OTR Truckers - Run hard during summer, take vacations during winter?

Run everywhere all summer and stay in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana on runs in the winter. No way you could ever pay me enough to ever drive in that crap again.

 

I think taking the winter off is a great idea, but better know how to drive in all conditions. This is end of April on four lane highway, never know what you will run into.

 

You're telling me you don't wanna drive in this fun??

This is Mammoth mountain main lodge in mid April of this year, always fun to deliver in this weather

 

Eh winters not that bad. Just plan accordingly. Keep in mind east coast states tend to ban truck traffic when a snow flake hits the ground. I would avoid the really brutal winter states. Usually the ones that require you to carry chains at all times during winter are the ones that get hit really hard. Avoid mountain backroads those are the roads salted last or never and tend to have serious grades. If you’re finding yourself driving 45mph or slower and you’re pretty sure it’s not going to get better just park it.

 

Go for it . thats been the plan for me as well . just working my way to that point

 

I don't understand how some drivers have gone their entire career and never chained, or only chained once or twice... while I got stuck chaining twice my first winter. Im glad I learned how, certainly. But it's not a desirable situation. lol

Good news is once you learn how it goes pretty quick. Maybe about 15 minutes. Took almost an hour first time we had to do it.

If the chain up lights are on you gotta do it. I saw cops waiting just past the chain up areas in CO to pull over trucks that tried to blow past it. And they did pull people over, or forced them off the road into a rest area if they only did one set of drives. They want all 4 drives chained. That's what I saw. LEOs had a field day out there.

We chained up 4 drives and drove though. Didn't do the tandems. They left us alone. The first night we did it, it felt necessary. We were sliding a little bit. The second day we had to chain up that I did it, it wasn't needed. We had to do it anyway.

 

Hopefully guys with trailer tires installed on the drives will follow Swamp Rat advise. I hate them to come here and block roads with jackknifes.

 

Met a driver for Bison Transport out of Winnipeg. He drove 8 months every year during the warmer seasons. Then took four months off every winter, he had a sail boat in the Dominican Republic. Lived on that.
Then back to Canada for his next driving season. When I met him he had been doing that for eleven years.