Linehaul drivers. How many hours a night do you spend waiting?

I recall one LTL delivery of Oranges from Fort Lauradale Florida into 5 seperate customers. Two were private homes. One was a church. one was a school. And the 5th was so help me a community center. What it was a group of 30 people working a fund raiser together to buy the trailer load of oranges, pay the truck rate to Jersey and NY and Conn to deliver all them oranges in a timely manner and move forward in selling them at a markup to raise money for a collective goal that benefits all of them

At each location The houses unloaded instantly, The church required a overnight stay because we failed to meet the original appt time due to log book problems. (A team out of hours until midnight 8th day....) they unloaded us in 4 hours on a saturday morning. the school was taken care of on monday and the community center was finished after a 6 hour wait while the people processed the visual problem of 6 pallets of oranges and two small Prowler type cars. Not enough room. So they shuttle back and forth with them. I think 3 trips each a half ton of oranges per.

It was one of the more memorable LTLs

To this day, I stand tall saying you do not get taught in school or any experience in decades of driving a big rig how to aim a 53 foot trailer vs a carport at 2 am in a dead end subdivisioo culdesac. Waking up the entire neighborhood and shaking a few car alarms to boot while trying to be light on the tires with the horsies and airride with that weight.

 

I think someone needs to define LTL linehaul drivers.

Not me; I'm going to get a nap in.

 

I can't speak for all of us, and correct me if I am wrong. But I think the overall consensus of traditional LTL is daytime P&D and overnight (occasional daytime) linehaul that goes terminal to terminal but usually returns back to their home terminal at the conclusion of their shift. Yeah there are some exceptions, but most non team linehaul runs a daycab and lay over in a hotel

There are some OTR guys that consider themselves "LTL" because they have a trailer full of stuff that needs to go to various customers over the course of one long loop.

 

Exactly. Thank you. My last company hauled refrigerated LTL loads in reefer trailers, but they weren't an "LTL freight company" like we generally refer to them here. Even though I delivered and picked up less-than-truckload shipments, I didn't consider that to be a "real LTL job." For one thing, the pay disparity was huge between them and the typical LTL freight haulers we usually talk about here.

Not tryin to be a jerk, but an LTL linehaul driver typically goes between company cross-dock terminals, in a daycab, often pulling doubles. They don’t deliver skids of oranges to carports in residential neighborhoods with a sleeper truck.

(But I do love reading @x1Heavy stories!)

 

I wait at most 30 minutes each night on my meet person. Get paid for every minute I wait except when I take a 30 minute lunch.

 

We do the same at meets.

By the way, the only reason for my clarification was because the original question was about linehaul drivers' wait times.

 

I apologize for over confusing people with topic.

My stories in trucking related to waiting in all sorts of situations over my lifetime. For every story I tell there is 10 more.

Waiting time is a parasite against your income.

As far as my staying on topic, it's not always easy for me to do so. I sometimes miss the topic and run wild with stories. For that I apologize.

Story telling with facts is one of the largest forms of lesson teaching in the deaf culture. Using particularly expressive language etc in context can really teach a student or someone who asked a question about something. It does not always convert to english very well.

 

All this talk about getting paid for downtime is making me grumpy. I want back pay.....

 

You and me both.

No one even the entire employers list can afford mine, if they shared in paying me.

Economically trucking was a finanical failure as far as life time based decisions to work, build a retirement and essentially prosper on a bunch of income each week for decades. That's not the case. This is strictly my experience only. I am not bitter, I spent the money towards necessary things to maintain the strength and clarity needed to do good in trucking. As a deaf person I have had to do twice as good as any one else to keep my job. Im pretty sure my parents are disppointed in me. But they don't matter when the USA moved everything oversesas and across NAFTA borders. And watched Baltimore become a industrial wonderland into a place with condos and really expensive service parasites for the rich, pricing all others to move and leave the city.

 

I don't know if this is even useful . But I will bring it up anyway.

All of us LTL guys were pretty tight and we compared wages and benefits. I've had a few adult beverages so I won't type in numbers. But here is what we came up with. Wage range was $17-$28.

Some paid OT after 8, some paid OT after 60 . Same for linehaul. Some had low milage but a generous hourly non driving budget and some paid high milage ($0.80/pm) but skimped on hourly tasks.

Bottom line was something we all agreed on. Our pay was a wash .