Let’s first define what a chauffeur is. A chauffeur is someone who is employed to drive a private automobile, a charter bus, event shuttles, or a limousine for others, providing professional, customer-focused transportation services.
There are probably fathers out there who feel like chauffeurs as well; however, I am a mother, so I will speak from my personal experience of shuffling two sons around for the last almost twenty-one years.
As a mom, it has been more about being the logistical backbone of my family, ensuring everyone gets where they need to be safely and on time. Plus, add to that huge responsibility, my full-time job, two dogs who also need to be chauffeured around, and my extracurricular activities.
Thankfully, my oldest son was very eager to get his driver’s license immediately, starting driver’s training at exactly fourteen years and nine months old, catapulting him into achieving his goal of driving on his own by his sixteenth birthday.
On the other hand, my youngest son, who will be seventeen in a couple of months, is just now finishing segment two of Michigan’s driver’s training requirements. Since he lives with me full time, he has heavily depended on me to drive him to the following, but not limited to:
- High school that starts at the crack of dawn (we are a school of choice, so he needs a ride)
- Work
- The gym (he has a healthy lifestyle and likes to work out many times a week)
- To friends’ houses
- Home from friends’ houses
- To the doctors
- School events
- To the bank
NBC News reports about how parents, specifically moms, find solutions to avoid becoming a chauffeur, “When Deb Fink heard about a company that could drive her 9-year-old son to his after-school program, she balked at the idea of putting him in a car with a stranger. But faced with the unrelenting pressure of driving him where he needed to go in the middle of her workday, she decided to give it a try.
Now she is sold, and grateful for the handful of ride-hailing companies that have emerged at a time when children are expected to accomplish a dizzying array of extracurricular activities and the boundaries between work and home have blurred.
The demand for such services has been so high in some places that companies struggle to provide enough drivers. Others face hurdles convincing parents that a stranger hired by a ride-hailing company is trustworthy enough to ferry their most precious passengers.
To allay concerns, companies catering to kids claim to screen drivers more extensively, checking their fingerprints and requiring them to have childcare or parenting experience, sometimes describing them as “nannies on wheels.” Drivers and children are given passwords that must match, and parents can track a child’s whereabouts in real-time through the app,”.
Both of my sons are still in the probationary period of driving according to Michigan law. As a proactive measure, I stress to them the importance of driving safely and adhering to the law, because they could easily lose their license.
Can You Drive if You Lost Your License?
It is clear that if we physically lose our license or enhanced driver’s license in the State of Michigan, we can visit the Secretary of State (SoS) and apply for a replacement. Other states refer to the SoS as the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles).
At any of the locations, we will have to provide legal and proper identification to confirm our identity. If my enhanced license is lost or stolen, it will be immediately canceled. It cannot be used for border-crossing purposes (an enhanced license can be used in place of a U.S. passport to re-enter the United States by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, or the Caribbean).
However, if a license is legally lost as a direct result of too many speeding tickets (I wouldn’t know anything about that!), a drunk driving conviction, or a car accident in Michigan where you are the one at fault, then you had better hire an attorney quickly.
In the case of a license being suspended due to multiple speeding tickets, one must complete a driver’s improvement course and pay all fines in full before it can be reinstated.
Should your license be revoked for a DUI, you need to complete a substance abuse evaluation and education program as well as install an ignition interlock device on any vehicles you own or operate. The court may add additional actions such as attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or admission to substance abuse rehabilitation for a set time. In both cases, a reinstatement fee must be paid.
Should a license be suspended or revoked, one may not be able to apply for a replacement. Instead, they will have to follow proper steps to get it reinstated before they can legally drive again in Michigan.
If you are a professional driver, such as a chauffeur or truck driver, and lose your license, you may face losing your career along with it.
My oldest son loves to drive so much that he once considered truck driving as a potential profession. He would be in good company, as my grandfather drove a beer truck for a living and did well for his family. My uncle, his only son, followed in my grandpa’s footsteps, but he went a little further, as he is not only a truck driver but also owns a trucking company with many other drivers working for him.
What Are the Highest Paying Truck Driving Jobs?
If a student chooses to become a truck driver, they will need to go through special training and earn a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), which has three main classes:
- Class A for large tractor-trailers
- Class B for single vehicles like straight trucks and dump trucks
- Class C for smaller vehicles or those transporting hazardous materials or passengers
Truck driving is a highly in-demand profession that offers excellent job security. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the industry is expected to grow by 21 percent, resulting in approximately 1.5 million new jobs. Additionally, the current average starting yearly salary for truckers is approximately $37,770. Not too shabby of a way to start after high school.
Of course, not all truck driving jobs are created equal. Some offer higher salaries and better benefits than others. Here is a list of the highest-paying truck driving jobs in the industry:
Highest Paying Trucking Jobs
- Owner-Operators Salary: $221,000
- Ice Road Drivers Salary: $60,000 to $78,000 per season (3-4months).
- Oversized Load Salary: $73,000 – $120,000
- Specialty Vehicle Haulers. Salary: $67,000 to $89,000
- Team Drivers. Salary: $65,700-$80,300
- Private Fleet. Salary: $87,500
- Mining Industry Drivers. Salary: $55,000 to $79,000
- Liquids / Tanker. Salary: $75,000
- Hazmat Drivers. Salary: $55,000 to $73,000 or more
Moms are chauffeurs meaning
In conclusion, being a mom-chauffeur blends love, logistics, and life lessons—that is, until your passengers become drivers chasing their own dreams.