Flatbed advice

As anyone in here ever pulled double Flats before? Is it hard to do?

 

Never pulled flat pups before, did vans for Consolidated Freight, the original corn flakes, & the same for Watkins. Can't be any real difference to doing flats other than securement which is the same as any other open deck.

I believe there's a real good chance that I am the only driver to ever pull a set of triples in Texas, most definitely the only one to do it through downtown Houston. That was back in my wilder, younger days, before CDLs & back when there wasn't any local DOT cops.

That would also have been my last day with Watkins, by my design, had enough of their BS & was walking when I got to the terminal. There wasn't a chance in Hades I was making a second trip across Houston to get that third pup at 10 PM on a Friday, especially since I was quitting.

It was so worth it too.

 

How is it pulling doubles and triples? Is it hard due to the length of the entire trailer? What should I expect, looking into pulling doubles and triples.

 

No harder than anything else I've pulled.

Length is a perceptional thing, what's long to you may be short to others, depends on what you've pulled before. My tractor is longer than a pup trailer by itself at 33'.

How do you make turns with a longer truck? Make wider turns for the most part. You have to learn the "feel" of a setup, then it becomes second nature. Some learn faster as it is already pretty much second nature to drive anything.

Having more pivot points helps in some situations & hurts in others.

Backing a set is pretty much out the window, known some that were pretty good at straight line backing them, I was fair at it.

The second & potentially third trailer are going to wiggle going down the road, nothing you can do about it, so don't worry about it unless it is trying to pass you.

Watch the weights on the different trailers & hook the set up accordingly. if the company hooks sets up so all the road driver has to do is hook the set, check the weights & how they are positioned in the set.

 

I was asking due to the fact I use to drive a tractor and 53 ft flatbed spread axle trailer. Just curious if it was harder due to having more trailers and being a longer setup.

 

Having the extra pivot point should actually give you a better turning radius. If the pups are single or tandem axle versus spread axle, that should also help the turning radius.

 

WTI got plenty of company drivers and fleece operators in their fleece programs. Last I heard, they let drivers into fleece program straight out of orientation. Daseke got deep pockets till they screw up like Celadon. Just a matter of time.

 

the difference between Daseke and Celadon is that Deseke is a group of companies that are run and individuals. Celedon was buying companies and combining operations staff.