Living in the truck…..

As a driver who's done OTR, I found the experience to be overrated. You should look for a dual option like Leonard's Express. They offer OTR as well as regional with weekends off. You will be able to change back when the time comes without having to change employers.

 

He might be too broke to afford a place to since he’s going through a divorce. Homeless gypsy life of living in a truck might be his best option.

 

Two of my mechanics were living in a truck out back of the shop. They had the best of both worlds, living in a truck, and home every night.

 

If you live on the road in a truck, how are you ever gonna meet the next miss wrong?

 

I wanted to respond to this but first I have to state that I'm in no way being argumentative or rude or anything, so please don't get mad at me and ban me Reo lol

To the OP, I actually had similar path as you. I did OTR 2 years then tried LTL for several months. Did linehaul very briefly didn't like the terrible sleep schedule (and I say that as a current OTR reefer driver lol). Did P&D for the vast majority of the several months at LTL, and wasn't a fan of it. So, I went back to OTR reefer.

I'm a single man so I didn't have the divorce thing though.

But, you're not alone in doing you career "backwards". I did it too. I actually had a day yesterday that might put what you're thinking about doing, going from a local hourly job to an OTR CPM job that will maybe help you out in seeing the realities of what OTR can be.

Here was my day yesterday with the times being approximate and rounded obviously and times are in military time:

- 0445 Woke up, pre tripped, used the bathroom

- 0515 Started driving to receiver (stop 1 out of 2 stops on the load)

- 0530 Arrived at receiver

- 0530 - 0600 Checked in at receiver

- 0600 - 0830 Slept in my bed while I waited for them to call me to a dock, but couldn't really sleep good because at that point I was already awake

- 0830 - 0900 Got called to a dock, had to check in with guard again, had to wait for others to back into the dock, then backed into the dock itself

- 0900 - 1230 Got unloaded. Couldn't sleep at all anymore so I read some of my book and messed around on my phone. Had to go in several times to the receiver and beg them to hurry up and count the freight and give me bills so that I could make it to my 2nd stop on time before they closed for the day.

Important to note, I got no detention pay because I was late for this load. I was late for this load because I picked up on Thursday, but on Friday morning the winds reached 35 MPH sustained in Northern Iowa so I had to wait several hours after my 10 hour break to drive because I was light and I didn't want to chance it. Normally it's $18 after the 1st 2 hours past the appointment time that I would get paid for. So this hurt me a lot yesterday. This also might have gone quicker if I wouldn't have been a work in. So that hurt me too.

- 1230 - 1300 Finally got my bills, filled out macro paperwork, pulled out of dock, had to slide tandems back to normal position (had to slide them all the way back for the unload), shut my trailer doors, turn off the reefer, wait to exit the warehouse behind other trucks, check out with guard

- 1300 - 1415 Drove to 2nd receiver for my 2nd and final stop on the load

- 1415 - 1530 Checked in, got unloaded, got my bills and filled out macro paperwork on the tablet

- 1530 - 1730 Drove back to the terminal, unpaid because when I go home for hometime the empty miles I drive from the (last) receiver back to the terminal are unpaid, but when I go back out from hometime my empty miles from the terminal to the shipper will be paid for. I also stopped one time to use the bathroom for 5 minutes, so there was that small break in there as well.

1730 - 1830 Dropped trailer, unloaded personal stuff from my bed (laundry, bed sheets, valuables, etc etc) from my truck to my car.

1830 - 1900 Bobtailed from the terminal to the Peterbilt dealership to pick up a DEF fuel cap as mine broke 2 days ago. Unpaid miles though obviously the company paid for the DEF fuel cap

1900 - 1945 Had to wait in line at the parts section of the dealership, bought my DEF fuel cap (took him a good few minutes to ring me up and get the purchase order codes that my breakdown dep gave to me to work), made sure DEF fuel cap worked (it did)

1945 - 2015 Drove back from the Peterbilt dealership to the terminal

2015 - 2030 Post trip

Then i drove an hour home lol. So that was my day. I woke up at 4:45 am and my day ended at 8:30pm. I am paid $0.54 CPM base pay. Here is what I got paid for yesterday:

1. Truck stop to 1st receiver: 9 miles

2. 1st receiver to 2nd receiver: 59 miles

3. I get paid for each stop after the 1st one (but only if it's an extra stop on a shipper or an extra stop on a receiver, so for example on a normal load I would have 2 stops with 1 at the shipper and 1 at the receiver so I wouldn't get paid extra for that). Since I had 1 extra stop on this load, I got paid $30.

So, to reitterate, I started my day at 4:45AM in the morning and ended my day at 8:30pm at night. I was paid $37 for 68 miles driven and $30 for extra stop pay. So I made $67 for the day.

Now the detention pay hurt me. I was at the receiver from 0530 - 1230. Normally detention is after the 2nd hour past appointment time but you have to be on time to your appointment to receiver said detention. $18 per hour after the 2nd hour past appointment time. So I spent 7 hours at the 1st stop. So you would think ok that's 5 hours detention, well no. Because you always show up an hour before your appointment so that you're counted as "on time". Because you're going to have to check in and wait behind trucks to check in usually. Fill out paperwork at the guardhouse. Show ID. Back into the dock. Slide tandems. All of that type of stuff. So you're never getting to your appointment exactly on the dot because you'll be counted late if you do that.

So, let's say I had been on time to my appointment today. 7 hours at the first stop. 1 hour of that I would've been there before my appointment time. Then 2 hours free past the appointment time. That leaves 3 hours detention if I would've been on time.

3 x $18 = 54

So my workday was from 4:45 AM - 8:30 PM and I made $67 for the day, if I would have been on time it would have been $121 for the day (67 + 54 in theoretical detention pay had I been on time).

It's true that if you do OTR, you can't consider time spent in the sleeper birth as time working. Otherwise you drive yourself crazy. And I always oblige by that rule too. If I'm sleeping or reading a book or playing on my laptop, that doesn't count as working.

THAT said, it never really feels like you're "off" work when you're at the shipper and the receiver, at least not to me. I can never go into a deep sleep if I'm in a dock waiting/getting loaded. Or if I know they're going to call me for a dock sometime during my sleep because subconsiously I guess I can't relax 100% and am worried I'll miss the call and will get woken up to them banging on the door right by my head (a terrible way to wake up lol).

I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is that while I certainly didn't work the whole time from 4:45AM - 8:30PM yesterday, it certainly did not feel like all of that was worth $67 and it wouldn't have been worth it for $121 either had I gotten detention pay if I had been on time to the appointment either.

Days like yesterday hurt. It really makes me question why I left (good) hourly pay with a local LTL P&D job on days like yesterday.

But not everyday OTR is like that. One thing about yesterday that I didn't write about is that I had to drive through Charlotte, where I live and where I did P&D for several months. And as I drove through the God awful Charlotte traffic I thought to myself wow, I am so happy that I'm not driving in this crap 5 days out of the week in a big semi truck. It is so stressful.

The company I'm with, so far I've mostly been in the Midwest and out West. I love it. It is so much less stressful driving in those 2 parts of the country than having to deal with heavy city traffic all day, 5 days a week. When I get really long runs from out West back to the Midwest (or vice versa), I can't tell you how great of a job OTR is when I'm on a 1500 - 2500 mile run and all I have to is drive through peace, quiet and very little traffic out West back to the Midwest. With plenty of truck stops and rest areas along the way. So much better than heavy stop and go city traffic in a mid sized city like Charlotte (I don't even want to imagine doing P&D in a large city).

So @HiramKingWilliams sorry for this long ### post lol. I just wanted to take the time to write about what you will be giving up going from local to OTR, but also what you will be gaining going from local to OTR.

Days like I had yesterday your hourly wage is going to be absolutely pathetic and will make you question why you are not in a job that is getting paid by the hour. But, on days when all you have to do is drive through peaceful South Dakota all day on I-90 with a total of 5 vehicles in site of you at all times throughout that whole drive (I'm exaggerating, but God it's so peaceful out there), it's the best job in the world.

Hope this helps. Last I want to say that last if you're going through a divorce, I think that's pretty common for truckers to hit the road for a little bit to get the divorce over with, save up some money, pay off some debt and start anew after a year or two. By then you should have enough money to comfortably start anew, too, with whatever you decide to do and wherever you end up.

Good luck to you and I hope my post helped you out to see the realities of what OTR can be (both the bad and the good).

 

@BeHereNow97 - I love the refrigerated trucking also. Haven't been in your situation though. Always got detention whether I was late or not. You should have received breakdown pay for the DEF cap issue.
I'm in total agreement with you though about those long night reefer runs. I like to kick back with a thermos of hot coffee and listen to whichever music I'm in the mood for. I prefer night running and the solitude of it.