Flatbed Wages

Acwt310 · Mar 7, 2019

reverendhandy said: ↑

In all honesty, the reference to wages has to be somewhat subjective.
You can't honestly expect drivers to reveal what they make or what they are paid.
That is personal information and varies among drivers as well as companies.
Drivers at the same company may even be paid differently. Now with that being said, I'll give you some information as best I can based on 15 years of flatbed experience.
1. In regards to pay. Just being brand new to the game, your first two years are not going to pay a tremendous amount of money. Until you get some miles under your belt and several hundred loads, you would be unrealistic to expect huge pay checks.
Initially, especially during your training phase, you can expect to make somewhere between .32 and .35 cents a mile. Once you complete your initial phase of training, which would include proving yourself as a driver, learning how to secure a variety of loads with straps or chains, learning the correct way to tarp loads and so on, it would not be realistic to go up to about .40 cents a mile. I currently average, depending on load, between .54 and .62 pm.
As a company driver you can also expect to earn 25-35 dollars for the tarp pay and the stop pay. Companies are pretty cheap in this regards.
Some companies, however; will put you on a percentage between 25 and 75 depending on the company and the type of freight. If its a specialized company with several dedicated routes, you can expect to be up in the mid range. The percentage works primarily off of the total paid on the load and doesn't breakout the accessory pay.
2. As far as how a company pays depends on the company.
Some companies pay each week while others will pay every two weeks, generally around the 5th and the 20th.
Pay is based off of truck miles in most cases, which is generally the short miles from zip code to zip code.
Depending on which system they are using to calculate the miles, the actual miles versus the paid miles can average between 4% and 8% difference. The most accurate system that some companies are using is the ASA 400 and runs at about 3.8% difference.
Other companies that run local or regional will either pay by the hour or actual hub miles. So it really depends on whether or not you run over the road or dedicated local/regional.
3. Total miles ran per week has a lot of variables to consider.
It all comes down to the load, the company your loading at, and where the load is going.
With flatbed, in most cases, the loads are generally ready when you arrive. Very rarely do I have to sit and wait on the load.
The biggest determent is the time it takes to get loaded. If your doing loads like lumber, steel, or aluminum, the loads go on pretty quick. The time comes when its time to secure and/or tarp the load.
With equipment like machines, farm equipment, Cat and John Deere, it's usually just chain and go.
If, however; the load is oversized, then there's the extra time of measuring the load, calling into get permits (which are very route specific depending on the load), time management and so on.
Right now I'm in a heavy haul division and all of my loads are oversized or heavy.
If you run hard, don't waste a lot of time lolly gagging at truck stops, drag your butt, you can easily expect to run around the 2500 miles a week mark on average. 2500 miles a week depends on whether your truck is governed or not and whether its a standard legal load or a permitted oversize load.
I have had some weeks I ran less because of loads or restrictions and I have had weeks where I have run more. My lowest was only 875 because of countless delays on an oversize, my best was 3700 because everything went right.
4. In regards to time off. That again is going to depend a lot on the company that you work for.
Every company has a different way of calculating time off and vacation time off.
I like you am single. I see my house about once every 6 months, so the rest of the time I am running.
But when I do go home, it's generally for 10 days. I take 5 days of accrued time off and 5 days of Paid time off(vacation).
The other factor to consider, is where you live in relation to the lanes your company runs, and how difficult is it for them to accommodate your time off request. If you choose to take time off on the lane, maybe do a little sight seeing, visit some old friends, maybe make some new friends, your time off request usually gets approved fairly easy.
In closing, I hope that this has helped in some way. With 15 years of flatbed, over 2,5 million miles, and more than 500 over size loads, I can tell you, as a company driver my low after expenses and benefits was around 49,000 and my high was around 68,000. When I was an owner operator, my low after expenses and benefits was around 87,000 and my best high was 182,000.
With all things considered, flatbed is definitely the way to go. I wouldn't want to change anything.
Click to expand...

Stay out 6 mitnrhs at a time pulling over size for less than 68,000 a year??? Not knocking because you sound like you enjoy what you do but I couldn't do it.

Kinda feel like a Richard knowing Ive been frustrated with my 3-4 day work weeks where I make 85-87 a year.

Props to the ones who rarely go home, I've never tried it but I already know it ain't for me!

D.Tibbitt · Mar 7, 2019

Jfcchvac said: ↑

Tarp pay is everytime you touch it. 12.50 to put it on. 12.50 to take it off.
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my god 12.50 to touch the tarp, they would have to pay me double that just to look at those ####in things

perlhaqr · Mar 24, 2019

Feanor: As a newb (I test for my CDL in 8 days) who is interested in flatbed, I found this thread to be very useful. Thanks for starting it and coming back to continue it.

I appreciate all the replies from everyone else as well.

RollinThunderVet · Mar 25, 2019

@Feanor i got what you were asking. it was the same thing i asked when i started.
all the veteran drivers start telling you what they did, because this industry is filling more and more with idiots. It seems you got the jest of that from you responses.
But they werent really too far off, and notice they all said lower than what you made, and you spent longer than usual in training, on top of only working 10.5 of the 12 months.
Guys like you and I, (and even these old timers giving you a hard time) are a different breed. We look at dozens of different people, with different pays, and different personalities, and we analyze the data to form our own conclusions.
Get ready to do the whole process over again, if you decide to make the jump to owning your own equipment. I believe it was @johndeere4020 who said it correctly in the first couple posts, they are so many different ways to skin this particular cat that is trucking... But i got what you were asking for and why you wanted it.

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