Career choice, get my CDL at 20?

If his first carrier is a reefer fleet, he'll make real good money. He's tough enough to run his own landscaping business, so pulling reefers will be easy.

 

I’m with @lual on this 1. Learning a manual is very simple, and opens your options of who you drive for even wider. If you’re looking to get into trucking, Id get all the way in. The hardest part of learning to drive a manual will be the burned up clutch and sloppy transmission of the crummy truck they test you in.

 

ChinaTown is right. But you should not go to CDL school until you find the exact job you like, that fits, and that will hire you. You wouldn't jump out a window on a tall building and plan to sew a parachute before you reach the ground floor. Just going to CDL school doesn't mean you can get a good job. It just means you will be in a hurry to find ANY job before your new, unused CDL is stale and employers require you to get a refresher course to get hired.

 

Trucking doesn't often pay a salary, just so many cents per mile (CPM). Everyone responsible for delaying you is costing you money but they are all paid hourly or on salary so they DGAF how much of your time they waste and you will be blamed when the shipper's delay causes you to be late for the receiving appointment. Showing up late will also prohibit you from getting detention pay. You are literally the man in the middle being expected to overcome hours of delay by cheating on your electronic log book or breaking your sleep into small batches so you don't get a reputation as "not getting the job done." There is a metric ton of pressure on the driver in trucking.

 

There is a ton of info nobody bothers to tell the driver and new drivers don't know what are the usual details people forget to tell them. Plus EVERYONE assumes trucking is just a different type of 40 hour per week job. It's a 80 hour a week job you often have to fudge and claim was just 60-70 hours of work and you are stuck in a tiny room for days and weeks and sleep like crap or you get so lonely you just can't take it. You have control over your schedule and you make all of the decisions now. You will have none of that in trucking but you will have lots of people blaming you for not making miracles happen because they couldn't do the bare minimum at their job.

It's not an escape from life. It's a pressure cooker. If you can't be alone for for long periods you won't make it. If you have a temper it will get a work out in trucking. If you aren't a careful driver that never gets distracted you will fail in trucking.

80-90% of new CDL drivers leave the industry before they work 12 months. Finding a company and job that fits you is the single most important factor in being a success in trucking. If you just want to work anywhere, you will wind up working for the worst companies that treat you worse than a prisoner and you will leave, maybe with bad marks on your record or tickets and moving violations. Your next job will be worse than the bad company you leave. You can make it a success but you need lots of research and must be in no rush or you will jump at the same 3 companies that hire most newbies, fail, quit. A "free" CDL has a big price if the job isn't one that fits you. Find the job, then got to CDL school, in that order.

 

You can't because they're electronic logs.

 

If you want to basically live on the road, then reefers.
Some flatbed companies can keep you on the road.
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This one can keep you on the road:
Premiere OTR Flatbed Trucking Company - Melton Truck Lines
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This one also:
Home - Jones Brothers Trucking