Hardest thing about being an OTR driver

Working with IDIOTS............................

 

Yes..............................

 

Irregular work hours. Leads to irregular sleep. I prefer to sleep when it's dark, and I can't always do it.

Yes, that's the worst I can come up with. I happen to love driving, and I love OTR.

 

hell i slept 13 hours last nite. dont know how i did it though, guess i was a bit tired.

 

Worse thing about driving OTR? Remembering where I am at when I wake up.

 

For me it is dispatchers that do not own a map or clock and the odd sleep cycles mainly.
My second big one, which can easy become the biggest gripe if I think about it at all, and I am sure ranks higher than the sleep thing is shippers and receivers.
It is there product.
All I want is it on or off my truck when it is supposed to be there.
If I have an appointment for 3 am then I want them done with it by 5am. I do not think this is asking much. It does not take 15 min to unload a trailer and it should not take more than an hour or so to load one, even if the product was not pulled and staged like it should have been.

These uneducated people at the docks seem to think we are garbage and can wait as long as they want us too. They will take hour long brakes in the middle of loading or unloading trucks. I have seen them stop loading for a break with 1 pallet to go. It is on the forklift near the trailer, and the guy takes an hour break.
After the truck had been there 3 hours+++ already.
At least when I was on dedicated runs I met the people at the places I was going and got to know them some. This helped allot and I never waited long.

I think there needs to be regulations on shippers and receivers for how long after an appointment time they can keep a truck waiting. It has been proposed in the past, but never acted on. Heck, the DOT says that is part of why they made the 14 hour rule how they made it. To put pressure on the shippers and receivers to not make trucks wait.
Instead all that it managed to do was to make it more likely that drivers will have to cheat to move the load.

Ok, you had my rant lol.

 

ROFL


The hardest thing for me is that....

My wife is permanently disabled and I hate being away from her for so long. When I was OTR, 3 weeks out was ridiculous. With my current gig I'm only gone for about 35 hours max, but it makes it such a chore to plan anything, and when I'm at home I tend to want to do nothing or sleep, which isn't contributing much.

Also, since we are home so much, we don't really get to take days off other than to reset. You can ask for them off, but being a team driver pressures you to not do it. I need $1700.00 worth of dental work done, to see a dermatologist, and my doctor, but I can't really plan it as same day appointments are very hard to get, and the dental work is going to require drugs and sedation.

As far as problems with the job, were it not for the things I mentioned above, I wouldn't really have a lot of problems, but gripes... I will list a few;

Things I don't like:
- Planners who "ask" you for a favor, then when you say no, they "tell" you for a favor instead.
- Not being able to idle OTR and the company not putting an APU in the truck. A driver has one of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the world, they should be comfortable and well compensated for their risk.
- Never knowing what day you'll have off.
- Never being able to take off more than 3 days without potentially losing your truck.
- Snooty store managers who ask what you're hauling when it was a pre-loaded sealed trailer (Dude, I don't get paid by the hour here, just unload the #### thing, I don't care what is in it).
- Conceited dock workers who want you to go outside and drop your landing gear, disconnect your air lines, pull your truck out, stand on your head, pick your nose, balance your check book, so that they can run a pallet jack to unload your Home Depot freight (Seriously man, get over yourself).
- Working a 70 hour week for so little money. If you're like me and running teams, it means you are gone for 140 hours a week, I don't know anyone in any other profession putting in those kind of hours (even if I am sleeping part of the time).
- The Qualcomm going off while you are asleep and people expecting you to wake up, give a ####, or jump and do what they want immediately. The last I checked, if a driver is asleep, you cannot expect him to respond to Qualcomm messages, as that is considered on-duty.
- Getting planned expecting the truck to move at 60mph for 3600 miles. Nevermind that you will hit 3 major cities at peak rush hour and quite possibly be sitting for a couple of hours in traffic.
- The f'n idiots on the road. Probably my biggest gripe. People who don't signal, people who can't merge, people who change lanes so close to your front bumper that you can't even see their car, people who pass and jump 4 lanes of traffic right in front of a truck to hit an off-ramp, people who drive 45+/- in a 75 (I realize some vehicles are governed, but I mean civilian vehicles), people who can't keep their vehicle in their own lane, people who don't DIM their HEADLIGHTS (do people not realize how bright headlights can be now?), people who pass you and slow down (wtf?)
- An 18 year veteran driver with a perfect safety record gets cut off by some dumb beyach who slams on her brakes and he rear ends her, now he gets a preventable accident on his record and his income was cut by 30k a year. (Huh? Yea, I know someone this just happened to 2 weeks ago)