Experiance - Local vs OTR

Im doing LTL line haul now and I love it. The hours are kinda crazy but the money is great and im home every day. plenty of weekend time. Iv'e done regional, OTR and tankers , and I like this best.

 

My whole career has been driving in New England for the same co.My farthest stop is 200 miles away,I hit 4-5 docks a day, passing through towns and cities along the way,I sleep in my own bed every night.I love driving and wonder how it would be just to drive for days without having to stop to load and unload by myself.
I have one of the best gigs going and will retire from here with a pension, my brother is an O/O and I love his stories from the road.

 

I have done both but I don't mind local work from time to time

Clyde

 

Big companies can only hire newbies cause insurance companies say the accident rate for new hires is way higher than experienced drivers. Big trucking companies basically are selfinsured so can do what they want. I've had people who I'd like to hire but can't for lack of experience. It's a paradox that makes no sense to me either.
Generally newbies get very minimal training than thrown in a truck and have to figure it out for themselves,which leads to some real bad habits. Because of this, the entire instry is made to look like crap ! People tend to notice the one crappy driver while 10 good ones go by without comment.

 

No doubt - I've been working LTL for over 8 years now and would never leave here for another driving job. In my case the longer I'm here the more I appreciate and like it for multiple reasons.

 

I've done a lot of different things here but I do prefer night line-haul. I"m on a nice day bid right now running a yard truck but when I bid for 2012 in about 3 weeks I'll be back out on night line-haul.

 

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Haha.. No doubt but I work at a huge terminal for a huge freight company so night line-haul also keeps me away from all the suits. A couple months ago we had a Senator and a bunch of FHSA people here - not my thing. You're right though - looking at my last pay stub I'll be around 31-32K less than last year when I ran line-haul. My thing is I always want to be able to take a year off and use those line-haul years to get ahead or pay cash for a big purchase - been good at sticking to that so far but I'm itching for night line-haul bad now and know I'll be itching for a new Denali when the redesign them so nights it is..haha..

 

I've done local my career too backing in some of the tightest places ever !! Having to back off a busy street,back into an alley for residential, back back back back !!! I ran frieght for 3yrs and flooring for 1yr and I tell u that flooring is a bitc of a job dealing with rolls of carpet and vinyl.... I actuallly did a lil of everything in trucking from freight,truckload,tankers(gas/cement) , flatbed, linehaul. Lol I wanted to see what I like and disliked about certain jobs in trucking so I did it.
I mean freight and flooring is the hardest work and tanker , truckload and flatbed without the tarp is the easiest from my exp. Basically I had a lot of jobs to find out what I like lol.... now I want to leave trucking for a computer job eventually with gov't benefits and a regualr 8hr day ! I know when I do leave I'll miss it because ur out of the office with nobody on ur neck. Good luck drivers...