Flatbed versus Refer

Dang... I know NOTHING about your area. I hauled for FE/LH back and forth there,years ago...wouldn't recommend that, either.

@Chinatown .. any OTHER tanker gigs in the man's ^^^ area you may know of? @Bud A. ??

 

Coastal Transport hired a guy right out of cdl school in San Diego; they probably won't admit to it though since the website has "1 yr. exp. required." They also bent their own rules at a couple of Texas terminals.

 

My company is transitioning to e-logs. I run flatbed to the oil field.

In response to the 14 hour clock getting chewed up by customers, that's true. However, there's nothing that says you can't log sleeper berth while you wait. If you do that, then you can either get a "split 8" or even a 10 hour reset for a fresh 8/11/14 clock.

A recent example was I was dispatched to an oil rig an hour's drive from OKC to pick up a multi-stop load of "bottom tools" (drilling motors, collars, stabilizers, subs, and kit boxes). This is a messy load. The tools are fresh "out of the hole" and covered in crude oil and drilling mud.

I arrive at the rig at the appointed time and the company man apologizes because they broke a tool three miles down and it will be hours until they have them out of the hole. "No problem", I say, and crawl into the sleeper berth.

Eight hours later I wake up to the truck rocking as the "Bone" puts the first 5000 lb collars on the deck. I have a "split 8" now. In another hour all the tools are secured, paperwork signed, and I am heading back to the city to make four stops with 10 hours left on my 14.

 

Teach'em, bro. It's SO do'able.

 

Navajo Express has a yard in Chino. Maybe it's a shared drop yard. At least this tells you there's freight near home often.

Mayflower also has a facility in Chino.

 

Well my thought on that is what were you doing prior to that 1 hour trip? Did you just come off a 10hr sleep break and got to that job site 1hr into your fresh day? If that's the case we all know realistically you are not getting 8hrs of sleep again after only being up & running for a hour or two..

Now you run into a dangerous situation, where you really aren't sleeping but hanging out in the truck off the clock then after that 8 hours you go drive 10... That's 19 or 20 hours combined of being awake not to mention much of that drive time being in the late hours of the night where you will start getting drowsy as anyone would..

Now lets move into the next day and after that late drive you have a AM appointment for your drop off, you get what a few hours of sleep again and back on the road? Not being able to keep similar sleep patterns can lead to a lot of problems.

On the other hand if you just drove say 6or7hrs did your offload got stuff unloaded drove the 1 hour to the oil rig, it's a totally different game at that point.

The problem I see is getting into these kind of situations where you game the clock is dangerous and I can see it happening a lot more with refer than I can with flatbed, but again that's just me looking in at this point.

 

Once you get the hang of it tarp takes maybe a half hour.Took me longer but I've timed flatbedders and some of those guys made tarping their load look like a neatly wrapped Christmas gift.Its all what you prefer.Flatbed wasn't for me course I never liked reefer.Wait times lumpers midnight appts.More stuff you need to fill out loading and unloading.

 

Well, you are talking to a 30 year man who sat. clock, paper, or nothing. when it's necessary to sit. However long it takes.

You present a very good case. But I aint the one you need to be heavy lifting... lol.

You take it to the shippers and recievers. THEY are the ones who are either making you sit or not. If you want that clock running, make it run on their money by law so you are gone in 15 minues or a couple hours no more layovers. Frankly I don't know how to speed up a shipper or reciever without a absolute 1000% increase in manpower. 2 men does not 50 docks run. Need to be like 100.

Aint no corporation int he world gonna pay 100 men 15 dollars a hour to hustle your non priority cargo of so called freight out in a hour.

 

IF you are "gaming the clock" by NOT actually being in the sleeper birth and doing your ####ing job... SLEEPING... then you have a point.

If you are logging sleeper birth, then do your ####ing job and sleep.