Trucker

  Im a Commodities Relocation Specialist! All of your question have varying answers, if you are a company driver "they own the truck" you are much more constricted on what you can do in/with the truck as opposed to being an Owner Operator "you buy a truck and place the companies name on it".

  what size is your bed area in the truck? How much can you store up there? Are their wight and volume limits?
 All sleeper berths are 8feet wide and range from 30" - 200+" long,  most commenly around 50" long, as far as storage and weight you can bring whatever with you but you dont want to cramp yourself as space is limited and weight is always a truckers enemy, Ive had to siphon out 20 gallons "about 150lbs" of fuel to get a tractor/trailer to scale.

  Are you able to go off course slightly?
  short answer, yes! depends how far or long by each company, again more freedom here if you are a Owner Operator.


  Can you just casually stop at gas stations?
  YES!!!  you control when you need to stop and rest, if you are sick and need to stop for a few days they will have someone meet you and swap your loaded trailer with an empty one, but remember 90% of drivers are paid by milage or flatrate for a load, we always say "If the wheels aint turnin you aint earnin"


  Do they constantly track you with GPS?
   Yes! you are driving over$100,000 worth of equipment and could be carrying upwards of $2million worth of product in the trailer so the company tracts the truck and most customers tract the freight with their own GPS in the trailer, food companies even get live feed of the current temp of the trailer and will refuse the load if it goes above a set temp, your company now pays for the disposed food and you dont get paid for the load, could cost you around $3,000 if going from coast to coast!


   How many miles do you go per day?
  Again it depends, You can drive 11 hours a 24 hour period, you can not drive 14 hours after you first drove during that 24 hour period, you are aloud to go 2 hours over that 14hours once in a 7 day period for emergencies, most companies govern their tucks from anywhere between 60-75mph with most being about 65mph, so about 650-700 miles a day if all goes well with most companies paying $0.45- $1.50 a mile thats not to shabby!

 Do you go back and fourth a lot or is it just all over the place?
  Depends on you and the company, you can drive locally, regional or national, the farther you go the more you make.

 Do you know your driving locations weeks or a month a head of time? Or do you find out within just a day or two beforehand?
 Yet one more time it depends!  some drivers get dedicated runs, meaning they drive one product to one state then have a return product ready for their return route to their home state, they just do this same route over and over. most new drivers dont know what they are getting next until their current delivery is made, sometimes they sit "unpaid" for 1-3 days before getting another run, it could be as little as 50 miles away or from one coast to the other!


 I hope this helps! are you looking to drive a truck? do you have a company in mind? it would be easier to find answers about a specific company!