What are the Pro's AND Con's of pulling refer?

the bad??
your contributing to global warming, at a rate greater than your other trucker friends

 

here is the #1 pro and con:

con #1 : you'll sit alot at shippers and recievers


pro#1 : you'll sit alot at shippers and recievers which means you have more time to play on the internet especially here on the forum......

 

and here i sit- columbus , OH-


and i've been preset for "mission impossible"

 

You will also sit at Thermo King and various reefer wash racks. You also get to pull up and fuel the reefer, and keep the receipts seperate from the road tax receipts. On the bright side, if the tractor runs out of fuel or the batteries go dead, you have the reefer.

You will have longer deadheads and more fingerprinting with a reefer. And the freight rates are the same as dry freight.

You will report more often to central control because they want to know your location and temperature.

Shippers will cheat you out of your hooks. Shippers will try to ship warm product, and consignees will claim the produce is spoiled. Weighmasters want free samples.

 

At a Cisco here, everyday someone is loading a couple boxes off the trailer into a waiting automobile trunk...

 

Yeah but that Sysco is a nightmare, and it's in the Mistake On The Lake. I went in there with a drybox load, sat for 6 hours while lumping+checking load.

As far as checking with central command, if the company has qualcomm, most of those reefer outfits will have reefer temp transmitted via QC automatically so they don't have to bother you (unless the temp reads out of range).

Pulling a reefer can be a positive experience, because you can haul a lot more 'interesting' freight (btw, don't haul ice cream over mountains). I enjoyed my time pulling a reefer, you will get used to its sound, and the extras that go with it (washouts, checking the chute, getting it serviced,etc,etc...).

 

thats all I pull, I'm a company driver, paid mileage (.42) as well as paid by the hour (17.89) as soon as I arrive at the shipper or reciever, PTI's/washouts/traffic delays/repairs/ well just about everything is paid hourly, as long as I have it documented.

It took abit to get used to the noise by the bunk, and I used to try and park away from the other trucks so as to not disturb them. Now I park where there is a space, as most of the reefers i pull are not any louder than the idling truck next to me

To me, the big positive about hauling a reefer is, regardless what the economic future/present looks like, people always need food. Were as 'general freight' haulers have more potential for slow periods.

I have delivered to Sysco, lump your own load, i don't complain though as I am being paid to do the job.