Where to start

EW Wylie will train you for flatbed as long as you have at least 6 months OTR

 

“Drive more tarp less” funny. I’ve never seen a load of untapped drywall.

 

I met a guy other day when loading steel, said jordan gave him a 5k sign on bonus for flat division because of one year van experience, and sent him to securement training. He was very happy and said there was a lot of recurrent bonuses for certain goals.

 

If you are looking for $75k a year with flatbed you'll probably need more experience. From what I've seen of company driver rates people talk about in the US, you'll need to run OTR to get that kind of money with your level of experience (unless you hit the jackpot with a local hourly gig).

But I wouldn't go into it thinking all about the money. Get the experience under your belt and then pick and choose your top place to work.

Flat deck is a very rewarding line of work if you've got the motivation to work physically and the patience to learn. I greatly enjoyed my time doing it, but the physical nature of the job for less than adequate pay really turned me off it.

 

Pre-loaded/-tarped trailers? Roll-tites?

 

I could see the roll-tote angle but I’ve never seen a preload pre tarpped that I could hook to and to. And I still have to roll them up on the other end.

 

My old company did a lot of that. Rounders down through US into OH and up into ON, loads of steel loaded and tarped, dropped in Winnipeg yard, then another driver took it west.

Pretty convenient, but I was always nervous hooking up to a trailer I never strapped and tarped. If I can't see what was done, how can I trust it?

If I ever went back to flat deck, it would be for a roll-tite only fleet (or just O/O so I set the tarping rate). I enjoy tarping, but nobody here pays well enough for the work so I would never think of doing it again.

 

It was 100 deg down here today when I tarped my load of sheetrock. I bet you'd really enjoy tarping in that, lol.