Pros and cons for dedicated routes ?

I love my dedicated run I know the people where I load and unload , when I am going to be home and when I have to work again, I am home every other day about 20 hours and have weekends off and still drive 2400 miles a week , so I only sleep in my truck 3 nights a week, and I just love it ,like now im at home

 

Dedicated routes can be good and bad. The good is the home time you would get usually. The bad is you wont get the OTR experience you need as a newbie. If you plan on trying to stay local for your career, then it is a good deal.

 

The Biggest Pros is that most of the time you know what youre going to be doing and what you are going to make.
The biggest downfall, if there is one, is that if you like variety, you wont find it on dedicated. Also some dedicated is driver unload. You may have tight schedules and multistops
If its Terminal to Terminal Dedicated, you usually have a set schedule but its usually plenty of time to make the load. This is the best kind of Dedicated because its usually drop and hook.

 

Many drivers that start their career with dedicated routes get burned out real fast. The same routine day after day, week after week. Dedicated routes work well for drivers that have a comfort zone they don't want to venture from.

 

It's easy because you know the roads, traffic and learn backing into that specific dock.
But it's boring.. same thing over and over again

 

Pros: You know your route. You know about when you'll get off work. You get home. You get to know people in the stores and your customers.

Cons: Same ol' same ol'. The zipper is 26,583 slashes on that route. There are 24 potholes you have to dodge. You have your choice of 6 truck stops you can stop at and they all sell Subway! The customer you deal with is real hateful and you have to go back everyday.

 

I'd like to add something different. It really depends on the account and the characteristics of said account. I've run dedicated several times and each one was different. only one time did I ever had the same customer and it was only one way. All the others, I was dedicated to that Customer, but there was no strict, set run. I spend several weeks and never hit the same store twice.

But in general:

Pros: If you have a customer that you see regularly, it becomes really nice when everyone there comes to know you and you them. Sometimes something as simple as them giving you a big smile wen you walk in the door, can make your entire day.
Depending on the account, you have preference on that account vs another non-dedicated company driver, when freight slows down.
You normally deal with the same freight type and in alot of cases, you have very similar weights all the time.
You may have a regular route, or irregular. I was dedicated to a Maytag account for almost 2 years. From SLC to LA twice a week with weekends off. I got home once on tuesday and then was home friday afternoon to sunday afternoon. I loved it, but ended up getting hired by my Customer and that didnt workout very good.
You can usually make a little more than a regualr driver. Dedicated accounts usually have perks to them to make the extra work worth it.

Cons: You have more responsibility than a regualr driver. Your performance or lack there of can seriously effect that account and it's very easy to find out who the problem is.
If you have a bad relationship with a customer, it can add alot of stress if you continuously have to deal with them day in ad day out.
Customers can expect more from you, because you're dedicated to them and some can/will take advantage of that.
It can get boring if you are at the same places all the time.

 

Dedicated route or dedicated account? Same run every trip or different run for same shipper.

 

i had a dedicated route. it changed every so often. but the day was entirely the same. and all nights was at home.

back and forth, back and forth. i got tired of running around in circles.