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.
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What is a Commercial Driver?
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.
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.
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
$46,852Â Yearly$22.52 hourly
What Am I Worth?
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.
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.
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.
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
| Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 30,209 | $46,629 |
| 2 | Texas | 27,995 | $37,985 |
| 3 | Illinois | 21,257 | $48,306 |
| 4 | Ohio | 19,764 | $46,975 |
| 5 | Georgia | 17,889 | $39,159 |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | 17,629 | $42,108 |
| 7 | Virginia | 13,821 | $42,349 |
| 8 | New York | 13,293 | $49,787 |
| 9 | Indiana | 10,292 | $38,981 |
| 10 | North Carolina | 9,693 | $33,861 |
| 11 | Missouri | 8,756 | $39,689 |
| 12 | Tennessee | 7,970 | $44,379 |
| 13 | South Carolina | 7,596 | $37,549 |
| 14 | Alabama | 7,553 | $34,809 |
| 15 | Kentucky | 7,292 | $46,094 |
| 16 | Michigan | 7,103 | $45,240 |
| 17 | Florida | 6,657 | $38,945 |
| 18 | Maryland | 6,070 | $44,967 |
| 19 | Wisconsin | 6,010 | $48,568 |
| 20 | Minnesota | 5,725 | $47,840 |
| 21 | Kansas | 5,709 | $45,957 |
| 22 | Iowa | 5,573 | $45,756 |
| 23 | Louisiana | 5,221 | $37,429 |
| 24 | Oklahoma | 5,101 | $45,718 |
| 25 | Arizona | 4,727 | $43,654 |
| 26 | Mississippi | 4,562 | $44,376 |
| 27 | Arkansas | 4,319 | $40,891 |
| 28 | New Jersey | 3,980 | $49,028 |
| 29 | Colorado | 3,855 | $42,294 |
| 30 | Washington | 3,796 | $54,834 |
| 31 | West Virginia | 3,647 | $31,732 |
| 32 | Oregon | 3,097 | $48,698 |
| 33 | Nebraska | 2,920 | $46,269 |
| 34 | Massachusetts | 2,824 | $47,420 |
| 35 | New Mexico | 2,208 | $38,005 |
| 36 | Utah | 2,112 | $40,615 |
| 37 | Connecticut | 1,895 | $49,901 |
| 38 | Delaware | 1,711 | $48,017 |
| 39 | South Dakota | 1,557 | $46,434 |
| 40 | Idaho | 1,509 | $34,633 |
| 41 | North Dakota | 1,437 | $52,355 |
| 42 | Nevada | 1,428 | $52,110 |
| 43 | New Hampshire | 814 | $49,130 |
| 44 | Montana | 775 | $39,991 |
| 45 | Maine | 708 | $33,314 |
| 46 | Rhode Island | 681 | $46,104 |
| 47 | Wyoming | 585 | $49,032 |
| 48 | Vermont | 569 | $45,983 |
| 49 | Hawaii | 200 | $50,198 |
| 50 | Alaska | 166 | $51,235 |
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.
Commercial Driver diversity
Commercial Driver Gender Distribution
Male
76%
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
$52,355
Avg. Salary
2. Ohio
Total Commercial Driver Jobs: 19,764
Highest 10% Earn:
$61,000
Location Quotient:
1.67
$46,975
Avg. Salary
3. Illinois
Total Commercial Driver Jobs: 21,257
Highest 10% Earn:
$62,000
Location Quotient:
1.54
$48,306
Avg. Salary
How Do Commercial Drivers Rate Their Jobs?
Top Commercial Driver Employers
Most Common Employers For Commercial Driver
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Schneider National | $57,373 | $27.58 | 97 |
| 2 | Werner Enterprises | $54,040 | $25.98 | 109 |
| 3 | Covenant | $49,391 | $23.75 | 40 |
| 4 | J.B. Hunt Transport Services | $48,310 | $23.23 | 71 |
| 5 | Waste Management | $47,648 | $22.91 | 200 |
| 6 | Centerline Solutions | $47,562 | $22.87 | 85 |
| 7 | CLASS | $47,095 | $22.64 | 40 |
| 8 | C.R. England | $46,726 | $22.46 | 101 |
| 9 | Stevens Transport | $46,720 | $22.46 | 30 |
| 10 | Western Express | $46,583 | $22.40 | 28 |
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