pier / container hauling... if your thinking about doing it, read this first.

Some company's have over weight permits that are electronic so once the run your tags they see that you have an overweight permit. That's on mine, but I agree those heavy loads eat up your fuel, most of my loads are in the 20,000lb range

 

@lorha yea I hate those tobacco loads too, I did three loads last week down to walnut cove, nc

 

Thank you inktoxicated for a very informative post! Living in the Big Apple area I recently considered that kinda gig also, but I came to the same conclusion as you. Craigslist offer non-cdl jobs for $16 an hour #### it! So to offer that kind of change to an experienced trucker is just insulting...
Thanks again!

 

If you look at a 20' for example,you will see that the “box” sits up almost a whole 12" higher than say a 53' normal dry van,this is probly why
It feels “top heavy”

 

If you look at a 20' for example,you will see that the “box” sits up almost a whole 12" higher than say a 53' normal dry van,this is probly why
It feels “top heavy”

 

Yep, those guys can really rile a person up. I hauled into Long Beach and Oakland for 18 months. Those union workers are some of the meanest people I have ever been around in my life. They have a total gorilla mentality. I've seen drivers lose their patience and almost get into throw downs. I had a guard at a shack almost attack me because my twic card wasn't opening the gate. I waited for ten minutes, looking through the window at her, wondering if there was something wrong with the gate since my twic card was brand new and had worked fine for the past four weeks. She just sat in there, reading her book, ignoring me. The drivers behind me were getting pissed. I finally got out of my truck and opened up the shack door to ask her if there was something wrong with the gate. She threw her book down and came at me, yelling. I kindly asked her how I was supposed to get in the gate when it won't open. She just glared at me. Finally she opened the gate and let me through. I've also gotten many smart ### remarks at the intercoms. I don't know how they get away with this stuff. How would you sleep at night knowing you were and ### hole and no one liked you. I'll bet they go home at night and kiss their kids and hug their wives and pat little Timmy on top the head .

 

That is ridiculous. he never did reach the front of the line. I would quit on the spot

 

I'm not an experienced can hauler. I've only hauled one...that's right, just one...and that was a disaster. An old Matson container and trailer had been dropped in our yard months before in the middle of the night and just left there abandoned. I don't know why. It was empty.
After about four months of phone calls with Matson my boss was instructed to bring it the Matson terminal in Oakland. I hooked up to it and after a two hour fight with low tires, brakes that wouldn't release, and lights that didn't work I headed out.
Should be an easy day, right? Drop the trailer in Oakland, bobtail back to the yard, nothing to it, right? Not right.
I got down to Matson and there was a line of trucks. Big line. Big not moving line. I got in line and walked up to the truck ahead of me to ask if I was in the right line. I don't speak Punjabi so I didn't understand the answer. The next seventeen trucks in line also had non-English speaking drivers so I walked up to the guard shack. After standing at the window for fifteen minutes the guard, who barely spoke English in an accent that sounded like a moose being strangled, told me that it would be several hours before I was admitted to the yard because my trailer number wasn't on their "daily". I explained that it was an abandoned trailer that we were returning. He didn't care and became agitated. The more agitated he became the more he sounded like a moose and the harder he was to understand. He was starting to turn purple in the face too. I gave up.
I went back to the truck and called the boss. I told him what the deal was. He laughed..."see why we don't haul out of the port?" He made a couple of phone calls, got absolutely nowhere, and called me back. He said "Drop that SOB in the street". "In the street?" I asked. "Yup, leave it right there, and head for home. Enough is enough". By then I'd been there three hours.
If you ever want to cause a commotion in the Port of Oakland, drop your trailer in the street. I was cranking down the landing gear when two golf carts came whizzing up, one with office people, one with security guards. "You can't do that", they screamed. "Can too" I replied. The guards didn't have guns and not a one of them was under sixty so I figured they wouldn't want to fight. I kept cranking down the landing gear.
"You'll never haul for us again" screamed the office people. "Good, I said, but we're not hauling for you anyway, we're just returning a lost trailer and we're probably not getting paid for it."
I finished getting the gear down, unhooked, and wormed my way out of the line. By then there was quite an audience of other drivers. I couldn't tell if they approved or not because I couldn't understand what any of them were saying. Probably just as well.
I bobtailed back to our yard in Ukiah, my boss and I had a good laugh, and I went back to my regular run. I haven't hauled a container since.