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Some commercial drivers transport passengers and deliveries for businesses and residences, while some operate tractors to transport cargo over various distances. Others are involved in transporting non-traditional cargo over a long distance. Nonetheless, the primary responsibility of a commercial driver is transporting. As a commercial driver, you are in charge of taking full responsibility for your bus or truck. You are in charge of the repairing, maintenance, and services of the bus. When necessary, you may require the service of a repairer to ensure the service of your vehicle. Loading and unloading luggage and cargo is your responsibility. Your responsibility also involves picking up and dropping off students at their destination. Traffic rules and regulations are for orderliness on the road; therefore, you must follow traffic rules to ensure safety and avoid accidents.

A license or a CDL is important for a commercial driver. A commercial driver must be patient, neat, have good communication skills, be coordinated, and have good stamina. The average salary of a commercial driver is $54,000 yearly. There is no educational requirement to be a commercial driver; however, possessing a high school diploma certificate is a plus.

What Does a Commercial Driver Do

There are certain skills that many commercial drivers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed hearing ability, physical health and hand-eye coordination.

Learn more about what a Commercial Driver does

How To Become a Commercial Driver

If you're interested in becoming a commercial driver, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 18.5% of commercial drivers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.1% of commercial drivers have master's degrees. Even though some commercial drivers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Commercial Driver

Career Path For a Commercial Driver

In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of driver you might progress to a role such as foreman eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title superintendent.

Commercial Driver

Average Salary for a Commercial Driver

Commercial Drivers in America make an average salary of $46,852 per year or $23 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $62,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $35,000 per year.
Average Commercial Driver Salary
$46,852 Yearly
$22.52 hourly

What Am I Worth?

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Roles and Types of Commercial Driver

The role of a commercial driver includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general commercial driver responsibilities:

  • Operates vehicle in accordance with waste management safety
  • Perform complete pre- and post-operation inspection of the vehicle in accordance with company policy to ensure tire pressure, fluid levels, safety equipment, gauges,
  • Delivers the syllabus for the cdl course assigned based on acics

There are several types of commercial driver, including:

Driver

Role:

Almost anyone can drive a car, but not everyone gets paid for it. Drivers are responsible for everything from driving customers from point A to point B, to delivering packages to clients, you have a range of what exactly you want to be driving. If you're going to be delivering packages, you'll want to build up your upper body strength in case you have to lift heavy objects.

As far as driving people around, you might want to brush up on your communication skills, either that or blast your music during the ride. Some drivers are especially helpful to tourists who are curious about the area. In these instances, your favorite restaurant or activity might come in useful.

The hours you'll work as a driver can range dramatically. Your work schedule will depend on who you're working for and if you're able to set your own hours. There are some companies where you'll work 60 hours in 7 days, but other companies will only require 40 hours. If there's anything to take away from being a driver, it's that the job is nothing less than interesting.

  • Average Salary: $34,771
  • Degree: High School Diploma

Truck Driver

Role:

Remember when you were a little kid and you would move your arm in a pulling down motion every time you passed a large semi-truck? You know that excitement when the drive actually honked? That's actually one of the responsibilites of being a truck driver.

While we're totally kidding, honking at kids (and let's face it, some adults) does make the long road trips a little more fun. After you take a professional truck driving school and obtain your commercial driver's license, then you'll be able to see the country. Imagine all of the cities and towns you'll get to drive through.
  • Average Salary: $60,326
  • Degree: High School Diploma

Route Driver

Role:

Route drivers work primarily independently, but they report to the dispatcher, and they work closely with them. As a route driver, you are to pick up and deliver products to diverse local customers. Choosing this career path requires constant travel because you will be involved in transporting materials and supplies. Being a route driver entails you to review route sheets daily to know the locations of pickups and deliveries.

Also, you are to maintain logs by filling out delivery and picking up logs accurately and with detailed information. In addition, you are expected to perform vehicle maintenance and communicate with customers. There is no formal training required for this role. You must, however, be able to drive comfortably. To be a successful route driver, you must possess exceptional organizational skills and customer service. Averagely, you will make $15.95 per hour.
  • Average Salary: $45,492
  • Degree: High School Diploma

States With The Most Commercial Driver Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active commercial driver jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where commercial drivers earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Commercial Driver Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California30,209$46,629
2Texas27,995$37,985
3Illinois21,257$48,306
4Ohio19,764$46,975
5Georgia17,889$39,159
6Pennsylvania17,629$42,108
7Virginia13,821$42,349
8New York13,293$49,787
9Indiana10,292$38,981
10North Carolina9,693$33,861
11Missouri8,756$39,689
12Tennessee7,970$44,379
13South Carolina7,596$37,549
14Alabama7,553$34,809
15Kentucky7,292$46,094
16Michigan7,103$45,240
17Florida6,657$38,945
18Maryland6,070$44,967
19Wisconsin6,010$48,568
20Minnesota5,725$47,840
21Kansas5,709$45,957
22Iowa5,573$45,756
23Louisiana5,221$37,429
24Oklahoma5,101$45,718
25Arizona4,727$43,654
26Mississippi4,562$44,376
27Arkansas4,319$40,891
28New Jersey3,980$49,028
29Colorado3,855$42,294
30Washington3,796$54,834
31West Virginia3,647$31,732
32Oregon3,097$48,698
33Nebraska2,920$46,269
34Massachusetts2,824$47,420
35New Mexico2,208$38,005
36Utah2,112$40,615
37Connecticut1,895$49,901
38Delaware1,711$48,017
39South Dakota1,557$46,434
40Idaho1,509$34,633
41North Dakota1,437$52,355
42Nevada1,428$52,110
43New Hampshire814$49,130
44Montana775$39,991
45Maine708$33,314
46Rhode Island681$46,104
47Wyoming585$49,032
48Vermont569$45,983
49Hawaii200$50,198
50Alaska166$51,235

Commercial Driver Education

Commercial Driver Majors

25.4 %

Commercial Driver Degrees

High School Diploma

36.1 %

Associate

23.5 %

Bachelors

18.5 %

Top Skills For a Commercial Driver

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 18.8% of commercial drivers listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as hearing ability and physical health are important as well.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Commercial Driver Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Commercial Driver templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Commercial Driver resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

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Commercial Driver diversity

Commercial Driver Gender Distribution

Male
Male
76%
Female
Female
24%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among commercial drivers, 24.2% of them are women, while 75.8% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among commercial drivers is White, which makes up 55.6% of all commercial drivers.

  • The most common foreign language among commercial drivers is Spanish at 82.8%.

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Best States For a Commercial Driver

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a commercial driver. The best states for people in this position are Washington, North Dakota, Nevada, and Alaska. Commercial drivers make the most in Washington with an average salary of $54,834. Whereas in North Dakota and Nevada, they would average $52,355 and $52,110, respectively. While commercial drivers would only make an average of $51,235 in Alaska, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. North Dakota

Total Commercial Driver Jobs: 1,437
Highest 10% Earn:
$67,000
Location Quotient:
1.34

2. Ohio

Total Commercial Driver Jobs: 19,764
Highest 10% Earn:
$61,000
Location Quotient:
1.67

3. Illinois

Total Commercial Driver Jobs: 21,257
Highest 10% Earn:
$62,000
Location Quotient:
1.54
Full List Of Best States For Commercial Drivers

How Do Commercial Drivers Rate Their Jobs?

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Top Commercial Driver Employers

Most Common Employers For Commercial Driver

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Schneider National$57,373$27.5897
2Werner Enterprises$54,040$25.98109
3Covenant$49,391$23.7540
4J.B. Hunt Transport Services$48,310$23.2371
5Waste Management$47,648$22.91200
6Centerline Solutions$47,562$22.8785
7CLASS$47,095$22.6440
8C.R. England$46,726$22.46101
9Stevens Transport$46,720$22.4630
10Western Express$46,583$22.4028

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