"Van or flatbed...which one?"

"Hi, I am currently in school to get my CDL. When I graduate, should I go to van or flatbed?"

Go to vans.

"Which pays better?"

Vans. You don't have to get dirty and tarp in the weather.

"But flatbed companies are advertising home every weekend..."

You can get on a dedicated Dollar General account, make regular money and be home regularly with a van.

"Do you pull van?"

Of course not. But if you have to ask, vans is the choice for you.

"You're an A Hole!"

Yes I am.



I was running a reefer. Freakin fast truck. Small company, home every weekend, 25%of gross. Was running through the night. Got into a conversation with "BoogieMan." I was in a triple digit aerodyne W9, and he was in a flat top W9. Middle of the night, running with the vampires. It was the headache rack and that open deck trailer that fascinated me. "So, this guy straps loads to the trailer and the securement prevents the load from moving...scary."

I grabbed a load of cooking oil and took it down to Florida for multiple stops. Got stuck in the docks of food on in Lakeland for 48 hours with 4 pallets of cooking oil. They told me that I would have to wait until Monday now. I called BoogieMan's company to see if they were still hiring. They faxed me an application and I faxed it back. They offered me a job, but I would have to work the yard for a week since I had no tied own experience. Fine. Sign me up. I went home and cleaned my truck out.

I show up to the new job. They took me down to the aluminum plant and I would load and tarp preloaded trailers. Yes, it was tougher than closing the doors on a reefer, but it was much easier than construction work, more honest than law enforcement. No offense to van drivers, but you would never guess how much you don't know about a truck until you go to load and the guy on a giant forklift asks you how do you want it loaded. "I have no earthly idea." ROOKIE. I can read your mind, mister fork lift operator.
Went to Burns Harbor. For you reefer guys, Burns Harbor was to us like Hunts' Point is to you. Hundreds of trucks. "Man, this is going to take a decade." These guys waiting in line to get loaded were scrambling. Yanking out chains and binders and coil racks. I'm a little slow, but then it dawned on me that it only takes 5 minutes or less to load a truck. "Holy...id better get my chains and binders out." I felt so slooooooooooooooow.

So, I'm running down the road with this suicide coil. Heard stories about these things. Had 8 chains on it and was still worried. Somewheres along the way, you get the science. The math. Tarping is challenging. It is NOT difficult. Have the forklift guy put the tarp on the top of the load. Roll it out, place it even, secure 4 corners of the load. Now comes the hard part...you have to figure out how to make it wind resistant. If there is a weakness in your tarp job, the wind is guaranteed to exploit it to the fullest. Without fail, 100%of the time, the wind will find what you did wrong and rip it apart. Forget about the rain, the perfect tarp job is wind resistant. Once you figure out how to make a tarp job wind proof, tarping becomes easy. If you are not a thinking person or you are lazy, the wind will kick your arse.

(Decades later)

I get to a customer to load. They have a crew of guys padding down some multimillion dollar machine. Stretch job. Pilot cars are outside. She's tall, long and wide. This load has to be belly tarped. Pays me $1600 to tarp it. I stretch the trailer, set 2 tarps on the deck, they raise the piece with an overhead crane, pad the bottom of the piece and set it on the trailer. I secure it, and button up the tarp. They use the overhead crane and drape 2 tarps across the top. I stick the top tarps and bottom tarps together using ropes and bungees. Flags, banner beacon lights and permits and we are ready to go. Made it out of the city a couple hours before rush hour. Stupid money. $1600 for 4 tarps. Sure, I will do it.

"How do I know if flatbedding is right for me?"

If you have to ask, then it's not. If you want to talk about the horror stories the cowardly fearmongers tell, then it's not for you. If you have 2 hands and a brain that works and a 'do or die trying' attitude, then sure, jump on in...but normally that type person isn't repeating horror stories from people who have never done anything more difficult than wiping their arse.

 

Think of it as traveling by train. When you got on the train may be different from when I got on the train, but we are all making the same journey.