What type of truck drivers make the most money

what type of truck drivers make the most money

Money, after all, is what pays the bills and keeps life trucking. Luckily for drivers, the ongoing truck driver shortage means more opportunities to make money in the Professional Truck Driving Industry. The map shows the most common jobs by state, over time. You can literally see the demand for professional truck drivers increase before your eyes. Unlike other careers with a set salary, Truck drivers are usually paid a rate per mile they travel, not for how long they work. You may find some companies paying more because of the high demand for Class A licensed Truck Drivers. On average, a Truck Driver can expect to drive between and miles per week. When you get paid by the mile, your odometer counts your money for you as the miles fly by. This makes it easier to track your expected pay. Truck Drivers that are paid by the mile do tend to make more than hourly or salary paid drivers.

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The truck driving industry offers a wide range of possibilities in terms of how much you can earn with trucking jobs. Depending on the types of hauls you are willing to take, and the experience you have with different trucking loads, you can increase your take-home pay substantially. Here is a list of the top 10 best paying truck driving jobs to get you started. Keep in mind that you will need to gain on the job experience with these trucking haul types before you will earn the most money possible. Truck drivers who take tanker trucking jobs are going to be able to make more money. However, there is a catch. As you can imagine this type of load is more dangerous than flatbed loads or dry van hauls because the liquids are not stable and slosh around uncontrollably. A tanker trailer endorsement allows you to get into liquid hauling, i. If you are interested in getting started with tanker loads consider your CDL endorsement a good investment for your truck driving career. If you are getting into tanker trucking jobs, you would be smart to go ahead and get your hazmat endorsement on your CDL, too.

Types of Truck Driving Jobs

A hazmat endorsement allows you to haul hazardous materials, such as chemical waste or gas. For truckers who are hauling tanker loads, a hazmat endorsement is often necessary since the majority of tanker hauls are considered to be hazardous. Again, once you have your special endorsement on your CDL to haul hazmat loads you will be able to make even more money. Not all truckers have this endorsement, which when combined with the tanker CDL endorsement gives you the special combo endorsement. That means you are placing yourself in a specialized category that automatically leads to the better paying trucking jobs. An oversized load can be something as simple as a load that is only an inch over-width, or a load that requires you to pull doubles with an escort. Either way an oversized load is automatically going to pay you more. Oversized truck loads require special permits that you must get from local transportation departments. This means you will have to spend more days over the road while delivering most oversized loads. However, for most truckers the extra pay is well worth the effort. These trucking jobs are the real deal, however, and truck drivers who handle them bring home the big bucks.

what type of truck drivers make the most money

Most Common Jobs in the USA

It is no secret that over the road, or OTR, truck drivers make the best money. Over the road drivers are paid more due to the type of travel, the hours involved and all of the different road laws that must be followed in each state. OTR drivers are also held to much higher standards. They deliver a variety of products around the country and have tight delivery schedules to keep. Specialty drivers and long haul drivers rank right up with OTR drivers. Specialty drivers fall into a special category. These are drivers who haul oversized loads, specialty products, and Hazmat materials mostly. It takes a specially trained driver to take on these trips. Thus, the jobs pay more.

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There are several occasions when employers in the trucking industry do not make as much due to increased demand with the loads still paying the same amount. Substantial drops in the price of bulk goods followed with this flood of new and unregulated labor, drops that paved the way for warehouse stores like Costco COST — Get Report and cracked open the door for e-commerce to one day emerge. Safety pay — Carriers strive for safe driving and may even offer bonuses for proven safety out on the highways. Estate Planning. These drivers typically get a bit more home time than standard cross country truck drivers. Fundamentals of Investing.

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By Dan Weil. Index Funds. Different companies cover different areas. That means you can switch off with your partner to wjat while still on the road and get paid for it. By Scott Rutt. Keep in mind, some of these jobs won’t open up until you’ve had a few years experience in the industry, and for good reason. Truck driving has been an industry with ever-growing demand in the U.

How does the average salary of the different types of truck driving jobs stack up?

My take on a truck driving career is. The sacrifices and stresses of a driving career are plentiful. A niche market is a specialized segment in the trucking industry. The work involved in specialized niches in trucking is often a little out of the ordinary.

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It often involves expensive, specialized equipment and experienced, skilled and top notch specially trained drivers. Often these specialty niche jobs come with varying degrees of risk and danger involved. The high paying truck driver jobs in these specialized areas of trucking are sometimes driving jobs that not many truckers are attracted to for various reasons. To make a higher wage as a truck driver, more experienced drivers are preferred and a more complex skill set is required, more so than the average truck driver who hauls for example dry freight loads on a van trailer. Walmart is just one example of a company with its own fleet of trucks. The expectations are higher than most companies, but in return, they pay a higher than average salary. There are many job challenges and dangers involved in a driving job in the ice roads, such as extreme temperatures, excessive winter storms and poor road conditions. Hauling hazardous products such as gasoline and a variety of caustic and explosive liquid materials, offers good pay for the work. Driving jobs hauling hazmat materials tend to pay well above the average driving wage.

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