Straight box trucks

We've been operating two 24ft. and two 26ft. Straight box trucks for 25 years now. They fall under the same safety regs as the big 18’s. Pre/post trip hos. In Texas ( not sure about all of the states) 26,000 gvw or below Is non-cdl required and If above 26,001 gvw you only need a cdl/b to operate. Single axles are good up to 33,000 gvw. If the chassis was originally speced for that. Tandems should be good to 54,000.

 

We bought 2 new Hino’s from Rush in San Antonio in 2015 at around $72,000 each. No frills 250 hp allison autos. The old school kind. They can run 75 on the Texas 80 mph roads. They do not go into nuetral for uncontrolled speed events. As far as Dot is concerned Non cdl you can hire anyone u trust to drive. Cdl you gotta be much more picky. Lol.
They have actually and surprisingly been great trucks. Absolutely no down time and both have a little over 230,000 miles ea.

 

Unfortionantly I can’t really help with that question because we move our own product from warehouse to stores. Its brought in to us by whomever our vendors hire. If we send anything back our vendors send whomever they want for pickup.
I honestly don’t know how the loadboards work for the small truck stuff. I can tell you in my area there are almost the same amount of independent 26footers running around as the big 18’s. A lot of stuff moves in Texas.