Flatbed versus Refer

How's uber treating you?

 

Ive been driving about 25 years. 4 companies. Only one of them was van/reefer. I lasted 10 months. The other 3 were flatbed. Was at one for 6 months, one for almost 17 years and here for 5.5 years. I vote flatbed. Had one the longest waits Ive had in a while today. Load appt at 17:30. Was 20:30 when i left, counting loading, strapping, plastic cover and tarping. If i wasnt flatbedding, I'd maybe want to learn tanker. I dont think I'll ever pull reefer or van again.

 

I'll amend the people in warehouse bit.

Robotics have taken over many warehousing and coldstorages these days. 500 robots following a computer matrix will handle your 48000 pounds well enough, there is another 5 million pounds where that came from.

Rest easy, get some sleep (Notice the trend? Constant telling you to sleep... that is your bank against the 1000 miles coming due when you are loaded.)

 

I run more with flatbed, I'll leave it at that.

I'm not in terribly good shape but I can secure a load despite the weather or conditions. Speed in securing comes over time. You have to get a system going. Move with efficency. You don't have to be out of breath securing a load, matter of fact I don't recommend it. (Pace yourself make sure you don't miss anything and do it right.)

Make sure to eat breakfast too. Made the mistake of rolling out of bed and going straight to deliver. Got the tarps pulled in like 5-10 minutes (full sized lumber load.) Went to pull the first strap, fell over promptly. Just collapsed, had no energy after that, the rest of the time packing up was a struggle.

 

Food. yum. Fuel, GO time.

No food? ugh.. that loading will not go well either. You will forget something or get a little weak trying to bind something and get tossed off the deck as I did once. Im hauling against this one coil once one morning, #### thing was not quite settled in it's bed on the deck, so I rigged two chain and 5 foot pipe against that 14000 pound stubborn hunk of steel.

Hauled on the pipe, ran out of moxie (Due to no food that morning...) halfway through. I hear this creak and made a choice. Hang on to the bar or let her go. People on other side so I hung on. Got flipped. ow.

I did not work to well, think tin man in the Oz movie that whole day. It's still ow...

There is one source of norishment in flatbedding with them steel coils with rough edges, IRON... by a thousand cuts at a time.

 

Yeah and I'm prone to hitting my head on things, I take the hard hat seriously. Reached though a shotgun coil to put some protection between my X chains, hit my head so hard the strap that hold the liner to the hat broke.

I'm much more careful now, move with severe caution when on deck. Cause I'm a bull in a China shop otherwise.

Reach to pull a belly strap through sheet metal (jeez that's alot of blood.)

And getting weak or tired while doing anything is a bad recipe for flatbed. Managed to fracture my shin with the smart end of a strap. Broke skin through my boots and pants. (It was just a stupid move while rolling a strap.)

It all calmed me down and changed my approach alot.

I keep a snap binder on board just to teach students how to use them without killing themselves. The demonstration on why not to stand in the way of the bar is usually an enlightening experience.

 

Oh yeah, Port of Houston. One time there I wandered through a couple of warehouses looking for "the yellow shed toward the other end on the left" so I could check in, and then parked by Light Pole 34 for an hour till their lunch break was up, then the guy finally came by in his pickup and told me to back up to the dock over at the original warehouse so I could drive off a reasonably big (48k) man lift. (That's an "aerial work platform" to those of you who write bills of lading.)

I politely explained that I drive the truck, not the man lift. That pissed him off some, so I waited another half hour until a different guy came over to tell me they were going to fork it off with two lifts. (I was wondering why guys who know how to drive big forklifts couldn't figure out how to drive a man lift, but I didn't say anything about that, since I knew pickup guy was already pissed.)

About 45 minutes after that I was finally out of there. And promptly got a load assignment to haul some steel out of the Port of Houston. That was a different fun adventure that taught me where the rest of the gates in and out of there are.

But mostly, flatbed is the best.

 

I don't know of any tanker jobs in SoCal. I just quit my tanker job after only three months and I'm going back to flatbedding.

I'm in my mid-50s. I pulled flats for a while, then had a bit of unplanned heart surgery that had me out of the truck for four months. I didn't really want to tarp anymore after the surgery. I got pretty fast at it, and I don't mind getting dirty, but I didn't feel very confident about throwing 80 pound tarps up on the deck. Honestly, I kept remembering what the nurse told me would happen if I busted open the staples in my sternum.

Now I've done tanker for a few months, and I feel more like my old self. I found a no tarp job hauling steel that has been fabricated to be outdoors for years and years. This company doesn't own any tarps. Throwing straps or occasionally chains is no problem.

I think doing flatbed comes down to a basic mindset of wanting to stay active and be outdoors. I would much rather tarp loads than sit in a dock waiting for some dickwad to come unload a box I'm dragging around. Actually, just about everything extra that goes with reefer is unappealing to me: bumping docks, waiting, checking temps, refused loads, listening to the reefer run while sleeping, appointments with 15 or 30 minute windows at all hours of the day and night, smelly food plants, dealing with lumpers, having to do an extra pull up when fueling, dealing with the company that starts with W, all of it just sounds awful. Just as flatbed sounds awful to many drivers, reefer sounds awful to me. I'd rather have to tarp an occasional load in Phoenix in August or in Chicago in February than deal with all that.

But if you have any hesitation about being outdoors in any kind of weather and doing some light physical work -- I mean, not that it doesn't kind of suck sometimes, but it's still a lot more fun than sitting in your bunk waiting for someone else to do something -- then flatbed probably isn't for you. Adding to what @cnsper said, flatbedders who hate the job shouldn't do it.

Nothing against reefer or those who choose to do it, it's just not for me, and I know that, even though I've never actually done it. I know myself and what I like and don't like. Tanker isn't bad, but flatbed is better, as far as I'm concerned. Reefer is out of the question at this point. I would only maybe think about doing if I lost even more of my ability to do physical work.

I'm not you, but you can get a fairly good idea for yourself by imagining the job at its worst and asking yourself which would be the worst. Or at the best. Take your pick.

 

And another thing. Your sleep is liable to be interruped by some dirt bag parasite hammering on the bunk about a foot away from your ear at 5 am

NEED A LUMPER!?

(*&^ morning to you too. NO.

One of the worst is the LA south market, if you are not on the property prior to midnight inside the walls the parasites will hop onto both your tanks hoping to score some money and be carried inside the gate. The gaurds are there to scrape em off at 2 am....

 

I'm also 57. Other than a small belly which gets tougher to get rid of with age, doc says I'm in excellent health.
I have been doing flatbed for the better part of 14 years and absolutely love it.
There are times I have to wait for a load because of manufacturing delays, the occasional wait at a job site to unload, but overall, most loads are fairly quick and easy.
Depending on who you hire on with, you can do a lot of taping or very little.
Right now, I only tarp a load about every 2-3 months.
Most loads are chain or strap and go.
Most yards are happy to see you and are a bit more accommodating than they would be if you pulled a van or a reefer.
I'll probably be doing flatbed until I can no longer climb on a trailer or throw a strap.
My choice for anyone really wanting to feel like they earn their money is flatbed by a mile.
However, if you don't like getting dirty, being in the heat or cold, feeling like you've accomplished something, then by all means, take the lazy truckers job and open two doors and set on your backside all day.