50+ yr old Husb + Wife want to form a team. Advice welcome.

...and don't forget that some trucks are haunted and need to be exorcised by a competent priest or dispatcher with a smudging degree from the Universal Life Church. If the walls start oozing a smelly substance or you hear intelligent philosophical conversations on the CB --- your truck is possessed ! Run !! (Insert eerie organ music here)

 

Imn sorry it's typical.

That is one reason I stopped crossing Sandstone in WVirginia in Winter. Too many people flipped over.

The one I spoke of happened in ILL not far from Dixie Home on a straight stretch into construction. Pickup truck ran out of room and flipped.

I did not yet talk about fatalities. Much. You will know right away when they are gone. Taint nothing you can do when God is pulled them on the other arm away.

Truckers are usually the first on the scene when something happens. Most do not stop. But some do. You do sometimes do what you can to help before the EMT gets there, it's only decent. If I counted all the fire extinguishers Ive consumed it would probably add up to a thousand dollars worth at 15 dollars per bottle. People want OUT when the vehicle is burning.

Shrugs.

 

10 year veteran Hubby/Wife teamer here. I worked for a Fortune 50 financial company before becoming a trucker. Hubby was a pipeline welder.

The Money: Being frugal, not cheap.

1. Cook in the truck. Saves you a bucket of money, not only in food spending, but doctor bills. Road food isn't good for you. You can cook just about anything in a well-equipped truck. It's better for you, too.
2. If you own your home, shut down all extraneous services at home. You don't need to get the paper if you're never home to read it. Same with TV service and probably internet and home phone. Keep the security system.
3. If you rent, let the lease lapse and throw everything in storage. Use the savings to take awesome vacations or see family and friends all over the country and pocket the difference. Get a frequent guest hotel savings card that will give you free nights after X amount of stays. We got a lot of mileage out of ours. Get a jacuzzi in the winter if you can on a free upgrade. Your joints will thank you.
4. Drop your car insurance to occasional low mileage driver. You'll hardly be home to use it, and when you are, the last thing you wanna do is drive anywhere. Don't rush out and buy a new car. Cars in the lot at the terminal are frequently dinged, dented and plowed in with snow. If you don't have one, get a junker and park that at the terminal. Put your good car in storage.
5. Share a cell phone. Dump the extra. You will never be more than 53' apart. My tablet comes in handy.
6. Set up all your bills either auto pay or over the internet. Sometimes it can be hard to get to a mailbox.

Quality of life: Stay sane and productive.

1. Invest in satellite radio (write off, since there is a trucking channel). Helps the hours go by. We also listen to a boat load of audio books.
2. Stop at a hotel to take a 34 hour reset at least once every other week. If you're running hard, you'll really appreciate all the hot water you can stand and a quiet place to sleep with room to stretch out. Use a laundry service so you're not chasing cats when you should be relaxing.
3. Take time to smell the roses on your 34s. Go out to dinner at a nice place. Go walk on the beach. Have a barbeque at a park. Go to the movies. Something - anything- not truck related.
4. Get a portable hobby. Something small you can do while the truck is in motion. I crocheted, read, wrote, cooked, ran our books, you name it. Mr. E is fond of computer gaming. Do not pay bills or bank over truck stop internet.
5. Be a true team. Divvy up responsibilities and stick to them. One of you should not be doing the lion's share of the work.
6. Be comfortable being alone while together. Mr. E and I can hang out in the truck all day doing our own thing without much interaction. Alone time is key to staying sane. This 'simulated' alone time gives you much needed mental space from one another.
7. Take time to be married. Go out on dates. Be romantic. Spring surprises on one another. Marriages take effort. Make a point not to forget that in the day-to-day hassle. Just don't smother each other.

Being a Pro: Team Driving Like You Mean It

1. Walkie talkies are a must. For backing, for communicating from the dispatch or traffic office back to the truck. Heck, even to ask what you want while I'm in the grocery store. CBs are good for traffic, bad weather and a handful of shippers. But they are loud and have a tendency to wake your partner.
2. Set a schedule and stick to it. We worked 0400-1600 (Mr. E) and 1600 to 0400 (for me). Often, Mr.E would get us loaded up and I would pull the majority of the miles in the overnights. Try not to change over around midnight. The fuel islands are jammed then and it will take too long if you're under a hot load. Use your trip planning to plan your change over spots ahead of time.
3. Be prepared to help each other navigate and back. Sure, you could roll over and snore. But real teams work together to get the job done quickly and efficiently. Managing your rest so neither of you are killing yourselves while you are still able to assist is key.
4. Be clean. Your appearance, your truck - inside and out. It's a tight fit if you're out for weeks or months at a time like we used to be. Organization is key. It's basically your house. Enough said.
5. Be prepared. Don't drive Minnesota in the winter in a bikini. Get the right gear for the right conditions. Plan on the worst and hope for the best. Steel toe boots are cold in the winter. Get good socks. And layers, lots of layers. Pack 3 or 4 days more than you think you need. Things seldom go according to plan when it comes to downtime.
6. Carry a tool box with a decent flashlight and fix the stupid stuff yourself. Like wedging a penny or a dime in a pigtail to keep the trailer lights on when the dingbat before you busted up the electrical box. Or spare bulbs, grommets, blades and fuses. That box will grow as your knowledge grows. Start your tools with a 3lb hammer and a pair of Vise grips. Trust me.
7. Early is on time. On time is late. And late is not an option.
8. DO your DOT inspection at every shift change. Don't get lazy. Trucks are machines. Machines break. And you are going to put a heck of a lot of wear on that machine. Head possible problems off early. If you wait until something fails outright, you're going to be sitting somewhere waiting on a major repair losing money. If the wheels don't turn, you don't earn.
9. You catch more flies with honey. Be respectful to dispatch, your customers and other drivers. Even when they're in the wrong. Help a guy hook a dolly in the ice. Give that greenhorn a hand setting his fifth wheel or blind-siding into a tight spot at the truck stop. Let the jerk pass or merge, or whatever. The miles will come, because you'll be doing all of the above. They'll think of you first because of number 9. Again, trust me.
10. Be safe. First, last, always. Safety might be lip service at the terminals, but there are real risks out here. Real as in dangerous or even fatal. Pay attention. Survey your surroundings. Get help. Work together. Plan ahead, but stay flexible, because things can change in the blink of an eye. Take as few risks as necessary to get the job done right.

Welcome and good luck out there.

 

Congrats on the 34 years of marriage. I truely mean that. I have not ran as a team but I have had experience of seeing one go down in flames while hauling us concrete pannels for an underground quonset. It was a husband and wife team out of a huterite colony running in a day cab. One would drive to the cabin, one would drive back.

Week 1
Went well
Week 2
Less well
Week 3
Not well
Week 4
Him: I f***** hate the way she looks in the mirror.
Her: I f***** cant stand the way he chews his food. I just want to f***** slap him.

Individual results will vary. But something to also consider.

 

We bought a handheld CB radio for her to have when she is spotting me. That way I have both hands for the wheel.

 

No. The driving.

The Stamina must build up. You have to put in the stamina. Don't be smoking and do not use caffinee pills. Ive dozens of posts buried deep about my abuse of that stuff.

If she stops to take a nap, split log it but be VERY CAREFUL because it disrupts the flow of team. YOU will be sitting there waiting for her to finish a nap or snoring away in the bunk.

If there is no stamina at all... have a doctor draw blood labs etc. There will be a reason to discover it. Might save your or her life.

DO NOT allow yourself to spool up and run 50000 miles in a week. Orientation is MURDER with their talk, be ready make a bunch of money, you are soon to run be ready ready ready for several days, Then you wonder why the 90 day wonders burn out and are sent home.

Don't worry, you two will be SICK of miles when viewed a whole year. We did 221,000 in 9 months with FFE, and another 50K plus to finish the year. ALL of it intense are we gonna make the appointment time 3000 miles away to the dot? It's intense.

Do be prepared to help one another. And... you will discover weaknesses in each other. My spouse had to switch out in hawthorne NV one time after 300 plus miles of nothing at all. Its a part of the USA from Death Valley towards Reno where not a stick of anything made by man. Empties the mind. Makes for a discovering that there is a weakness. I took the truck past the ammo valley into Reno for her off the logs.

Enjoy your date nights once a week. BE. NICE. Bury your tomahawks. You gots to. If you cannot, then you two will find bigger unnecessary problems.

 

One more think.

First commandment after God discovered Truckers wanting to run the mountains he made in the first 6 days of his labors and saw it all good....

WHOEVER IS IN THAT Drivers SEAT... Is the Captian. If he or she starts barking.. SHUT. UP. AND LISTEN. Don't bark back or sass. Your lives may depend on it. For example a mountain pass battle on split ice (There are posts about this) going badly on the drives and you need your spouse to put up the crash netting between cab and bunk and get in there a while. Hop to it. Save the sass for later. Make it up to each other later when it's all over but the shaking.

 

No one who isn't a commercial driver is ready for day-in-day-out elevens. That's a fact.

Answering your question is a bit trickier - it's really going to depend on the requirements of the load, the weather and traffic, the route and how well you trip plan. If you give us three days to get from LA to NYC, I guarantee you we will spend at least 12 hours of that goofing off. For lots of reasons. First, I know it takes us two days to get from LA to just this side of the GW Bridge. Second, the southern route is clear and the biggest pull is up and out of the LA basin to hop over the Sierra Madres. Flagstaff rarely gets more than 5-6" inches at a time, and we're old school snow runners. Cake. I know all the places to stop and when to stop to minimize downtime.

But, that being said, we don't pick up the load and go park 100 miles outside of LA for 12 hours. We run short, 10 or even 9 hour days. Take a shower, fire up the grill, etc. Remember rule #7 about being a pro. If something unforeseen happens and you're late because you goofed off, then you're late and that's a service failure. A couple of those - sometimes even one- can get you fired.

So you plan to get there and wait as close as you can to your drop. Call ahead and see if you can unload early. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If not, then you can sleep or whatever then.

Can she work up to her stamina? Yes and no. It all depends on the customers and the load requirements. If you're planned out to do 2500 miles at 45 mph, and the weather is fine and you're blowing through major metros in off hours, then yes, a nap for an hour or two won't hurt. But if you're planned 2500 at 60+ mph, she's gonna have to put her big trucker girl pants on and roll. Some companies will ramp her up as she trains, some won't.

She'll be tired, but each day will go a little easier. I think she'll be so busy keeping it between the lines at first with the newbie nerves, she won't notice she's tired until she falls out of the seat at the end of the day.

As for you, you'd do well to listen to @x1Heavy If you run too hard too long you WILL burn out. Try 4500 to 5500 miles a week at first, and see how long you can hang. When that gets easy (about September starts Christmas time work for truckers) you'll be slammed with freight and pulling 6500-7500 a week if you're lucky. I wager, by the time February rolls around, you're going to be ready to crawl in a blanket and die for a few weeks. lol.

So, learn how to trip plan and use it. Do the math and you will know right away whether you have time to stop and nap or not. When you get some experience, you'll be able to tell just from origin and destination cities and appointment times. If you're not forced dispatch, and she's not up for it, turn it down. Don't run illegal to get it there. She'll never build her stamina in the jump seat.