Profile For J L.

Thanks all! I'll check at a community college and all that soon. I have started doing the high road training on this site, and I did apply to the link on this site for the paid CDL training and so far prime has gotten back to me and said they have no positions (in socal), and before that I'd tried schneider's site, and they got nothing here too, or within 100 miles. The thing is my applying address is in socal, but I can pick up and move to wherever i gotta go whenever someone gets back to me to say there's a job there. I'm gonna read all your responses more deeply, out ubering right now, but for now I wanted to post the last part that got cut off from the word count and then i forgot because my first topic needed to be approved to post.

"But if I had gone the paid training route, then they would definitely take me, but I would not be able to quit for 1 - 2 years, and I'm their slave for all that time. And I may not even make any money doing it, just breaking even. OR I can pay a fee that's much higher than the cost of the CDL to be let out. So if I go the company-paid route, I could still hypothetically quit IF one day something better came along, completely risking on that the better job would pay me enough to pay them back? And I'd probably be blacklisted from ever getting a trucking job again right? I probably wouldn't do that, I can't see much else in the future but this, but I'd like to know just in case.

Aight, thats all typed, hope you read it and can help me understand. Thanks

Oh yeah and on reddit they encourage people to do LTL…whats that?"

Also I see you say there's no such thing as bad companies, but I've heard that like some companies will pay for your food and give you a private room or something, and others will stick you in a shady motel with other people. Some will pay fairly and some will have you do dangerous and illegal things and barely pay for it, or be uncontactable or something. Also, if you ever have an accident or something, are you on the hook for the costs, or does the company handle that?

Thanks all

Hello, I'm in my 30s and I want to get my CDL to be driving a truck and make some good money for once in my life. I don't know anything about cars or manual labor, but I'm a video nerd and worked in hollywood and now my career is dead in the water with AI and strikes and everything, and I'm worried about AI taking creative and tech jobs, and I'm finding it impossible to be hired as anything else, even fast food here in socal, so I have to learn to do this to make money at all. I already basically live in my car with not much of a life to miss in the first place, the lonely/isolation bit of this doesn't sound too bad. This sounds much better than waiting around for ubereats orders making $30 per 12-hour day. Bonus points if I can get a sleeper and have truck that has a bed and all that. I can stay awake for a long time and drove a van all along the coast for 16 hour drives before. I prefer night driving if there's a choice.

I'm worried about getting stuck with a bad company though, not knowing what to look for or what even really constitutes "bad company", and then being in their debt for a year or two from paid CDL training. Is Knight a good company? I have reached out to the WOIA unemployment program and went to a seminar and filled out forms for them. They said they could possibly help me get a CDL for a lower price than usual, but I haven't heard from them in a few weeks and they don't answer my calls so I don't think they're going to help.

I have a bachelors, totally clean record, no drugs or alcohol, no crime no accidents. Well one… was not my fault, a reckless driver smashed into my car while it was parked, knocking me deeper into debt.

I tried to join a discord from reddit to learn more and make trucker friends and they were mean and unhelpful, hope here will be better.

Here's my long vision of what's it's like, correct me if im wrong:

Once I am able to get into a class (which typically costs around 5k—dont got that. need another way in) I'll spend 4-8 weeks being paid, learning how to drive the truck both written and in experience, pass some written tests, and then drive with an instructor/teammate, and then drive on my own racking up hours in a training period, and then I'll be able to go out on my own. Then I have to look for a job but since I have a CDL it'll be easy to get into any company, they are always hiring and they'll take you even if you're homeless with no experience. Then they will give me a truck and i'll have to maintain and check it for any problems, keeping it at a lot somewhere that I'll have to drive to, and then drive it somewhere, maybe crosscountry. Making around $1000 a week, minimum, and with benefits. There are jobs where I'll have to do the loading/unloading but there's other ones where you just drive the truck from dock to dock and the people there do all the loading/unloading. I want that kind because I'm not strong and I had a job at a grocery store where I had to wheel a ****ton of bottled water off a ramp and ended up dropping them it was awful. I also was no good at maneuvering the pallet jacks, but in my defense there was ZERO training and it was a horrible crew that hated me.

Anyway, then you're basically on call for the company you're with to drive 40 or more hours a week. Its steady work and pays well but you have no hometime. You could have hometime if you fight them for it but then they might treat you worse and give you less hours or fire you. You also sometimes call back and forth between a dispatcher that'll tell you where to go, but other than that you're mostly alone on the road, you can sing if you wanna.

And also always keep record of whatever the company promises, cuz they a bunch of slippery snakes.

You can sleep in the truck even on days off, if there are any, and some trucks even have beds in them. You'd bring your own meals which you could keep cooking in an electric lunchbox while you drive or something like that, and occasionally you could stay at a hotel when you want a real bed and shower.

I would like to vlog my adventures seeing the country and bring my laptop and guitar along to ride shotgun for when I have either downtime or completely dead traffic jams, is that allowed? I am talking about deadstopped, I would not compromise safety for this. Speaking of allowed I hear there are sometimes driver-facing cameras that are always watching you, is that pretty common with every company nowadays? I dont want a company that does that especially if i am living in there.

And then, years later, I'll probably rack up health issues and I can quit if I wanna, now having a full bank account, provided there's anything still around to switch back to, and be able to start my life at age 40. If I stay for a long long time and I get really good, THEN i might be able to make around 100k salary.

Continued in next post