Many people choose a truck driving career only to find it is not suitable for their lifestyle needs. It is necessary to understand what the truck-driving career demands of your time and skills for it to be a successful move.
Driving a truck for a living is a satisfying and profitable job if you set your career ambition to meet your needs to keep family and work in balance. So many drivers find out too late that their quest for the higher income to make a better life for their family backfires. So do your homework and make your career change a successful one.
If a truck driver adheres to federal and laws (dependent on state and interstate), they will average about 55 to 60 miles per hour; this means that most truck drivers average around 705 to 750 miles per working day—although mileage varies depending on the route, traffic, and weather conditions.
Even though all of our clients are truck drivers, their average net income ranges anywhere from $40,000 to $1,000,000 depending on a multitude of factors.
One of the better predictors of income for truck drivers is where the driver is in their career. This means looking at the difference in revenue potential between company drivers, lease-purchase owner-operators, owner-operators under carrier authority, owner-operators truck driver under their own authority, and owner-operators who are small fleet owners.
Company drivers can generally earn anywhere from $35,000 to $65,000 a year depending on experience, licenses and certificates, driving record, and the type of fleet they drive for. Of the career stages, company drivers generally have the lowest revenue potential, although there are certainly exceptions to that.
Generally, a company driver’s revenue is limited by the salary they are paid by their company. Each year, a company driver knows about how much money they are going to make and their potential to earn bonuses.
There is always the chance a company driver can negotiate a higher salary depending on how they’ve performed over time, but their earnings will likely be capped at a certain amount. This is different from all the other career stages because unlike the company driver, owner-operators truck drivers have a lot more control of their revenue and costs each year.
This does not mean you can’t live a quality life as a company driver. Company drivers don’t have the same worries and stresses that come with being an owner-operator. When they are home, they don’t have to worry about truck payments, maintenance, finding loads and other factors that come with owning a trucking business.
Also, if you decide being a truck driver isn’t for you, it’s not hard to leave knowing you don’t have to get out of a lease or lose the money you’ve invested into the profession. Even though the earning potential for company drivers isn’t always as high as the other career stages, being a company driver comes with minimal expenses and less stress.
The average USA Truck salary ranges from approximately $36,411 per year for Company Driver to $174,928 per year for Owner Operator Driver. Average USA Truck weekly pay ranges from approximately $713 per week for Truck Driver to $926 per week for Company Driver.
Salary information comes from 18,548 data points collected directly from employees, users, and past and present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 36 months.
Trucking companies pay around $0.28 and $0.40 cents per mile according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. But few companies do pay up to $0.45 to $0.50 cents per mile. Those types of jobs require huge skills and are for drivers with many years of experience in this industry.