How To Find a Good Trucking Company That is Right for You

I am married to a truck driver, the niece of a few truck drivers and even had one for a brother-in-law for several years and I have picked up a lot on the trucking industry. There are several things I have learned growing up listening to my family members talk, but I learned the most by marrying my own charming truck driver. One of the things I gotten to know pretty well is how to find a good trucking company that is right for you.

There are a lot of good trucking companies out there that will treat you right and allow for you to make good money. This does not mean they are a good company for you. You need to look for the things the company offers that will be of a benefit for you as an individual.

Home Time:

One of the things you need to look for is the home time that the company offers. Some companies offer you home time of 3 days off after 3 weeks of driving. This means you will not see any time off at home for three weeks. Others want you to run 2 weeks before getting a couple of days off. There are companies out there that offer to get you home every weekend.

So what you need to look at is how much home time you as an individual need. Can you go 3 weeks before coming home to only 3 days off? If not then that would not be a company for you. Do you really need to be home every weekend? Some drivers don't need to be home that often. So make sure that the home time they are offering with the amount of time out driving fits with what you need.

Benefits:

A lot of trucking companies offer benefits such as paid holidays, paid vacations, 401k plans, life insurance and even medical insurance. These benefits can be a great asset to you depending on if you need them and how much they are going to cost you to get. Some companies offer you the driver health and dental and life at no cost to you, with a small cost to add your spouse and children. Other companies hit you with some very high fees for these types of benefits.

The company my husband drives for does offer health and dental insurance. For the family plan insurance which include my husband, me and the children runs $200 and something a week, which makes for a very expensive insurance plan. This is expensive for us, so we elected not to get their health and dental insurance. Each company differs on the rates they charge so you need to ask the company about the rates for benefits such as these. This way if you need insurance you will know before hiring on if you want to pay that company's rates.

Mileage:

Mileage is a big deal in the trucking industry. Know how many miles you are going to want to run and can safely run during a week. Then look for companies that can give you the miles that you are wanting. Also what good is a company to you if they are offering you 50 cents a mile but only able to run you an average of 2,000 miles? Where as another company may offer you 38 cents a mile but run you an aver age of 3,500 miles. Look for companies that can get you the miles you are wanting on average.

You may be retired and just driving for a hobby to have something to do. If this is the case then a company offering less miles with a higher pay scale may fit you more than a guy who is not retired and trying to raise a family.

How to put it all together for you:

Now that I have showed you the three areas that you need to look at to find a trucking company that is right for you. Take this and look at each area and know that it will be hard sometimes to find a trucking company that will give you everything you want in all areas. So here is an example of how to find a trucking company to fit your needs while making a few sacrifices.

My husband wants to be home every weekend. He wants to drive an average of 3,000 miles each week. He wants a 401k plan and insurance. Here is what we got and where we sacrificed and ended up with a company that is great for us.

We have the every weekend home, so he only drives about 5 days a week. He gets around 2,600 to 3,000 miles a week. Now there are some weeks were we have seen some really high miles that hit in the 4,000s, but this is rare. We wanted insurance but like I said above theirs was too high for us to want to pay, so we forfeited the company insurance. He wanted the 401k but was able to do with out it since the company did not offer it.

We made a few sacrifices but still mainly got what we wanted. With the pay scale they have and the miles that he runs, we were able to get private health insurance and start a retirement account ourselves with our bank. We got the miles average that he wanted and the home time he wanted. So we got basically a perfect fit and so can you.