Pros and Cons - Local vs OTR

This! So many guys wanting local do not really understand what they're getting themselves into when they finally get that "great" local job. I've run LTL linehaul, my night usually started with an at the terminal time of @8:00 p.m. for an 8:30 p.m. gate time. Pre trip the tractor, go in find out my trailer # from the supervisor, usually a 20 something kid with no truck driving experience, hook to my trailer, pretrip it as much as possible while still in the dock, wait for them to finish loading it, 15 minutes to an hour, finish the pretrip go in to wait for paperwork. Sometimes it was ready when I went in for it but most times it was not. Get paperwork, apply placards if needed, usually were as we hauled a lot of haz, go back in sign out and get on down the road. Drive 4.5-5 hours to my relay point, usually wait for relay partner coming from somewhere in Jersey, drop my trailer, hook the new one and pre trip it and bust butt to get back to Toledo. Get back, try to raise dock supervisor, another 20 something kid with no truck driving experience, on the CB to get a door assignment. Do my post trip, back the trailer in, drop it, fuel the truck, do the paperwork, sign out of the people net, go inside to turn in paperwork and sign out. Leave for the house, get home half hour later, eat, shower, go to bed, get up in the afternoon to do it all over again. Not a horrible gig and the money was pretty good, 80k/year, but you will not have the quality home time many rooks think they will. Let's not forget about winter time either. You will have to run in pretty much as crappy of conditions as you can imagine because the freight business RARELY shuts down. Last winter when the sheriff's around here were shutting down the roads my wife's LTL company (she runs Class B P& D for the same company I used to run line haul for) expected them to come in and run. Even on a line haul gig you still have to run. There's no bunk to go hide in until the roads clear up, you have to get to where you're going, no excuses. If you run out of hours, you're not going home that day, you'll be put up in a motel to finish your run when you get 10 hours off. They really HATE when that happens because it throws the whole system off kilter.
I really do miss being OTR, but I would miss seeing my wife more so I stay local and the night owl in me has bitten so I'm going back to a LTL line haul gig starting tonight ;o) Supposedly this place only runs us 350-400 miles a night so my home time should be better where I am, but I've been in this business far too long to believe anything told to me until I see it first hand.

 

like everything else there a good jobs and bad jobs in both
I have a great OTR job home 5-6 days a month
wife says that is 3 too many

plenty of rest on the road compared to local
and at 61 I am too old to actually work
so i drive 13000 miles/month

 

I have to correct you on the part about no drop and hooks doing local work. If you work Intermodal (rail yard side of things at least) almost all of it is drop and hooks. When you do have a live load you don't load/unload the shipper or receiver does and intermodal work is no touch freight unlike LTL where the driver is constantly touching freight unless they are linehaul. Intermodal is mostly local work with some of it being regional.

As far as being in constant contact with your dispatcher means I'm not quite sure what you mean as constant? If I spend more then 30 minutes a day total in a 14 hour day talking to dispatch that means I'm having issues with a customer and this is not common. Are you referring to shooting each other a bunch of messages over your OBC or Handheld as part of the constant contact?

 

So lets see. I clock out at 4:30pm and get home at 5:00pm and have to get back up at 1:00am so I can report for work at 2:30am....

I'm really wondering why I left the relative "normalness" of OTR regional where I would get up at between 4:00am and 6:00am, run out my day, and be parked by 5:00pm or 6:00pm.

Basically, I am being given the bare minimum 10 hours off duty each day.

 

wife says 3 days is too many to be home?

3 days seeing her out of a month!?!

my response would be that her 3 credit cards are too many and I'm cancelling them

 

This is an excellent post!!

I am not a truckdriver. I am HOPING to eventually go to a truck driving school to learn how to drive a truck. In the mean time, I am currently working to get more physically fit along with trying my best to improve my overall health.

I am also working to clean up both my MVR and employment record through the passage of time. I have never married and never had any children. SADLY & UNFORTUNATELY, both of my parents are deceased. I live in a 1 bed room apartment and have no pets at all.

When such time comes that I may possibly drive a truck, I would like to be able to drive all 48 states and Canada. It would NOT be a problem for me to be out on the road for extended periods of time.

I would only have to return home from time to time for certain essentials as:
1) D.O.T. medical card renewal
2) drivers license renewal - every 4 years
3) auto registration renewal - annually
4) annual auto insurance premium payment for receipt of renewed insurance card - annually
5) lease renewal for apartment - annually
6) filing of federal & state income tax returns - annually
7) checking mail from time to time to check for important bills, notices, (legal, etc.)

Outside of all of the above, I would be readily available for many trips to many places.

NOTE:
I would TRY to prepay a lot of bills in advance as phone, internet, gas, electricity, and rent for my apartment.

My thinking is that when a truck driver is constantly driving all over the country, or locally, his or her mind needs to be focused on both safe driving and delivering the loads in both a timely and SAFE manner, along with doing everything LEGALLY. Therefore, the individual truck driver, to the best of his or her ability, needs to have as much of his or her "ducks in a row", as best as possible.

 

Well, for some odd reason I had two short days on Thursday and Friday...if you want to call a 9 hour day a short one...lol. Maybe it was because of the holiday weekend.