Why would you choose to work in commercial truck driving? That is an excellent question. Hopefully you’ll find enough useful information to help answer this question by the end. What makes a commercial truck driver a good choice? Let me start with some facts about the trucking business commercial trucking insurance.
Did you realize that of all the modes for shipping cargo in the commercial transportation industry the dominant one is trucking with 83.7%. With just 5.6%, the rail industry comes in second. The third place is held by the air sector at 3.2%. Meanwhile, the oceanic freight industry is only 1.4% behind the shipping sector. As you can clearly see, the trucking business isn’t going anywhere soon. The trucking industry is responsible for 650 billion in annual revenue. This amounts to 5% the nation’s gross domestic product. The trucking business also contributes 35 billion dollars to federal, state and highway taxes each year. This figure will increase by 21% over 10 years. Trucking is the only career field that can offer you this much job security, even if you don’t have a four year college education.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1.5 million heavy-duty truck and tractor trailer drivers were earning an average of $38,700 a yearly, which equates roughly $18.61/hour. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, truck drivers working at the lower ends of the pay spectrum still earned $25,330 annually, while truck drivers working at the top end of it made $59,000.620 annually. You won’t find many jobs that offer such a wide range in salary without a four-year degree or two years of college. Few. Also, are there any other countries with more truck drivers? Texas, California. Pennsylvania. Florida. Texas employed 157.260 truckers last year, while Illinois employed approximately 66.050 truckers. Don’t assume that you have to move to one of these states in order find a decent truck driving job. There are approximately 40,210-157,260 active truck drivers across the entire east coast. No one is more qualified than the state with the highest concentration of truck driver jobs in the U.S. North Dakota has 15,310 job opportunities in truck driving with an average wage of $47,580. Arkansas is close behind. Alaskan truck drivers are paid the highest median salary of $53,440. Wyoming, North Dakota, Massachusetts and District of Columbia earn an average of $47,000 each year. If you look at a map that shows where the majority of truck drivers work in the United States, you will see that truckers are highly employed all across the country, from Texas to Pennsylvania and Florida to Michigan. Truck drivers are also found in the Pacific Northwest and Califonia. What are the areas with the most truck drivers who work? The midwestern US. This is why truck drivers in these areas make more every year. Let’s not forget one thing. There are no jobs available for intracontinental truck drivers in the United States.
Here are some fascinating facts about truckers. 93.5M highway miles are the total distance traveled annually by truck drivers. To put this in perspective, that’s approximately 256,197.260 mile per day, 2,965 miles per second and 3.7 Million times around the earth. Or 195.713 round trips up to the moon. That’s a lot! It would be nice to get good gas mileage for all the miles. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen. Long haul trukcs carry an average of 300 gallons fuel and can travel only eight miles on average. At 55 miles an hour, this is about 6.8gallons of fuel. This means that a class 8 tractor trailer would need to travel 44 hours and consume 347 gallons fuel to go from Los Angeles City to New York City. A 300 gallon fuel tank means that you only have to stop one time for gas. Because you have so much to see, long haul truck driving can be a rewarding experience.
We now know the importance of the trucking sector to the U.S. Economy, what the average truck driver makes in a year, as well as how many miles truck drivers drive on an average year. Here’s one last statistic. The total value of all shipped goods the commercial trucking sector transports annually is $139.463,000,000. That’s $382.090,411/day and $4.422/second! This is how valuable America’s trucking industry and its truck drivers are to American citizens. Consider this. Everything in our economy is dependent on the trucking business. This includes food, fuel, medicines, machinery, clothes, construction, and manufacturing. In other words, truck drivers would not be there to give you a bed to sleep in, soap and shampoo to wash your hair with, clothes to put on for breakfast, food to prepare for lunch, gas to get you to work, a car for driving to work, a car for you to drive home in, a truck to haul your beer, a refrigerator to keep your food cold, and a stove and microwave for cooking. Although there was a lot more, the idea is clear. Oh, and did I forget to mention, you wouldn’t own a house to call your own if it was not made of bricks concrete, wood, metal or stone? Remember that it came with a truck, even if you bought it.
Back to the original question. Why would you choose to work in commercial truck driving? After you’ve learned how important the U.S. industry of commercial trucking is, how competitive the job market and how much truckers can make without a college diploma, perhaps the real question that you should ask yourself is “Why shouldn’t you pursue a career commercial truck driving?” Only you can answer that question. If you decide to take up a career as a truck driver, you must get the right training. There are so many options for truck driving jobs, but it is much easier than you might think. To be certified as a driver of a commercial motor car, you will need a commercial driver’s license, good physical condition, and the ability operate a commercial motor car. That’s it. However, getting your CDL can be a different story. It requires special knowledge and training to pass all the required tests. That training is often obtained through private or company-sponsored training programs. Most truck driving schools can provide you with the CDL instruction you need to pass all the CDL tests, and obtain your commercial drivers licence within a few short months.
I hope you find this article useful in answering your basic questions regarding a career as a commercial truck driver.