Calling all husband and wife teams!

Hi everyone.

My wife and I used to team flatbed after going to truck driving school in 1999 and 2000. We live in Southern Oregon and mostly stayed on the west coast. We were what I would call a successful team. We got off the road for a lot of reasons and only some of them related to trucking. Since then, we've both kept our CDL's, have impeccable driving records and are middle aged now and in good health. I've been driving truck continuously since then (but all automatics, and nothing over about 40') 14 of those last years with the same employer. Wife hasn't looked at a truck in 15 years. Because of a takeover at her bank, she is now jobless (but gettin unemployment). She's not interested in continuing in the banking industry...Lately we've been thinking of chucking it all and hitting the road again as a team.

We aren't 100% ready to pull the trigger yet. We've got a few things to work out, yet, but if we decided to go, I could see us go maybe in the spring?

So it's been 15 years for us. The rules of service have changed. Qualcomms were en vogue, back then, but probably only half the trucks had them. Cell phones were basic; nobody had heard of texting..lol Were there trucking forums?

I've had an email from a local ish flatbed company that would like to consider us. We would need to take driving tests obviously. But I'm not sure that flatbedding is the place for us. I loved the work mostly, but what killed us was that we were on a shortish run of about 800-900 miles, running lumber and steel. Always the same. And both loads both ways had to be tarped. So I was tarping and strapping twice every day, still trying to get my miles, and trying to get my wife some sleep while all that was happening. It was tough. Eventually she couldn't sleep well during the day and we began to struggle.

I'm thinking that a carrier with better loads that can get us out for longer runs may suit us better, where we can run a 12/12 split of the hours would be so much better; where we can have a reasonably consistent schedule.

If we do this, we want to run good and hard. Not too concerened about home time. Just make as much money as possible for a couple of years and pay the house off (our only bill), and then relax a bit. I would be willing to go to do some training with a company since my OTR experience is sort of dated, but I'm not interested in my wife going out with a trainer. She did that once in 99, and neither one of us want to do that again.


So I have a few questions for working husband and wife teams (company drivers probably rather than O/O, unless you have expreience with both).

1) Tell me which companies you like for our situation, and why.
2)Do flatbedder teams make the same kind of money that dry van or reefer teams make when you add in the incidental pay for tarp and untarp and what not?
3) Your opinions on hooking up with a more local little guy for a while to get our experience more current and then moving on, or going out with a bigger outfit where I would probably have to go with a trainer?
4)What's everyones opinion of GTI (Gordon) for teams currently. I see they get some bad press and there's been a buyout. They have a large presence here in town with a good sized terminal very close to the house.


There is a local truck driver school here in town that will let us go to a little refresher course for $125 an hour in the truck; we could sharpen our skills on shifting and backing and what not. I'm sure a couple of hours and we would be fairly comfortable again.

Thanks everyone. Sorry for the long post.

 

Thanks for all the replies. You guys are great. Lot's of great ideas.