Which is the Highest-Paid Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) Job?
When you finish professional truck driving training and receive a CDL, you can pursue many career options. The market will never run out of vacancies with 80% of cargo in the USA being moved by trucks. However, not every hauling job is the same. Some are better paid and some offer other benefits, such as more free time, shorter trips, etc. As it is with every profession, deep and specific skills, high liability, and willingness to cope with some drawbacks are more profitable. But what does it mean in the OTR freight industry? First of all, to apply for a beneficial position, you will likely need a Class A CDL. It grants you permission to operate motor vehicles with high capacity and specific functions, such as hazmat trailers. In turn, such vehicles are associated with the best-paid jobs, including:
- Team driving for long hauls. As the name suggests, the job implies teaming up with another driver for extended routes. It allows to complete the trip faster because drivers are working in shifts, provides high mileage which affects the paycheck directly, and usually offers a better salary in general. The drawback is that you agree to spend weeks away from home and in close contact with another person which could be very challenging.
- Hazmat hauling. Transporting gases, explosives, flammable liquids, and other dangerous chemicals requires much caution, responsibility, and skill—all the things that make you a demanded worker.
- Specialized driver. Their skills are deep but narrow and usually relate to one specific field of work, such as hauling sensitive or oversized cargo. To get such a job, one needs a perfect driving record, specific documentation, and often absolute law-abidance. The payment correlates with difficulties.
- Driver in a private company fleet. First-class enterprises, such as Walmart, hold their own truck park. Their drivers have to comply with higher standards but receive higher salaries as well.
Getting truck driver training for a Class A CDL
When you are aiming for the best vacancies in the hauling field, receiving an A CDL is the first step. If you merely want to start a new career, you will have to undergo full professional truck driving training. If you already have a license, an hourly upgrade course will do. Both options are available in any truck driving school in the USA.
Choosing a truck driving school
If you are looking for a place to acquire the much-needed license, turn your attention to Start CDL truck driving school. They offer training programs for manual and automatic kind of a gearbox, courses for class A and class B commercial driver’s licenses, and they also teach short-term programs for upgrading and extension of valid CDLs. If you are a newcomer, professional instructors in Start CDL will teach you anything necessary to start working, and if you are a seasoned veteran of the industry, it will not require much time and effort to get the desired result.