Greyhound Bus Driving or OTR?

It's better than being a paratransit bus driver. Uniforms, no radio, for $11.50 an hour. And you get to deal with some of the nastiest two legged animals on the planet.

 

I drove for Hudson Transit (Shortline) in 1996 which was before the Coach USA days. Being on the extra board sucked and caused me to leave for car hauling which has been very good to me. With that said, the big dog is still better than most OTR jobs unless you can get on line haul with a good LTL company like UPS, Old Dominion, etc but even there you will work the extra board for a few years. At least your extra board is in your home town, when I worked for Shortline I had to report to their main terminal in Mahwah. NJ every day at 02:00 and wait for someone to be late, break down, call out, etc before I was dispatched and if nothing happened by 06:00 I was sent home because I would not have enough hours to cover a full route after than and the trip was 70 miles one way, they comped my bus fare to and from but it took 2 1/2 hours to ride the bus to the terminal. Good luck with what ever you choose.

 

As a current motorcoach driver, who sometimes drives for greyhound (they hire our company on busy weekends), I wouldn't do that job full-time. The pay is better but the work is boring, you drive old rickety buses and everyone who works there seems to be grumpy. I'd rather make less money but drive charters full-time in an almost brand new Prevost that's assigned to me.

It's whatever you're looking for: better pay vs quality of life

ps if I was looking into transit bus jobs, i'd look into MegaBus/Coach USA. Better equipment and they seem to be doing better than Greyhound.

 

Look around for a BUSY charter bus outfit in your area. A friend keeps trying to get me to come over to the company her husband works for. He makes as much or more than I do, doesn't have to sleep in a #### truck, and is home more often and longer than I am.
I'm seriously considering it at this point. Got no pride left, anyway.

 

I don't get it... how is it possible that we get so many people who are just CERTAIN that this is what they want to make a career out of, yet they always ask everyone else to decide for them what field to get into, which company to work for, etc.?

 

You want a driving job where you can meet lots of women? Full service vending. A free soda and snack got me all kinds of phone numbers, especially nurses and medical aides at the hospital.

 

I worked for a charter bus company for awhile and did not like it all, did not make that much, and crappy benefits. At this company the difference was full vs part time. Most of the part-timers were retired guys who really didn't need the money so it was just gravy for them. Since they were part-time, they could refuse loads and only take ones they wanted. So of course they took all the best trips and customers. The rest of us would get stuck with a lot of high school athletic stuff or fraternities on the weekends with something good every now and then.

I can remember one trip to a high school field and track event in the middle of nowhere in Odessa TX or somewhere out there. We had to drive straight through to get there on time. But since one driver could not do it legally, there would be a car with a couple of other drivers trailing the bus. When one driver ran out of hours he would get in the car and trade off with one of the others. The car was supposed to drive ahead so the other drivers could get rest but of course it didn't always work out that way. Then at the field and track event I took my 8 hour, yes bus drivers are only required to take 8, on the bus in the middle of the day. The other drivers had moved on to something else doing another relay.

And I won't get into barfing fraternity memebers treating you like you are the lowest life form on the planet. This was a terrible job.

From what I gathered, the best charter jobs are for when you don't really need the money and can work seasonally or whenever you want. And the leg room is not good for a tall guy. I banged my knees up pretty good.