Specialized hauling

Welcome and thank you for your service to our country. I've pulled just about every kind of freight you can think of and I personally like the tank business better than anything else i've done. It's easier work and not as much sitting around as with other types of freight. The company I work for we go out and come straight back empty, once in a blue moon we'll get a backhaul but not very often. As far as the hazmat goes, i would study for it and get it. You have to pay $94.00 to the tsa for a background check now and get your fingerprints taken to get the endorsement. I don't haul hazmat at this particular time and i was just going to let it go but, a friend of mine talked me into keeping it. There were a lot of drivers that let theirs go due to the new rule so i thought that i would keep it to make myself more desirable to some of these companies that do haul hazmat. Actually, if you're going to get your license go ahead and get all your endorsements, that way you can pull anything you want. Hope this helps, good luck.

 

I've only done van and flatbed, with a little bit of heavy hauling, in the past. I'm going back to driving, and it will be flatbedding. More work, but it's what I enjoyed.

 

While it's a little bit harder to get into at the start than vans and flatbeds, I too would recommend that getting into some form of tank work is the way to go. There are lot of tank jobs that require a hazmat, which is a royal pain in thefanny, but if you look carefully you will also find companies hauling food grade products that don;t require any handling of hazardous materials.

The downside is that the tanker industry is somewhat leery of new drivers, because the dynamics of hauling fluids can lead to overturned trucks when you use rookie drivers.

As for the work, I think tanking is the best all around compromise for finding decent pay and steady work. It tends to be a lot more stable than other forms and doesn't suffer as much from seasonal swings and afflictions.