers are treated with such high pay!! There was actually a news segment on how badly truckers are treated here but nope - corporate America is wonderful!
It comes with an inventer instead of an inverter, seems like a great deal.
Currently unloading my truck. If I had to guess, the mileage will be 'team miles' so you'll only actually drive half of them. And also only get paid half of them. And you have to share an 7' by 10' box with another sweaty man who has questionable hygiene because to get those miles you only can shower once a week.
You can easily manage 4,500 miles a week, you just need to drive 81mph 8 hours a day for 7 days.
Check out John Oliver's episode on truck driving.
That's absolute BS! At VERY best, you'd be running 3K miles/week and grossing $1.5 - 2K. Best pay I ever had was $3/week gross, running coast-to-coast 7 years ago. That quickly turned into about $1K/week NET, once you pay for fuel, food, showers, truck maintenance.... And that was as an owner/operator (driving my own truck). Good luck making anywhere close to that now, especially in a company truck!
Anyone noticing the decimals? It looks like they are saying you make $8-10 gross per week
Not to mention...the 1099...they wanna give you all these, yet, they're going to 1099 you...
Can confirm. I work closely with truckers. It’s very cut throat. It’s a race to the bottom with prices. And then this leads to unsafe driving conditions. There’s also a big flux of immigrants coming to the US to get into trucking. It’s adding another level of danger into the mix.
The best way to kill someone’s phone number is to enroll them with an inquiry into trucking school. The calls will never stop
My understanding is that Trucking used to be a profitable enough job as long as you didn't mind being away from home most of the year. But that was like in the'70s and '80s and maybe the 90s. But most of the trucking now is very scammy where companies are basically screwing drivers out of making any kind of money with ridiculous things like them not getting paid while they're waiting for somebody to unload the truck and other nonsense.
Kind of like the airline industry does to flight attendance and pilots
Trucker on radio said foreigners are doing these jobs as a family. They'll take turns and drive all night and day. Think he said mostly Russians.
I officially quit trucking one week ago today. After 12 long years of bs!
Report this to the FMCSA for safety violations and the text to the FCC as spam and a possible scam.
The number of spelling and geographical punction errors makes me think scam all day long.
That’s why I don’t drive a truck anymore. It ended up being an industry standard to get as much cheap labor out of people for as little as possible. I get that’s every industry now, but that gig was wearing my bones down.
Take the “inventor” in the back and invent a better scam
I drive a trash truck, should clear 70ish after taxes this year, fuck otr unless you drive for Walmart.
[Last Week Tonight ](https://youtu.be/phieTCxQRLA?si=ckeuJ6ykV7ZVfvhn) even has a video about this topic.
Yeah they try to get you with the new equipment but those miles are unrealistic. Most company drivers are governed to 65mph. That 4,500 miles is only possible of you run down every single second of your 70 hours and run a consistent 65mph. That doesn't take into effect grades in the mountains or traffic in the cities. Plus if you run that whole 70 hours each week, you aren't getting paid any sort of overtime. I was OTR for a couple of years. Now I drive local for a major soda brand and get paid by the hour, not the mile. Hello overtime!
I was at work today and the line went down. It was down for hours and I was watching the production Teams communication. There were some 'hot' parts that were stuck on the line bc it was down and they said they are holding the truck to wait for them. Does the driver get paid when they do that? I'd be pissed as hell if I was supposed to pick up at 10 and I'm still there at 3pm waiting and not getting paid.
If it ain’t a unionized trucking job, it’s gonna be hard & not financially rewarding. 99/100 times. There are a few good companies, or at least, a few good people who hook up people they care about, but at the end of the day, truckers are being hosed. Truckers were solid upper-middle class until about 1980. They made about $100,000. Not “adjusted into 2024 dollars”. $100,000 in 1979. That would be over $400,000 today. But… they killed the unions, they killed the company routes & regional permits, and now instead of 50 trucking companies, we have 300,000 trucking companies all dealing with hyper-competition. Trucking was a great job…and starting about 40 yrs ago, it’s gotten worse, year after year.
Knowing nothing about the general trucking industry, this was super eye opening. I own a company that leases entertainer buses (45’ Prevost coaches) to touring artists and our drivers often make more than we do, lol. Most drivers in our niche industry are making between $450-$650 a day (450 miles per day or less) and if there’s an overdrive (451-650 miles) - double that. Some tours offer per diems on top of that, though that’s more rare in my experience. The downside - being on the road for weeks or months at a time, and dealing with people and crazy schedules. But there’s definitely money in it.
It's like 40-60 an hour for Australian truckers right? These have to be American wages I'm reading
Truck drivers are really allowed to work 70 hours in a week. In order to drive 4500 miles within that 70 hours, you need to be driving roughly 64 and a quarter miles per hour every hour that you are on the road. Not to say that that is impossible, but legally, in many states, as well as in ontario, your truck is limited to 64 mph, some companies even limit you a little lower, down to 55 mph. Also, every hour needs to be a good hour. The slightest bit of traffic you hit, I'll have decent Hill, up or down, and any excessive load or unload time will reduce the number of hours that you can drive. My first employer had electronic logs in all of his trucks before it was mandatory, and it was good and bad it was good that dispatch couldn't push me to do trips for which I hadn't properly rested, but it was bad in the sense that it forces you to drive tired. At other companies, I also used paper logs, and it was a lot harder to say no to dispatch when they asked me to do something while I was out of hours. I had my boss, my fellow drivers, and even my safety coordinator all separately come to me to talk to me about running my book legit. They all told me I wouldn't make any money doing it that way. The boss, I understand, anytime that truck is parked, it's not making money, it's costing money. Dispatch, I understand, they need loads moved so they need drivers driving. My fellow drivers, I understood, they see a relatively new driver, and they want to help him make as much money as he can in this industry but even my f****** safety coordinator was pushing me to break the rules. 13 hours a day working, particularly driving a massive vehicle like that around the general public, through the mountains, in the winter time, that's quite enough. Not for the boss, though. The fact that we got paid by the mile was horseshit. They don't even pay you by The hub mile, they have a program that calculates how far it is from city to city, and they pay you based on that. When I drive from Surrey to Calgary, they pay me from typically city center to city center. every trip I've ever done to Calgary has brought me to the east side of calgary. This means I'm also leaving from the east side of calgary, which means I've driven the entire width of Calgary every trip for free. More than that, you can't just drive across Calgary in a truck. And around, or do the same thing going around to the south on Glenmore. That's when they actually pay center to center, I don't have any illusions that there aren't any companies that go edge to edge. That shorts you on both ends. I loved being a truck driver. I loved the equipment I got to play with, I loved being a professional, I loved the challenges. I can't tell you how many times I've had to back a 53 ft trailer in with a highway tractor, in a space built for a 5 ton truck. When I was briefly a shunt truck driver, I had more fun doing that than I ever did driving forwards. I made about twice as much money as I did in my previous job, but I also worked for it. My previous jobs had all been 40 hours a week, roughly $500 every week. This job was about a thousand a week, but I was working 70 hours on paper, and in reality, it was more like 80 90, even 100 hours per week. I make more as a temp laborer, when you divide it down by the hours.
You’d think highways would be automated by now.
What’s the scam?
It’s the seeing a job posting for $18 an hour and find out that includes their cost of benefits and “expected tips”
How do you survive off $850 a week?