Owner Operator Tips

When it comes to being a truck owner operator, you take on more responsibility thanks to your new status. No longer are you a truck driver, but a person who operates your own business. This is very important as you will need to approach your truck driving more along the lines of how it benefits you for the obvious reason that you are the owner of the company.

What follows are some simple owner operator tips that will help you navigate your new status and run your own business so that you can maximize your profits.

Set Goals 

You will need to set the right goals in order to make money owning your own truck. This means sitting down and drawing up a plan of where you want to be in one year, five years and whenever you decide to retire or move on to a new line of work.

If you do not set goals, then you’ll never get to where you want to be. So, start off by writing down your goals and how you are going to reach them as well. This will mean goals that control your spending as well as what you want to earn over that period of time.

Be Professional 

In all of your work, you will need to present yourself as a professional. This means that you are a business owner now that you have your own truck, so be sure to emphasize professionalism in your work. This is important because you may want to work for a firm that will hire you based on reputation. So, the better you can treat your driving in a professional manner, the more likely you are to advance in your business efforts.

Proper Maintenance Pays Off 

During your downtime, be sure to maintain your truck and replace tires or parts that are wearing out.  Repairs can really cost you as a truck owner operator and it is much cheaper to replace a part yourself while at home rather than having your vehicle towed to get repairs because you didn’t do the proper maintenance. While you may not prevent every breakdown from occurring, doing the proper maintenance will keep you on the road much longer than if you get lazy about taking care of your truck.

Keep Learning 

It may seem that all you need to know is how to drive a truck and pay bills. However, there is a lot more to it now that you are an owner operator of your vehicle. You will need to learn about the business end of your endeavors which means working with banks that specialize in small business, creating business plans and other details that will help you make more money over the long run.

The more you know, the better you can take care of your company which means avoiding potentially bad situations while taking advantage of new opportunities. Being a truck owner operator can reap you many rewards if you take the time to properly learn the business end. 

Choosing Good Truck Driver Training

Thinking of becoming a professional truck-driver, then you don’t have to worry about finding a job because it is one of the fastest growing fields in the world. According to labor stats of 2013, about one and half million trucker jobs were available in U.S. Each driver was paid with around 20 dollars per hour and it is observed that the employment rate of truck drivers will increase up to 11% till the year 2022.

If you have no experience in driving a truck and you have never taken a truck driver training then you are going to need a truck driving school that teaches you to drive a truck. Along with this training you are going to need a commercial driver’s license (CDL). In order to get this license, it is necessary to have proper truck driver training which you can only get from a good truck driving school. There are lots of truck driving schools but you have to choose one of them according to your needs. First thing to do is to see if you want to attend a part time or a full time school and make a list of those which offer you your desired program. After making a list, do some research about those schools. Check their website, the reviews given by previous students, and the time period of their truck driver training course i.e. is it few weeks or few months. Ask them about average students they have per class, try to choose a truck driving school which have less students in a class i.e. their students to instructor ratio. Whether they train one person at a time or do they have more than one student in the truck driver cab. If possible, check if the school has relation with the companies which offer fresh graduates jobs or not. After checking all these things, choose the school which meet all of your desired requirements.

Recap

CDL truck driver training is a program which offers you truck driver training from a certified truck driving school. It can be achieved by several numbers of ways. One of them is to get the training from a private trucking school which can cost a few thousand dollars but still there is risk that after graduating, you might not be able to meet the requirements required by a carrier for a truck driver. The driving school will help you get your commercial driver’s license but they might not help you find a job. The other and the easy way is to qualify for the company sponsored CDL truck driver training which saves a ton of money because the company pays all the fee of the students or provide the truck driver training themselves. Not only this, they also hire you when you have completed your truck driver training program. All you have to do is to qualify for the company sponsored truck driver training program. 

The Ongoing Problem of Truck Driver Shortage in the United States

By Zoey

Over a period of at least three decades, the second biggest sector in the country – transport – has not been able to determine the reasons why so many truck drivers, even seasoned ones, are calling it quits. The numbers of young people choosing other vocations over trucking are even more grim. As a result, the United States is currently headed for a truck driver deficit of between 200,000 to 400,000 truckers.

This may surprise some people as some 40,000 new CDL licenses are given out each year.  Out of these, an estimated 50% are only license holders, not actually using their permit to drive a truck commercially. Just what are the factors that have driven this problem to its present proportions? The goal of this article is to examine just that and more.

The Issue of Wages

Probably the biggest factor driving people out of the profession is the low wages, which accompany most commercial contracts. Low pay for truck drivers has actually been a problem for years ever since deregulation of the transport sector occurred. Over time, it's become the top reason for all types of motorists deciding to leave the profession. The typical annual pay of $38,000 is just not viewed as being big enough to counter all the demands of the rather stressful profession and it has certainly not kept up with the pay wages found in other comparable industries.

Too many flashy advertisements are used to reel in new, unseasoned drivers who never receive their expected big, sign-on bonuses. The companies hiring often know that most drivers will quit after a short time on the job anyway. Working 70 hours a week and not being paid for other duties such as detention time, cause many young and old drivers alike to move onto greener pastures. Unfortunately, truck driving jobs in the US are still considered “unskilled” labor, making it difficult to positively change the issue of wages for the better.

Too Many Regulations

The overuse of regulations continues to make the life of the professional trucker challenging. For instance, millions of truckers are expected to work under identical hours of service, while governing when they are able to drive or where they are able to sleep. One single rule can’t possibly please everyone. And so, many seasoned drivers leave the profession, which is a huge loss to the entire industry since seasoned drivers have acquired a great level of security and professionalism in their driving.

Regulatory bodies have now crept into a wide range of issues ranging from anti-idling laws, forced dispatch and lack of home time causing major consternation and panic into the entire industry. These tough and restrictive security regulations together with the low pay experienced by many truck drivers, are all reasons behind the truck driver shortage in the US.