So, you're wanting to run local...

There seems to be a general feeling on this forum that once you've gotten to the point where you can run locally that you've gotten yourself into a much better position. No longer biding your time at the mega-fleet OTR companies, you'll be home more, see wife, husband, kids, dog, carpet and La-Z-Boy much more often. Sounds great, doesn't it?

In a lot of ways it is. Having started driving younger than most, my first times driving were local, I couldn't leave the state. The company I worked with was local, mostly, as well, the longest runs would be considered more "regional". After that, I did run some OTR hauling milk. I enjoyed it in a lot of ways, always liked getting a load headed somewhere I hadn't been before.

And, now I'm back to local, and loving being local again. But, I thought I'd shed some light on what it's like running local for those who have their eyes set on getting themselves to where they're home (most) nights (or days, depending on your schedule).

There's a lot of conversation on the forums about the physicality of different sides of trucking. A recurring question among many of the student-drivers is whether or not flatbed work would be a good fit for them... Heavy lifting, strapping, chaining, tarping, climbing up and down loads. Well, generally speaking, if you're going to run local, your driving job is going to become a lot more physical.

I'll give you an example. I primarily pull a lowboy now hauling machinery, oversize and overweight. It's what I learned to drive around and where my driving started. Aside from machinery, I'll also haul general construction goods, from pipe to trench boxes, to excavator buckets, about anything the customer asks us to put on the trailer.

There's one particular customer, a good customer, who always has a bunch of oddball or complicated things needing to move from jobsite to jobsite. One particular day involved a small sheepsfoot compactor, two trench boxes with spreader bars, two excavator buckets, and a compaction wheel for an excavator. All of this stuff was at two separate jobsites and another excavator bucket needed to be taken from one to the other. I arrived at the first jobsite and we loaded the sheepsfoot compactor, the first trench-box and spreader bars, and the excavator bucket that needed to be shuttled to the other site. 8 chains and 3-straps, not too bad, and the morning was still cool.

Made it over to the next job-site, unchained the bucket and unloaded it. Also unchained the spreader bars, took them off, and unchained the trench-boxes to stack the second set of trench boxes and spreader bars back on top. Re-chained the two trench boxes, and the 8-spreader bars, meanwhile, had them loading the other excavator buckets and comp wheel.

Plenty of climbing up and over the loads. I typically keep an eye on the guys loading my truck unless it's one of the customers I trust and know the operators. The spreader bars, which are essentially a 10-inch diameter steel pipe and weigh in about 100-lbs a foot, had to be hand-rolled off the forks for loading to make sure they didn't come rolling off the top of the trench boxes. Then, as many know, the climbing when you're setting your straps, especially anything belly-wrapped.

By the time it was all said and done, there were 17 different straps and chains on the truck, and doing the math, since we had to unchain to load more pieces on, that's 28 different chaining and strapping procedures to get the whole load settled on the rig. Meanwhile, it's the middle of the day and up around 95-degrees. That was on the heels of a machine in the morning, simple enough, 4-chains and a strap, so, 33 separate times tying down a chain or strap in a day.

Typically I'm doing loads like this 2-3 times a week. As an O/O, I don't mind it a bit, it's good money, takes long enough to chain and strap all the stuff down I shut the truck off and bill hours while the truck isn't costing me anything to just sit there while I sweat my ### off.

But, that doesn't inherently mean the days where you're just moving machinery or single-piece loads are any less strenuous. Even easy, 4-chains-and-gone machines, 2 or 3 a day can turn into a fair amount of work. I remember doing the de-railed rail-cars, we'd typically squeeze in at least 2, maybe 3 loads a day shuttling them in for recycling. 6-8 chains per car depending on just how damaged it was, but, halfway through the second car in 100-degree heat in dirt and coal dust and you were sweating.

Now, don't take this as me complaining. I love working local, and the chaining and strapping is a good work-out, even if you're totally wore out at the end of the day.

But, let's take a look at a couple other different types of local trucking:

That guy in the daycab pulling the reefer? You might have heard some of the veteran produce and meat-haulers use a phrase called "hand-bombing" or "finger-printing" a load... what's finger-printing or hand-bombing a load? It refers to hand loading and unloading the reefer. And for some guys pulling the reefers locally, still delivering to ma-and-pa shops, hand-bombing is still a daily thing. Even if every box is only 20lbs, which, I really doubt they're always gonna be light, by the 100th box, you're gonna' be beat all to hell...

So, what about that daycab dragging the tanker?

Well, aside from getting to work around stuff that explodes, imagine dragging hundreds of pounds of hoses around multiple times a day making deliveries to gas-stations...

Garbage trucks, you're lifting thousands of pounds worth of garbage from trash-cans every day...

Dump trucks... climb up on top of that load with your shovel and starting pushing it into the corners so you can pack on as much as you can...

Concrete trucks? Get ready to be jumping in and out doing wash-outs at job-sites, and also periodically getting to climb into the barrel and clean out the mixer body itself... yes, there's going to be concrete stuck on the inside that needs to come out...

So, what am I getting at here? Does this mean you should be sticking to the longer distance stuff? Not necessarily.

Like I said, I love running locally. There IS something to be said for sleeping in your own bed (most) nights, and there IS definitely something to be said for seeing family more often.

But, what I am getting at is, don't think it's all roses and cinnamon buns when you're running local. I've pulled stepdeck OTR, and the chaining and strapping you'll do can be a work-out, but, once you're all tightened down, other than a couple checks on the way, you can go 1, 2, 3 days, maybe even a week before you're pulling them off and chaining down your next load.

I'd have a hard time being convinced to go back to OTR again... but, I thought I'd give some of the newer drivers on the forum who are dreaming of running local a look into what it can be like physically...

You might have also noticed I kept saying you'll sleep in your own bed (most) nights. Well, there's always going to be oddball runs that have you out for a night, and there certainly can be days you're so tired, that, if you have a sleeper like my truck (small sleeper), you're going to crash, at least for a few hours, in your truck rather than driving home.

And don't forget traffic. Remember how it's really, really annoying when you hit a city after cruising out on the open highways and you're suddenly dealing with loads and loads of traffic again and lots of idiot drivers?

That's all day if you're running local. There's a fun part to running local at night if you're willing to turn your sleep schedule on end.

Again, this isn't me complaining. I love it, I love being local.

However, be prepared if you're going to go local, in virtually any sector of trucking, that the physicality of the job can increase dramatically.