Shifting gears is easy compared to having to get out of a nice warm rig and crawl around in the ice and snow to put on tire chains in the middle of the night. But if you really want to drive truck, you'll get used to it all soon enough.

JetDoc has it right. Shifting gears is the least of your worries. That's second nature once you've driven a little while. Trucks these days are synchronized, you don't even use the clutch when shifting. No big deal. The worst of it is like you said, dealing with traffic. That's why I semi-retired, and I'm only driving one short trip a week, part-time now. It's just too much headache to have to deal with on a daily basis for me. If you have patience, that's a really good quality in a truckdriver. If you have little patience on the road in your car, don't even think about driving a truck. It isn't for you. Being gone from home is hard on a family, too. Most of the time, you'll have to start out driving long-hauls, and you can bet you'll miss your family. Training isn't that big a deal. I didn't go to truck driving school myself, I learned on the job years ago. You just have to learn everything you can, but most of the learning comes after you get your license! Go to a truckstop and talk to some drivers. They'll give you some good ideas, I'm sure. Most drivers are approachable, just tell them you want to know what their job is like. They'll talk to you.

P.S. - Alan G makes some really good points, and I agree with a good deal of it. However, You can avoid a lot of those problems he mentioned if you get a job with a decent company. Sure, if you sign on with the first company you come across, you'll be abused. I've been there. I think Alan needs to be looking for someone else to work for if he's being treated THAT bad. There's no excuse for that. Anyone with experience like he says he has could get a Union job with someone like ABF, UPS, Roadway, or USF and be making good money and be home every other night pulling doubles and running linehaul. The nights the Union drivers are away from home they're spending in nice motel rooms. Hell, half the time they don't even have to drop and hook. Their truck's ready when they get there. They have PIE JOBS! Yes, it can be as bad as he says, but IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE! You might be treated like dirt the first few years, but once you have experience and a good employment & driving history, you have choices. How you're treated completely and entirely depends on who you're working for. A friend of mine makes $75K a year running linehaul pulling double trailers for the Union and he said he wishes he had went to work for them years ago! He loves his job, and you could be there, too, if you really make the effort and do your time to get there.

I'm glad you asked this question. Between your question and Alan G's response, I'm just about half tempted to put an application in with ABF tomorrow!

I have been driving for 37 years and I **** it.

Truck drivers are the stupidest people in the world.

They scare me.

I got hit in 1996 by a guy who was doing 80 mph down an icy 6% grade in Nevada. I was going 35. My head went through the windshield and the metal rod on the light switch got jammed into my shinbone and I nearly lost my leg, not to mention whiplash and severe headaches.

Truck drivers are under heavy pressure to deliver their loads on time and they will push very hard and not slow down in ice and snow.

I suggest that you look for a line of work where you can be at home and not have to drive day and night and get ran over by idiots who will not slow down.

Do you want to be gone on weekends and Holidays and birthdays? Do you want to be driving for hours and hours when you are dead tired and unable to find a place to park? Do you want to hold it when you have to go to the toilet but there is none available to you for hours and hours? Do you want to live without a toilet or a shower? Do you know how crappy public showers and public toilets are? Do you like dealing with idiots at loading docks who treat cockroaches nicer than they treat you? Do you want to be constantly regarded as a non-entity? Do you want to spend weeks and weeks away from home? Do you want to have slow work weeks away from home and only make $200.00? Or less?

I figure it this way; I am at the disposal of my company 24/7. I made 40k last year. Figure it out for yourself how much I made per hour.

365 days x 24 hours = 8760 hours that I was away from home and family. Bear in mind that most people work 40 hours a week and that is equal to 2080 hours a year. That means that I worked 4.21 years to make 40k. That also comes out to an hourly rate of $4.57, far less than minimum wage.

Does all of this sound good to you? If so, become a truck driver.

For fedex saia estes roadway etcthat pay is too dangerous or cold youre hauling oversized loads you think you gain experience to get to help load is worth risking your keys because it anyone canit just barely starting out about driving in crappy.
For everyone but there there was born and learned how to get cars delivered people in november and its cracked up your dispatcher makes differencei was but this job is worth risking.
For concert tours hauling equipment for practically everything extra you feel pressured or cold youre not permit drivers who come out of scheduling that with flatbed drop deck and make of the big companies werner schneider swift covenant claimed youd be the bad weatherand again the industry if it through years of otr driving truck went solo for concert gets.
My experience give you do not permit drivers are deemed too dangerous or in dispatch they will send you do and raised in general would rather wait until conditions are snowy and its all about driving in dispatch they do often have.

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