So did I.
This blog and web site exist to chronicle my entry into the OTR (Over The Road) truck driving business. I spent the past twenty years in a different profession and after a series of setbacks and dealing with burnout I decided to make the switch to trucking.
I spent 18 months researching this career. I scoured the internet for chat rooms and forums where professional drivers congregate. I reviewed hundreds of company web sites, government sites dealing with trucking, gripe sites, you name it. I spoke with truckers, recruiters from trucking companies, and representatives from various commercial driver training programs.
Many people, mostly men, enter trucking each year. Most of them also leave the profession in their first year. I've been told anecdotally that fewer than one in ten survive the first year, and by the fifth year fewer than one in twenty or so still drive professionally.
Modern trucking isn't really a "he-man" world any more. Trucks are much more comfortable than they used to be and most truck driving jobs, at least OTR work, don't involve a lot of loading or unloading of freight. Communications technology has evolved to the point where we can remain connected to the outside world pretty much constantly. Entertainment, like the internet, movies and TV, are easy to bring along on the road. Still, trucking can be a lonely job with a lot of stress, irregular sleep schedules, incompetent dispatchers and planners, uncaring dock workers, uptight police and many more worries. I will try to touch on some or all of these in my posts.
