Anybody live in Jax Florida?

I live in the Jacksonville area. Stay south of I-10/downtown and you won't have any crime issues if you want to try living in the city itself. I live in Clay County which is just south of downtown but would not have a problem going to that area of Jacksonville. The "north side" and "west side" of the city are the problem areas. If you have kids, nearby St. John's County has the highest rated schools in the state which is the county St. Augustine is in. This is probably the best area of Florida to live in as a truck driver because of the volume of freight at the ports and lots of freight is moving through here anyway. There are some megas with terminals and drop yards here and lots of small companies too. Plus I see lots of Texas plates in my area so you certainly won't be alone. Fair warning though, you might be encountering New Yorkers like myself too, haha!!

 

I live about 40 miles south of Jax, out in the country,near St. Augustine. Lived here all my life, trucked out of here nearly that long.
Cheap area to live but growing extremely fast. Housing is getting expensive, but out in the country deals can be found.
They told you right, Jax west-side and north -side are bad areas, rest of city is normal.
PLENTY of O/O work pulling containers, but most of that will not make you rich. Very steady runs, just low rates.
This winter I did not put on my heavy coat, just jackets. Warm winter.
Good area to live, trucking is plentiful, but lots of retired ####-Yankees invading us. What everyone has said before is correct.

 

I park my truck in a lot in Mobile, AL. PTI basically rents storage space from a towing company, it in a yard full of busted up cars.

Our main Paper customer is Georgia Pacific. Some of their shipping locations are weird, but all easy docks. One GP products is OSB board Resin Powder Glue which is a pain in the ### when doing a trailer sweep.

EDIT: To clarify what I mean by weird, 2 of them insist on the driver sitting on the dock and being directed to place the straps to secure the front and middle of the load. I just don't get why the forklift driver can't do this; it makes no sense to me.

I have mixed opinions about the Jacksonville terminal as it's not really PTI's building. We are one of a couple offices in the building. We do not own the garage, it's another company who repairs trucks.

They juggle equipment around if they have to many breakdowns such as asking you to switch trucks instead of wait for a repair. After a while, my first truck kept having fuel issues, so they put me in a Penske truck.

Regarding the fuel issue, I had a situation where fuel stopped being drawn from my left fuel tank so I stalled when my right tank ran out. PTI or kept running me on 1 functioning fuel tank for a while so I'm still kind of disgusted by that.

My feeling now is they suck at repairs, but if your truck is working it can be okay. If I lived in Jacksonville instead of Mobile, it might be easier for me to get my truck in for repairs or maintenance while I'm home. Then depending on how things go, I'd stick around or look for another Jacksonville company after getting more experience.

 

Hurricanes?