Home Time question from a newbie

WTI is a home every weekend flatbed trucking company out of Tuscaloosa,AL.,don't know what their asking for as far as experience,sorry. Also Melton Truck Lines out of Tulsa,OK. has a training terminal in Birmingham,AL. they now train students.Melton has APU's on all their trucks with converters built in under ther sleeper berth. McElroy Trucking out of Cuba,AL. has you home every weekend,don't know much more about them but I know they hire straight out of school,they might train. As far as local companies go it really depends on the companies insurance.The more experience the trucking company's drivers have the cheaper the insurance is for the trucking company.

 

I will be brief with this answer but if you have a family I highly recommend you find something else. You are never going to be home! These companies will promise you the world especially when it comes to home time. Even if they followed up on their word it still wouldn' t matter though because if you aren't out for long periods of time you aren't making money. Hard to explain to a newbie but this is it in a nutshell.

Finding something local is going to be nearly impossible. I wouldn't spend $6000 for school with the hopes of working local. Chances are slim to none. Especially in this economy. 95% of the experienced drivers wish they could be local and who do you think the local's would rather hire? A newbie or an experienced veteran? I have 16 years in the game and couldn't find a local gig that paid more than $8 an hour!

Get into computers or something along that line.

 

we have dozens on them here, same thing, I met one person at the Floresville Job Fair who held a degree of some kind and obviously good employment material

he got in line with the others to fill an app ~ "computers" is tightly controlled gravy field - the thing to do is get a job on the dock somewhere & study for C.D.L. then pass it inde, start pumping letters to carriers ..... trucking is silver cloud compared to what actually can be found for computer employment

 

I'm with Chompi on this one, it sounds to me like your family is a big priority in your life (as it is with all of us) and you reeeeeally want to ensure home time- don't count on it. At all. My husband and I served (and I say WE served because it was very much a team effort where our family was concerned) in the military through 5 deployments....home time?? What's that? We're accustomed to 12 month, and more, stints without him- it has become a way of life. My dad served on submarines for 17 years of his 22 year career in the Navy, so I grew up in a military home. Being a single, married parent, is the norm for not just me but most of my cousins, too, lol. My husband took a two year hiatus after leaving the military and the kids and I are ready to jump ship....it isn't pretty, lol.

The point to my ranting is, Daddy (and Mommy) being away from home, as it were, is a way of life- and some DO get lucky (key word- lucky) and get to come home on weekends....but it IS rare. RARE. You need...NEED...to go into this thing looking at it with clear 20/20 vision....home on weekends is something recruiters WILL promise you because they KNOW you want it...but unless you get it in WRITING, and unless you want LOW miles and the LOW pay that comes with it, you're not in much better of a position than you're already in. My brother in law has been driving for 20 years, he is out 2 weeks at a time, and home for 2 to 3 days when he comes home. When he comes home he doesn't want to go out and do ANYTHING; he's too tired from being on the road. His family goes out, most of the time, and does things without him, when he's not home. It's just the way it is.

One of my good friends, Trish, is a single mom of 2 teenage boys ages (at the time) 12 and 16. She got her CDL with HAZMAT endorsement and drove OTR for 8 months until she could land a local job as a cement truck driver. That is a route you could take, but, like her- you need to understand that home time, as a truck driver, is a precious commodity and you're going to have to really decide if you're willing to make some sacrifices before you get what you're ultimately looking for.

The bottom line is this: Don't screw your family and a company out of the money and time it costs to train you if you're not invested....we ALL suffer if you're unsure of yourself.

 

Check with Roehl.
They have hometime fleets based on your zip code. Depending on where your domicile
is located they might have a fleet that offers scheduled hometime. When I applied they tried shoving a hometime fleet on me even though I just wanted national otr.

They have 14/7 and 7/7 and 7/4-7/3 options based on the location of your house....
14 days out 7 home 7 out 7 home and 7 out 4 home 7out 3home of course your pay will reflect the home time and in this situation will force you into slip seating with 1 or 2 drivers and trucks but if hometime you want .....just hop on website to see what you are eligible for.

 

Just want to be honest with you so you don't regret it later. If you are looking for hometime, this may not be the best industry for you. It's just the nature of the beast that weather, receivers, bad dispatch, poor planning, or just plain bad luck are going to conspire to keep you out longer than you want. I love truck driving, but I don't have a family. If you want to keep yours, just a suggestion, look at other industries. If there is nothing in your part of the world, why not move somewhere there is? Read these forums carefully and you will see, most new drivers make about the same as you could make bagging groceries (do they still do that?), and the divorce rate is astronomical. If you have that gi bill, why not learn a trade? Why not learn diesel mechanics if you like to be around trucks? They make WAY more money and are home every night. Not trying to discourage you, just don't want to see you twisted and wasting a lot of time and money when you already can see the red flags out there.

 

Geo you are stating exactly what our point was. 14/7....7/7... 7/4....7/3 these are all ploys to get you to sign up. You aren't going to make diddly squat driving 7 days on and 7 days off. Let's do the math.... Let's say you find a mega-carrier that will pay you $.36 a mile. This is extremely high but I will use this figure just for example purposes. You will honestly be looking more in the realm of $.28 a mile. So ok... As a newbie you run hard and end up getting 2000 miles for that week. You got lucky and didn't have any breakdowns nor did you really ever get held up at any shipper/receivers. Everything went smooth, which is also rare. So this is what your paycheck will say.... 2000 miles x $.36 per mile = $720. This is before taxes. So we are actually looking at about $550 or so. Ok great you take home $550! Well now you have a week off! So technically you are actually making $225 a week! That's less than Mcdonalds wages! Also keep in mind I exaggerated all figures. Realistically you would be looking more at 1500 miles a week x $.28 a miles = $420 before taxes!!!

Now when you get to orientation this is how it is going to go down. ( I have been there many times) They will tell you that you will normally be running 6-8 weeks out. NO,no, no! You raise your hand and say, " I signed up for the 7/7 or 7/14". They will pause and say "oh yeah, well just talk to your dispatcher once you are assigned one (after you have gone through 3 months of training) So a few months later you have completed your tests and time out with your trainer and are assigned a truck and a dispatcher. You meet your dispatcher and explain to them that you signed up for the 14/7 or 7/7. 80% of them are just going to look at you like they have no idea what you are talking about. They other 20% will just nod their head. Both will say, "what, you don't want to work?" Then you will say," yes but I want to be home every week". Then they will say, "well did you look into local driving before signing up?" You will say, "no, the recruiter said you had this special schedule". Now they will look at you, shake their head and say, Ok we'll do our best, but are you sure this is what you want?" Being a newbie and having no clue how the industry works you say, "oh yeah, I'm positive."

So now unbeknownst to you your dispatcher has put you in the "special driver" pile. This pile is reserved for drivers that want to be home all the time. You will therefore be kept close to home and utilized to deliver and pick up everyone else's loads. This is how that works.... You go the drop yard pick up a loaded trailer that another driver dropped there. You hook up and drive 50 miles to deliver it. Oh yeah its a Walmart load and it takes 7 hours to get unloaded. So you have roughly used up 8 hours of your log so far and have earned 50 miles worth of pay. When you are emptied out you call dispatch and let them know. They then proceed to give you instructions and directions on where to go wash out the trailer. So you drive 20 miles to go and have that done. It takes roughly an hour and a half. You call dispatch and say, "ok I'm all cleaned out". They say, "well done Geo, hold tight and we'll find something for you." So two hours goes by and you get a message saying, " Go to the juice factory and you are going to pre-load a trailer for another driver." Alright, so its 15 miles from where you are. You better make sure to pee and grab something to eat to take with you because while you are getting loaded you are going to run out of hours and will have to spend 10 hours of sleep time there at the shipper. Hooray, you show up to the shipper with a crusty out of date tuna sandwich from the handyway, check in and drop your trailer in a door. Now you log off sleeper berth and wait for them to finish. It takes roughly 4 hours so you hook up and park off to the side somewhere because you legally cannot go anywhere for another 6 hours. So you end your day worth of pay right there in the parking lot with a grand total of 85 miles for the day. Let's do the math.... $.36 (our extremely high figure) x 85 miles = $30.60!!!!!! Wow!!!! A few more checks like this and you can buy a new pair of shoes!!!!

Remember I also was generous in all my figures. Results will vary but not for the best. Now you have a choice, quit your job or actually stay out for 8 weeks at a time so that you can pay off your $6000 school loan and your wife doesn't divorce. Keep in mind you have no experience and quitting after two months of basically just training will not look good on your resume. Going to pay hell trying to find a local gig!

So this is an example of a day in the life of a driver who does not want to stay out for long periods of time. The biggest reason you stay out for long periods of time is to get a better average of your weeks of earnings. If you stay out 7 weeks and a couple weeks you only run 1500 miles but 3 of those weeks you did around 3000 miles, do you see how this betters your average? There are many, many factors that can happen to make your pay fluctuate greatly. Weather, breakdowns, sickness, freight delays, holidays, etc...

Another very big factor is that whenever you come home your pay gets messed up for three weeks. The first week you slow down trying to get you home. The second week is the week you took a few days off and don't make any pay at all. The third week is slow getting back out and into the flow of the freight lanes.

Does all this make sense? I tried to break it down into real world operations of how things work so you won't think I am just running my mouth and bashing the whole process. This is how it works out there so don't fall for the 14/7....7/7...etc... These are just ploys to get you to sign up.

Hope I maybe shifted your thought process and saved you $6000.00

Good luck in whatever you decision....

 

Surely some of these companies can offer two weeks running for two days at home. That surely is not too much to ask.