trying something new

Uh-oh. Youre going to upset the slackers. At Slacker Central, theyre buzzing with talk of how to stop you.

 

Many animals want to turn into a meat pancake after dark.

 

I'm honored. Thanks for letting me know I'm in the crosshairs....

Add salt and tobasco and you have a fine meal in the crock pot.

 

There's nothing like fresh deer liver grilled on the exhaust!

 

Be cautious. Next theyre going to accuse you of bribing your dispatcher for the better loads. Be sure not to mention your load planner.

 

Welcome to the dark side, from a proud vampire. Nothing like rolling through some western state in the wee hours and not seeing another set of headlights for 150 miles.

 

So do you just tell your dispatcher you want to drive at night? Arent most delivery and pick ups scheduled for day hours?

 

No problems there, I'm on a dedicated account running team coast to coast every week. We are averaging about 5500 miles per week and reset every week. Thus there aren't any problems regarding trying to get loads when others might be sitting during slower times.

How true that is! Seems like every time I run I-40 in Arizona and New Mexico I see at least one meteor.

When I was running solo I would simply "flip" to my preferred driving hours when I had the chance. For example, if I have two days to run a load 900 miles with a 10:00 am delivery, I might time my delivery day to run the hours and make the delivery to shut down in the early afternoon. That then makes my next available pick up around midnight after I take a 10. Planners can then work with that schedule.

All that being said, in this industry if you are solo OTR you have to be ready to run when the load requires you to run. Sometimes you will need to "flip" your schedule from days to nights if the load requires it, then flip back to days. Get your sleep while you can, and run while you can.

 

Shhhh! If you tell everyone then it messes everything up!

Don't listen to him. Driving during the day is more betters. These are not the jedi you are looking for...

 

Night time is the best time to get around in the northeast metro areas, I think. I'd much rather cross the GWB at midnight-2am than any other time.

A few things that help at night... Clean, properly adjusted headlights and clean glass/mirrors. Dim interior lights (less ambient light inside allows you to see out better). For those deserted roads, a good pair of driving lights is wonderful, as is a high-mounted set of same angled out toward the edges of the roadway (moose lights, helps pick out animal eyes at the edges). Also a bull bar of some nature, because sooner or later you're gonna clobber something big enough to hurt your truck.