OTR vs Local Driving Pay

Work???

Almost everything I haul goes on and off with a forklift,...Sure I have to use a pallet jack once and awhile,..Oh well,....

At least I can go home after work,....

 

Good for you! So do I.

 

If you are going beyond 150 mile radius every day it will all depend on whether or not you run legally or push the pencil a little bit. Because legally you will still have to maintain a log book. You will then surely be subject to more inspections, tickets, etc. than that of a true local driver just driving around a city like Houston. Even in Houston their own finest D.O.T officers like stopping whatever they want, when they want. They aren't too nice easier. They will bend you over the seat just like the troopers will and usually don't care anymore than the trooper does either.

 

I have driven local my whole career and I can say that I drove for companies who paid by the mile , the load and hourly pay . In baltimore , md ltl pays more but u can still get paid good either or doing local work and still get home daily .

 

i run ltl linehaul right now and wouldn't touch otr trucking EVER again. OTR guys wish they made what a lot of local drivers make. Food service, local flatbedding, local tanker work, even dump and cement truck drivers make a killing compared to otr.

most otr jobs do not have regular freight lanes, so you are just picking up whatever the company has left over from other various dedicated accounts. Even that is a screw job. most dedicated accounts from big otr companies only pay what daycab, paid by the hour jobs pay, and you usually end up spending a LOT of time waiting for free, and only getting home to sleep, and then a crappy 34 hour reset for a weekend.

I used to drive for Werner when i started, and otr was a joke. i remember what a change in my paycheck it was just to get a consistent 800 gross every week on my first dedicated account. And then, i remember thinking what a joke otr trucking was as soon as i got a paycheck from my linehaul job.

NEVER AGAIN.......

 

I ran locak for a while a few years back because I had to help take care of my Dad. I got 39cpm and $25 a drop. Four to six drops a night, I started at 3pm and was home by 1am. Not bad at all, Just before we lost the contract I could get six or seven stops a night, and walk the feight in, instead of backing in. I made a very good living, slept in my own bed......but it wasnt Over Ther Road.

Good Luck, and safe miles,

Larry

 

I don't know where you live, but 'round these here parts, if you don't have some heat going in the winter, you'll come home to split pipes and possibly a broken furnace.

 

Our funky new Freightliner trucks have a thing on the dash that tells us the distance of the vehicle in front of us and the speed it's moving. When one of you UPSF drivers smokes me it says either 67 or 68 MPH.

Lets do some math assuming they run 67 MPH. Now let's remember the .66 is in 2013 but I know you're at .60 right now. In 2013 a UPS Freight line-haul driver with his foot to the floor will be making $44.22 per hour while cruising down the road - if he were to break down or get stuck behind a wreck he would be reduced to $27 per hour since that's the hourly wage.

I for one do not understand how these UPS Freight drivers are willing to work for such measly wages. Those silly Teamsters - they've done nothing for the LTL industry over the years. I'll tell ya - gimme a sleeper and the open road so my company can bend me over in it..lol..

 

Kind of hard to believe I turned down the line haul gig,..lol...

 

yeah, but staying up all night sucks, at land air express there is no incentive to be linehaul, we ALL get the same hourly rate reguardless of city driver or line, unless you pull thruway doubles in ny or ma, then you get an extra 20 dollars a night. still MUCH better than otr, but we are still not nearly as good as other companies that pay GOOD mileage rate for linehaul.