7 on 7 off - Reefer or Dry Van? The Good, The Bad, The Roehl Way?

Out west Roehl only hires flatbed.

 

Hi all.
Im finishing up school soon and been considering the Roehl 7on 7off deal.

Anyone who is fairly new to it willing to spill the beans as to what kind of money expected to earn?

Thanks!

 

You basically have half the year off, so the time off is great, but obviously the money will be limited to what you'd consider for a part-time job. I've never been on this fleet, but know others that have. And you'll share a truck with other drivers, so if you can afford it and want the home time then it might be worth it to you.

 

I used to drive reefer out of Wisconsin with Roehl. Now that I am coming back to Roehl to slip seat 7/7 I'll be driving dry van. The recruiter tried to sneak one past me and was going to put me in reefer, but I made it perfectly clear that I was not going to drive reefer.

He tried to persuade me with the $.02 per mile difference and I said I'd rather drive the extra miles to make it up than be cleaning out reefer trailers and being jerked around by grocery warehouses. Not to mention all those unpaid miles driving to the scale (sometimes over an hour away) and then back to the shipper to get the load cut, sometimes not until the next day.

 

According to their website it is about $836 per week average. Keep in mind that this is driving weeks.

When I drove for Roehl before, I was in the national reefer fleet. It started off as 11 out and 3 home. Then it seemed to get to be longer out and if I was in the yard by noon that day counted as a home time day. Never mind that there was paperwork to do and probably an empty reefer that had to be washed out before I could park it (more free work).

Here is another scenario that rubbed me the wrong way. They would frequently send me out east and once I was out there they'd keep me there doing about 200 miles a day doing stuff like pick up in NJ and run up to CT. Spend the night and maybe a day in CT waiting for my next dispatch (no pay, always seconds shy of getting layover pay) and then go back to NJ and get something else that was local in nature. Finally I'd get something going to OH and then maybe Chicago, then 2 days of local crap runs before going home.

This time I'm hoping for a better deal since that truck needs to be back in time for the other driver. I'll get fairly decent pay for a part time job and health insurance.

 

Nothing has changed on the National fleet since you left. Same stuff still goes on, and I drive van.

 

In my 12 years at Roehl I did almost 9 years of 7/7. It was a pretty good deal when I was a trainer. I made a lot more money as a 7/7 flatbed trainer than I did as a 11/3 non-trainer.

 

This is udder nonsense,
a reefer can haul anything a dry van can, so miles will be better

 

He's right about being jacked around by shippers though. I pull dry van, but pull reefer from time to time and each and every time I sit for hours, and of course most everything is live. And I don't like night driving, so wouldn't be for me.