Trans Am Still

I'm sitting in Clarksville, AR at the Shell off exit 57 til my swap gets here tomorrow. Then I will drop that load in Ardmore and probably deadhead up to Dodge. I love my DM. I knew she could help me salvage this crappy week!!

 

welcome to trucking.... gotta love it /end sarcasm

 

Movie night. Have to find a trailer wash out before I go pick up tomorrow. I usually find one before I go home but had no time or would have had to sit for 10 hours then go home. Trying to decide how long to go out this time.

Be safe out there

 

Jaso , how long do you usually stay out ? Don't you get 1 day for each week out ?

Do they have a limit on how long you can stay out. I think I would like 4 weeks out and 4 days off since my wife will be with me anyway. I say that now but maybe once I am driving that will change ,Lol

 

When you lease you can go home as much and for as long as you like but you still have to make those payments, just like any other bill, so I tend to stay out usually a little longer. For company guys it is 1 week out 1 day off. I do not know what the maximum time off allowed is for company drivers. I will probably go home 9-15 for 2 maybe three days depending how I am running that week.

Be safe out there

 

I'm afraid to say anything about home time ....because many things can change over time. It used to be that a company driver could stay out 2 weeks and have 2 days at home, 3 weeks out and 3 days at home, no more than 4 days off per month and of course if you wanted to stay out longer you could but you were still limited by the 4 days per month. That being said if you were able to deliver early when you were scheduled for home time you could be lucky and have 3 full days off instead of two.....and because of that you had 5 days off for the month, but those times were rare. A lease driver is different and I believe your home time schedule is up to you and what you can afford. honeybadger or jaso will have to tell you how that works since they are our lease drivers.

 

I was shocked today to learn that my brother that has been in the trucking business for almost 37 years and owned 2 trucking companies ....quit! Walked away from all of it and bought a marina! Now I have to wonder .....did his evil ways catch up with him? ....or does he know something that I don't know about the trucking business?......Hmmmmm .....I have to do some investigating!

 

I didn't realize they were leasing. Seems like all I ever hear is how TA wants you to lease but not to do it.
i hope they are doing good with their lease , interesting .

 

Lease ops are free to take hometime as they want but as Jaso said, the payments don't stop. We do have our TAL escrow account which you can use to help offset things when you go home. I generally go home for 3-6 days each month. Always home when I need to be, sometimes earlier than I want. But I have the problem of living in the Florida panhandle and it's farther out frome our usual freight lanes. There's ways of working it to minimize negative checks around hometimes but for a lot of guys going home puts them in the hole. I do alright for myself with the lease. I'm happy with the numbers which is all that counts.

 

honeybadger's husband was a TransAm driver so she had knowledge and non-driving experience before she went to TransAm and jaso was an experienced driver and did not start out as a student with TransAm.
It's not that it can't be done dennisroc .....it is just a lot of extra pressure and stress on a new driver that isn't necessary.....with TransAm you can always go lease but once you are lease you can never go back to being company, that is their policy. So, our advice has always been to go company, learn the business at TransAm's expense and make a decision about leasing after you have gained that knowledge and experience. I can tell you from experience than being a driver is not like any other job that you have had .....it takes awhile to really figure out how to make it work for you.