I'm considering a career change and becoming a long haul driver is on the short list.  I've always had professional management jobs for the past 20 odd years, but driving is something that has always appealed to me since I was a teen.

That said, can you give any advice, pros and cons, etc., about working for a long haul company as a driver for them (not owner/operator).

I realize that what a person sees on the highway ain't the whole story.  This has been confirmed in brief restauraunt chats that I've had with drivers where they have mentioned problems at terminals, having to hire lumpers to offload, and so on...

If you would, just give me the good, the bad, and the ugly about the business.

Thanks in advance.

Go with some one like SWIFT,Schnieder,Werner,Transport America,for the first few years.(free training),hope your wife/girlfriend/Fiancee,realizes that you be gone for 2-3 weeks at a time. I was OTR for 5 years,LTL,for three,and just now am doing dedicated runs for a logistics company that services GM-Saturn.(I bring down rear axles from Detroit to a relay point in Erlanger Ky).

Kill yourself now. Don't drag it out. Admittedly, today is not a good day to ask me about trucking. If you MUST, then go with a big company. You'll be treated like an ant, but a regularly paid ant.

Don't do what I did!!!!! Don't go work for an Owner-Operator. Unless you're real good with money,saving for maintance,know where to buy fuel(fuel taxes,believe it or not,you WANT to pay high road fuel taxes) DO NOT BUY YOUR OWN TRUCK! Avoid companies that use brokers for all their freight. Stay out of truckstops as much as you can!!! Eat out of the truck as much as possible! The Cobra 29 is really all the CB you'll ever need,don't waste money on anything more.

Nationwide normally has some excellant advice for this sort of post.

I still have my class b cdl with passenger endorsements and stuff from driving a school bus.  I consider it something to fall back on if I have too.

I suggest you head down to your local dmv, or maybe check online, and get the booklet for the cdl test and what not.  This will let you start reading up on regs and rules and junk and give you some idea of what you are considering.

For how to make ends meet while on the road I would run some searches until you find some board with a lot of truckers talking trucks and what not since you should then be able to run some searches on that board and see the costs of "living" on the road.

There are some options for around town stuff if you pay for your own driving school, around here gravel hauling is a big deal.

One thing that is a big deal is your driving record, I keep mine clean but you should do some reading up on things and learn that a cdl is lost if you get 6 points on your license and a normal license gets double that.  You just revert to the normal license, but that is your job.  I think this is still the same but I have not driven for several years so this could easily have changed.

I will let the current truckers tell you more since I never did over the road stuff and can't think of much else to tell you.

It can get pretty boring beating down the road for 11 hours a day.  If you ain't moving, you aren't making any money.  Finding the right company is the hardest part.    Sitting in a dock for 10 hours is no fun either.  Depending on what you haul, very little physical labor involved.