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Comment by Justsignedup | Hacker News Reader

Isn't truck driving in the US a horrible job? Pay is shit. Sometimes you work for free. You can't really have a family like you could in other industries, and every year your pay stays stagnant if you're lucky.

My friend operates a truck. He owns his own and only with that is he able to earn 80k a year. And even he is looking to get out because 3 months on the road at a time means no family life.

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80k a year is fantastic pay in most parts of the country. In fact, the median US household income is 67k.

It sounds good on paper until you consider the facts. Being an owner-operator means you maintain your own truck, find your own loads, and take care of everything related to your business (insurance, licensing, rent, parking, etc).

Just maintaining a truck is crazy stressful. It might be ok for some time until something major breaks on your truck and you’re not working for a week and you’re out an additional $5k for repairs. Just hope you’re not stranded in the middle of nowhere and have to pay thousands to have your truck towed.

It’s also in the top 10 most dangerous jobs. It’s incredibly stressful. And all the latest regulations will put you on edge at all times. When you’re an owner-operator, you are constantly walking the line between pissing off customers and losing your license.

It’s such a demanding job nowadays.

my father makes 100k driving for a major carrier. of course that's working 6 days a week. he's also 65.

Given his age, he's probably been in the game a while. Does he own his truck? Is his truck paid off? How old is it?

What does he haul? It is specialized?

Does he cover his lease, insurance, gas, etc from his own pocket? Do you know about how much that is monthly?

How many miles does he drive on average?

I don't mean to bombard you with questions, but there's so much variation in pay you need more information than just salary to really understand that number.

100k is pretty normal for Teamster drivers, with a company vehicle, benefits etc. Of course, those positions are extremely easy to fill. There's not even close to a labor shortage there.

Downside is 60 hour weeks for 30 years.

"Teamster" yeah I heard that a lot. Teamster is mostly dead. They (companies hiring / employing drivers) kind of destroyed the reasonable union and saved a dollar, only to their own demise.

According to my father, there is a labor shortage for this position, at least at his company.

He is pretty high up in seniority, but there are so few drivers that he still gets called in on days he would normally have off because they don't have enough drivers under him.

The other reply is correct. He is a union employee working for a major carrier.

He drives nights up to the legal number of hours/miles as required and sleeps in cheap hotels during the day. My understanding is that his carrier does not use sleeper cabs because they use the same trucks for both local and over the road deliveries.

80k is very good money in much of the country.

True, but it says that the guy owns his own truck. Those are not inexpensive to pay for (purchase price, insurance, and maintenance). I can't imagine what it costs just to replace a few tires.

Yeah if you don't own your truck, and can't get a loan, you might be looking at 20-30k a year AND possibly negative numbers often times! Lease-to-fail.

Yes but it's not quite comparable to jobs where you're home every night

You could sell the truck and buy a backhoe and make as much or more, and stay in the area.

There is no free lunch. Every blue collar business that you can cook up either comes with significant start up costs or a decade of crap jobs working your way up the ladder. The money you make is directly proportional to the amount of stuff you do in house from customer acquisition to maintaining your machines. This comes with employees, paperwork, compliance, etc, etc or it caps your scale.

Those who don't have the equity to buy excavation equipment can also rent it on a per-job basis. That's not really an option with semi trucks?

You can rent 18-wheelers, but the rental price ends up being such that after expenses, you'd be making not much at all (they're aimed at companies).

still need a truck to haul the backhoe around

TIL 80k is a shit salary and truck drivers don't have families.

Truck driver is certainly not a dream job, but salaries are fairly good compared to the median in the US. And its not more difficult to have a family than if you're in the military or a night nurse or any other job with unusual schedule.

> And its not more difficult to have a family than if you're in the military or a night nurse or any other job with unusual schedule.

Military has huge divorce rates. And it is not like women were super eager to date military guys seriously. In a lot of ways it is worst then being with truck driver even, due to forced relocations every couple of years.

Night nurse get to be present outside of shift. Night nurse gets to be present parent. That is impossible for a soldier on deployment.

As the son of a life-long truck driver, this comment does not accurately reflect the difficulties of a 1-2 day a week father. While you are correct that truck driving is not unique in respect to difficulties with family life, I would never recommend anyone go into over-the-road driving if they have any plans to have a family.

80K for a owner operator is shit, he is not bring home 80K in salary, out of that 80K he has to pay for the Truck, Fuel, Insurance, Repairs, Self Employment Taxes, License Fees, and a whole host of other things

My Guess that is eating about 50% of that revenue way, so then his pay is probably around 40-45K gross profit before taxes.

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