1st day of school done today, going Swift flatbed

So I’m big on fitness, I like being able to have some physical activity, I’m even bringing a set of high resistance bands to do compound exercises with 4x a week inside the truck. I also picked flatbed because there’s a demand for people with those skills so therefore they’re paid better. I figured I should just start flatbed directly to get it out the way so later down the road I end up being more valuable when looking at different companies as opposed to not having that type of skill set/experience.

My only concern is miles driven doing flatbed compared to dry van and reefer. One guy in class today kept asking me why I chose it and I mentioned the above reasons and he proceeded to tell me that I’ll be getting a lot less miles compared to the others and that’s what will eat me up. However I also hear that the loading and unloading times for flatbed are a lot shorter which means more miles on the road.

I don’t want to drive for a few more cents a mile if it means missing out on hundreds of dollars because of not enough mileage. Is this true when doing flatbed?

 

Rule #1: Don’t listen to other students’ advice. They don’t know anything.

If you want to do flatbed then do it, but you have to want to do it for the right reasons. If you think you want to haul flats just to earn a few extra cents per mile, then you will probably be disappointed.

If you want to do it because you enjoy physical work, you take pride in your work, you enjoy facing new challenges and you are a good problem solver, then you will love it. Make sense?

Mileage, pay, load times, etc. will vary from company to company and customer to customer but that’s irrelevant right now. If you decide you are a lifetime flatbedder then you will find a gig that works for you.

 

Your miles should be pretty close to the same. I would not worry about that. You should be fine.

 

That sounds a bit backwards to me.
Besides loading you also have to secure the load, which takes more time.
The same with unloading because you have to undo all those things before you can actually unload.

I have noticed that if I am getting loaded with my dry van at the same time a flatbed is loading, I will be out and away when the flat bed is still throwing the straps. Not to mention the tarps if needed.

 

You pull flatbed because you like it. Not because you’ll make a bunch more money. The money will be about the same because you likely won’t get the miles that reefer/van get. You lose time tying down and tarping. And a lot of flatbed places are M-F so you could end up with nothing to do on the weekend.

 

Flatbed almost always picks up or delivers M-F 8am to 5pm. There are exceptions but that is generally. Reason being mostly daylight. A dry van can drop and hook (switch trailers) in 15 minutes at 24/7 distribution centers. Also sometimes flatbed have appointments or you are waiting for a crane to show up.

That said, dry van kills your soul and flatbed is always interesting.

 

Flatbed has more growth potential as well. You can work your way into Heavy haul which can pay very well. Also, while I have never worked for Swift it is my understanding that their Flatbed division is run by separate dispatchers who only do that and it is overall a better division. I think @Lepton1 used to work at Swift and might could shed some light on this. All in all, bottom line is that you can make a good living doing Flatbed.

 

The flatbed division at Swift is all dispatched from Phoenix.

 

Big into fitness? Maybe look into food service for someone like Sysco. No need to worry about mileage to earn a decent living and good benefits.

 

I'm a Swift flatbedder out of Gary, In. The guys in your class are clueless. I run "the triangle" which is a load of steel frame rails from Laredo, to South Carolina/North Carolina (25ish hours, 1300 miles), a load of RV/box van chassis from South Carolina to Northern Indiana (15ish hours, 700 miles), then a load of steel coils from the East Chicago/Gary Indiana area, going back down to Laredo (25ish hours, 1400 miles). Last year I averaged approximately 2500 miles a week.

But we also get accessory pay on each of those loads. $45 tarp pay, and $28 per chassis load. It takes me around an hour and a half to strap and tarp a frame rail load, 30-45 minutes to chain a chassis load depending on the number of chassis, and an hour to chain and tarp a steel coil.

There are also other loads thrown in, like van loads out of Laredo, and with those, you typically have at least one extra stop, which you get paid $15 for.

I was doing dry van and then switched to flatbed, and can say with 100% certainty that you can make more money over a year doing flatbed, VS dry van.

 

That's actually not true at all.

The flatbed terminals are Phoenix, Laredo, Gary, and Greer and each terminal has planners and driver managers (dispatch)