Flatbedding pros and cons

Very Metal · Mar 5, 2018

I could recommend starting out with Maverick or Melton. Both great at training and with good equipment. This will be your test to see if you enjoy Flatbed. I did 2 years with Maverick , it was my opinion the getting paid by the mile in Flatbed wasn't really doing it for me. I left and went with a small company doing percentage and I enjoyed that better.

Espressolane · Mar 5, 2018

I have said this before, it is a truth.
Open deck, It is an attitude.

mpd240 · Mar 5, 2018

Chicks dig us. Working the bar a million times builds muscles

RustyBolt · Mar 5, 2018

spyder7723 said: ↑

Ok. Now before i get banned from this thread i should probably add something productive to it.

Cons: you will get hot sweaty and dirty. And you will get cold and wet and covered in mud. Probably in the same week. sometimes in the same day.

You will get your tarp spread nice and pretty and a gust of wind will come along and take it right off the trailer.

Rolling up frozen tarps sucks. Unrolling frozen tarps sucks even more.

Pros: no matter how bad it gets, it's still better than pulling a van or reefer. Your customers are almost always happy to see you and will speak to you like a human being. This is the exact opposite of vans and reefers, for them its rare not to be treated and spoken to like some bum off the street.

Another pro, with time you will learn how to lessen the impact of the cons. Especially when dealing with tarps.

I wouldn't worry about your age or back. For open deck to negatively effect your back, it would have to be so screwed up that simply driving any truck was not an option. Anyone that tells you flatbeding is hard work has never done a single day of real work in their lives. Baling hay is hard work, that's some seriously physically demanding labor. Rolling a tarp out or hooking a chain is not physically demanding.

Oh another pro. The entry level open deck companies are miles upon miles better to their drivers than the entry level dry van and reefer companies. Example: tmc and melton vs crst and cr england.
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^^^ This right here ^^^
Can't be said much better.

TripleSix · Mar 5, 2018

spyder7723 said: ↑

Oh just nonsense spewed by a certain member here.
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ladr · Mar 6, 2018

Rontonio said: ↑

Uh, except when you do tarp - then you get to use bigger and heavier tarps with lots of tall irregular shapes requiring endless padding. Then of course you could pull an RGN and use even bigger heavier tarps to tape even taller loads.

The bottom line is this - yes you will tarp and no you will not love it.

You either are an open deck guy and that is what you do

Or your not

Then you most likely get and endless streaming of slamming doors and speeding through parking lots and failing to maintain good lane discipline and asking yourself if you can back into the stupid small space the customer asks you to
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Yeah I was willing to forget the when you do part....lol/

The best two parts about tarping is when other drivers compliment you on how good it looks and when you take them off and there is not a mark on the product.

REO6205 · Mar 6, 2018

johndeere4020 said: ↑

Or 25 1/2" chains on a 90,000 pound coil.
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Or was it the time he ran over all the cars on the corners in NYC, then got his brakes hot screaming down some mountain road, and then told his dispatcher, terminal manager, and anybody who had clean fingernails and a title, to kiss off, and then drove from L.A. to New York in two days, and then had to fight his way out of a chicken plant when the Latinos suddenly started menacing him and then told the cops in every scale house he came to that he was too cool for school and just drove off leaving them hanging their heads or was it the time he got fired from 12 jobs in 3 days, or the ten jobs in two years that he resigned from because they didn't have their stuff together to suit him, or was it....fill in your own favorite truck stop lunch counter fantasy story here........

When his fantasy stories start I can never decide whether he's on or off of his meds again.

And, every once in awhile - just often enough to keep us on our toes, he comes out with some really sensible information. Well, kind of anyway.

Long FLD · Mar 7, 2018

Highway Sailor said: ↑

I tried to use my own harness one time, the shipper denied me. Had to use theirs.
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Using theirs one time is still better than having to use theirs 100% of the time. Nothing worse in the summer than putting on a harness that’s soaked with some other dude’s sweat.

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