Huckleberries Online

Truck Driving Growing In Popularity

Posted by DFO

March 9, 2009 8:24 a.m. • 11 comments

Item: Truck driving becomes a popular career choice/Tom Sowa, SR

More Info: The sputtering economy has led to a surge in applications at area truck driving schools. Driving school directors say they’re getting more online and over-the-phone applications than ever before. But there’s a hitch; like any other sector, trucking firms have been slammed by the downturn. Paying about $5,000 to earn a commercial driving license used to mean a solid chance to land a trucking job. Today, the driving jobs are still there but they’re most likely on long-haul routes that will take drivers away from home for long periods.

Question: Would you be willing to drive a truck long haul to provide for your family?

11 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Aliasjax on March 09 at 9:10 a.m.
Personally, no…but I know now want I’m getting my wife for her birthday: Truck driving lessons…
moscow_minidoka on March 09 at 9:50 a.m.
It’s something I wouldn’t mind - not as a permanent career, but for a year or two. I always enjoy a road trip, and when I was younger I spent many 14+ hour days doing tractor work in the spring and fall. I used to drive sugar beet, potato, and grain trucks too, and enjoyed the view from up in the cab.

I’d rather drive long-haul truck than work in food service again, I can tell you that.
Bent on March 09 at 1:52 p.m.
I think it would be a great retirement job, but only if you could pick and choose when you work and where you are going… It would be a great way to tour this great country, and get paid to do it…
keithincda on March 09 at 1:59 p.m.
Having previously owned a truckstop/c-store…..great, great hard working people but some real scary ones in the group as well. Definitely not a job for a family person. Certainly a good job for the “Lone Wolf” types though.
JeanieSpokane on March 09 at 2:07 p.m.
Once I was working in a building on Washington and Mission and I could hear a semi engine toiling along. It seemed to be “hovering” right there outside my window for several minutes and I looked out to see what was holding it up. Here was the semi, trying to make a left hand turn south on Washington, east to Mission, up on the lawn of the credit office directly across the street from my office, with a sign on the side, “Washington State Truck Driver Training School.”
Liz on March 09 at 2:53 p.m.
nope. But only because the thought of driving one of those things terrifies me.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.