The uncomfortable truth about being a Professional Truck Driver in the United States - An in depth analysis of the life of a trucker!

Hello, Richard Colbert here! This is the story of how I became a truck driver, my adventures and misfortunes since and the absolute hell it has been both mentally and physically! Back in the late 90's I had a successful computer business, but in 2000 it went belly-up in a hurry. After 3 years of "going hungry" trying to survive doing computer work I finally said the hell with it and went to truck driving school. But this story actually starts before then.

When I decided to give up computers and become a truck driver I wanted to go to work for a company that would pay for my school. What I found was that most of the companies (at that time) wanted a 1-2 year commitment. Meaning I had to promise to drive for them for 1-2 years in order for them to pay for my school. If I left before my commitment was up then I had to payback all or part of the school (depending on the company). After roughly 2 months of searching I stumbled across Lisa Motor Lines, Inc. based out of Fort Worth, TX (I lived in Venus, TX at the time). They only required a 6 month commitment so I jumped at the opportunity and within days they had me in school at C1 Driver Training also in Fort Worth, TX.

I thought I was finally on my way to a new and successful career, boy was I fucking wrong. Upon graduation from the school I waited for over a month before they found me a trainer to go out with. But wait I just graduated school, why do I need more training? Oh yea, the US DOT (Department of Transportation), Texas DOT and FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) all required additional Over-The-Road training with a qualified Instructor. This was supposed to be a 2-3 week ordeal but quickly turned into 3 different trainers taking over 2 months to complete. Most of that time I was sitting at home waiting on another trainer and not getting paid. When I finally did get in my own truck things didn't get much better. One week I would only get about 1500 miles @ 24cpm (24 cents per mile) which meant after taxes I made less than shit. The next week they would expect me, a solo driver, to run 6000+ miles which is illegal in so many different ways I can't even write them all here. Okay, I got used to that and planned accordingly so I would have money every week....or so I thought! Turns out the company sucked at math and started charging me 2 and 3 times for advances, most of which were not even Personal Advances. You see when you drive a truck most companies will send you money (advances) for living expenses, parts you buy for the truck/trailer suck as lights, scale tickets (when you weight the truck/trailer/load), tolls, etc. They would then deduct all of those advances from my pay, two or three times. I wasn't supposed to pay for things like scales, tolls, weight tickets, etc. but I wound up getting charged for them repeatedly. After almost 2 months without a paycheck (living on $100 a week in personal advance) I finally walked into the President of the companies office and went Postal. I walked out with $2000 in estimated back pay in my hand and within 24 hours they had everything fixed and had sent me the rest of what I was owed. Finally, things are looking up.....except they weren't. After that I couldn't get more than 1500 miles a week, EVER! Apparently they didn't like drivers who expected to get paid! But then just before my 6 month anniversary I got food poisoning in Dodge City, KS. I called them immediately and informed them I could not drive that I was hurling every few minutes and dashing to the shitter between vomits. They said it didn't matter I had to deliver the load....the load I just sat at a Meat Packing Plant, with no food in the truck, for 4 days waiting on. So I took off driving, I made it into Oklahoma and pulled into a truck stop to go get some Powerade as I was dehydrated to the point I was loosing consciousness and passed out in the parking lot. When I woke I was in the store being told an ambulance was on the way. I talked them into going and getting my phone out of the truck and locking it before the ambulance showed. On the way to the hospital I called the company and told them what happened and they basically called me a liar and told me to get rolling. Needless to say I let them have it, then told them to call the truck stop if they didn't believe me. Eight hours and about 10 bags of fluids later one of the nurses took me back to the truck stop, she had to get a couple drivers to help me into the truck as I was so weak I couldn't stand up. Once in bed I called the company and told them I was going to be unable to drive for 3 days because the hospital had doped me up, apparently I hurt myself when I fell but I have no memory of that. They kept on and on and on calling me demanding I deliver the load. Finally, they tell me I have to drive back (the wrong direction) to Oklahoma City, OK to swap with another driver so he can deliver my load. When I refused they told me I would be fired and charged with abandoning the load (never get another driving job) so I went back to Oklahoma City (about 100 miles). Now keep in mind I was drugged out of my damn mind on Dilada's (or however the hell you spell it). Once I swapped with the other driver they started calling every 2 hours wanting me to go pickup a load. Finally, when the drugs wore off I drove back to Fort Worth, TX (empty) and told them to stick that truck and job up their fucking asses.

Now I am back at my Dad's in Venus, TX and out of work. Lisa Motor Lines will not give me my certificate of graduation for Truck Driving School and they are telling everyone I am a horrible driver and not to hire me. Well shit, I am screwed now. 

Finally, after months of being unemployed I get hired by US Xpress, Inc. out of Chattanooga, TN. They put me on a Greyhound (the worst form of transportation on the damn planet) to Chattanooga, TN. They are supposed to have someone there to pick me up when I get there, but NOPE no one there. After repeated calls and several hours waiting in a bad neighborhood someone finally shows up to get me. During my 3 day orientation I find out that everything the recruiter told me was a lie and they try and fire me 3 times.....with no way home! I raised hell and went to the Terminal Manager repeatedly and finally got put in a truck. Two and a half years later (most of the time still broke) they forced me to quit over a bullshit Sexual Harassment claim filed by someone I had never even spoken too at a Terminal in Fontana, CA.

Back to Dad's house I go. After some time trying computers again and taking a 4.5 month trip to Europe (see previous post) I was back in Georgia at my mom's looking for another driving job.

Finally, after months, I get hired by Super Service, Inc. out of Somerset, KY. During my first day of orientation I hit it off with a KY native named Evelyn. Later that night she comes to my room and badda-bing badda-bang we hit it off. Two weeks later I move in with her and her kids in McKee, KY. Months go by and things aren't working out at Super Service so we both leave. I wind up working for Air Ride, Inc. out of Toledo, OH.

So I am now at Air Ride, Inc. in Toledo, OH and hauling stuff and making descent money.....for a few months then Air Ride, Inc. goes bankrupt. I call home to Evelyn in KY and tell her I am headed home and she informs me to wait until Saturday because she just got married (with the $300 she borrowed from me 2 days earlier) and that her and her new husband will be on their honeymoon then. So I drive to Berea, KY and spend the night in my rental car, then Saturday I go to the house to get my stuff. I find her and her new husband at home and most of my stuff either broken or missing. After a few hours of "what the fuck is happening" I was loaded and on my way to my Step-Sisters house in Venus, TX (she lived right behind my dad).

Months later my "sister" (close family friend) who was a dispatcher for an Oversized Load trucking company in Fort Worth calls me and tells me that she sent all three of their trucks/drivers to the JRB base in Fort Worth to pickup a load and they all got arrested at the gate. She asks me if I will go recover the three trucks (and the load) and bring them to the yard. So one by one the owner drives me to the base and I bring back truck after truck. At the end of the day the owner says thanks and starts to leave....after a brief bitch fest he pays me $500 for my efforts. A couple weeks go by and my sister calls again, this time she needs me to haul an oversized load from Texas to Virginia and tells me I will make $1500 for a couple days.

So I go to the terminal and she hands me directions and a set of keys and tells me to haul ass. I had no clue what I was doing, never hauled oversized or even touched a RGN (removable gooseneck trailer). But away I go. I get up to the factory to pickup my load and no one could tell me what to do or how to do it....even after explaining the situation. After hours in the boiling hot Texas sun I finally figured it out and was loaded and rolling....but not for long. The load shifted on me about 100 miles away when I slammed on the brakes to keep from hitting a low bridge. So hours more on the side of the road ratcheting the load back into place and figuring out how to properly chain it. Then I had to back 1.5 miles down the shoulder with a 14'6" wide load (that I couldn't see around) to get to a spot to turn around so I could take an alternate route around the low bridge. Finally, I get to Virginia and get unloaded and sis tells me to go to nearest truck stop and wait, she will call me when they find me another load. I sat at a Flying J on the Virginia/West Virginia line for a whole damn month before I got that call. After about 18 months with this company, that was going bankrupt in a hurry but I couldn't afford to leave I finally said screw it and quit....but not before I had another job with a company called Gator Transportation out of Brookville, FL.

So on a plane to Florida I go. I had a friend who previously worked for this company, which is how I got the job, so I knew that Kenny the guy they would send to the airport to pick me up was a major pot head. So I asked the owner before I ever got on the plane if I would have to take a Drug Test and he said no....even after I explained why I was asking. So when Kenny picked me up at the Airport in Tampa, FL he did exactly what I expected and fired one up, before we even got out of the damn airport. Three joints later we arrive in Brookville, FL and I go to my hotel. The next morning Kenny picks me up and takes me to the terminal (the owners house) and we pull in while Kenny is smoking a, you guessed it, joint! Before I can even get out of the pickup Lynn (the owner) comes and tells me I need to go right then and take a Drug Test....I look at Lynn then at Kenny and say "really"! But I go and by some freaking miracle (after 4 joints in the last 15 hours) pass the damn test....So off to work I go. This was the first load I ever hauled (see pic below) for them, it is a super load of epic size. The entire load (counting both trucks and all the trailer) weighed almost 500,000 #'s. Oh and yes it had one truck pulling and one pushing. Guess what my job was? You betcha driving the push truck with no experience and no training.

After only a month with Gator Transportation I am let go with no way home and almost no money. Fortunately I had bought an old pickup (during that month) off one of the other drivers and proceeded making my way back to Texas.

Months later, I am living on my "sister's" (the close family friend) couch in Arlington, TX and out of work. When one day, while on Facebook, I stumbled across my ex-fiance from when I was in the Navy back in 92-93. We hadn't spoken in 16 years but within two weeks she had moved to Texas and was living with me (unemployed) on my sister's couch. I got a job almost immediately after that doing Windshield repair for Chipfixer Auto Glass. A few months later I went back to doing computer repair and was working as a FSR (field service repairman) for 5 different companies. So, Angela (the ex-fiance) and I got an apartment in Richardson, TX and got married. The honey moon phase didn't last long and she refused to work (at home or otherwise) and we wound up moving to Salt Lake City, UT (where she lived when I found her on Facebook) to live with some friends of hers. I tried getting back into Computers in Salt Lake City and even got her and her friend, Corey, work doing computers (and they didn't know shit). But again she refused to work and I couldn't make enough doing computers to support us so back to driving I went.

I got hired by James H. Clark & Sons out of Salt Lake City and went to work. Things were good, for a while, then they got new (smaller) trucks, governed everyone down to 62 mph and dropped everyone's pay (to pay for the new trucks) so I quit. By then my sister (the one I lived with behind my dad's) was driving for an Owner-Operator that had 10 trucks with US Freightways, Inc. out of Bolingbrook, IL.

So now I am working for an almost all Bulgarian company but I am making GOOD MONEY, finally. Then the truck starts breaking down constantly. The owner won't pay to fix it right and I don't get paid while it is broke down. Then I get a call from a brand new (startup) trucking company out of Atlanta, GA (where I am from) and after a few weeks of talking to the Owner he offers to make me a partner (25% of the company) after 6 months if I come help him get the company running. So off to Atlanta, GA I go.

I am now working for OE Trucking, Inc. in Atlanta, GA and making descent money. Six months go by and he makes me a partner. What I didn't know at the time was that I would wind up doing all the damn work because he was a lazy procrastinating son-of-a-bitch. After two years with the company and losing almost everything I owned I shut down the company in October 2015. I bought me an old ragged out 1983 RV and moved to Robertsdale, AL.

Well shortly after I got to Alabama I ran out of money so back to driving I went. This time for Seminole Express out of Seminole, AL. They were a great company, but I couldn't make any descent money because they only did short hauls and I was through the house several times a week, normally, and off most weekends. Then I get a call from an owner operator that had two trucks leased on to Diamond Transportation out of Racine, WI. He tells me about the hole he is in and the hell his last 4 drivers have put him through then offers me 30% of the load to come to work for him. So I quit Seminole Express.

That was 6 weeks ago this past Saturday. I was supposed to be in the truck with him the next day on the way to Racine, WI for orientation. But when we got over to Louisiana to pick up the truck where the previous driver had left it, it was destroyed inside and out. So a week in the shop there, while we staid in a motel, and we finally head towards home with the truck. We make it to Baton Rouge and the truck breaks down. So another week in the shop there, this time though we come home and I drive my pickup to Wisconsin and go through orientation, then drive back to Alabama. We finally get the truck and I go get my first load, the Friday before the 4th of July. I wound up spending a week on a military load because of the holiday. But oh well, then I get a short load from South Carolina to Mississippi and immediately a reload from Livingston, AL to Fort Riley, KS....I am hauling ass to KS trying to get this military load off on a Friday so I won't be stuck under it for the weekend when BAM a tired explodes on me in Sikeston, MO and takes out the entire right side of the semi. It ripped off the fuel tank, busted my air lines, it even ripped the suspension out from under the rear of the truck. That was 12 days ago and I am still sitting here in Sikeston, MO waiting for the truck to be finished and ready to go.

As of tomorrow, July 19th, 2016 I should finally be rolling again....waiting on the last part to arrive in the morning.

Let's hope and pray that this truck holds together for a while so I can make some damn money because what little I have left in this world is all in Pawn Shops back home in Alabama and I have to start paying the interest on the 20th or risk losing my last few possessions in this world.

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