I'm a 'newbie's' gf. My bf started driving the 48 states as a team right after his 'training' time was over. He liked seeing the sights of the different states but to be gone from all friends and family for over a month at a time was hard. Harder on his teammate I guess because the teammate quit after a few months. Without his teammate my bf was put on a north east regional account where he's home every two weeks. And most weeks I get to meet up with at random places when he passes nearby. It's a good deal. We see eachother often (although unscheduled), he comfrotable with his route/company/dispatchers and he's making enough $$ to pay the bills. He recently was informed about a daily driving position. He was excited about it at first, this is what we wanted - for him to be home everynight. Until he talked to some other driver who said daily drivers get the worst schedules and often have to work long shifts (as long as 14 hour shifts) which bascially gives the driver enough time to go home and straight to bed to start work again tomorrow AND that these poor daily drivers don't get many days off so in the end working a 'daily' position gives you more hours working and less hours home than this regional position my bf already has. I know we can't go by what just one driver says so that's why I'm posting here - to get a variety of opinions. My bf has it pretty good right now where he's at and although he'd always want more home time (who doesn't) he doesn't want to make a mistake and take a position that he'll later regret. He's ok where he is and doesn't want to ruin a good thing. What do you guys think about the schedules of daily drivers?
It's true, at least in many cases. A lot of locasl jobs will work you right up against your 14 hour (in a lot of local jobs you'll never get 11 hours of driving) clock so you get a ten hour break just like in OTR. So, say because of traffic/distance, it takes 30 min. to get to the terminal and 30 to get home. That takes your daily hometime down to 9 hours. Spend 2 hours when you get home for showering, eating and, family time ... your down to 7 hours. Need to spend a half hour "getting ready" (coffee, shower, whatever) to go to work after you get up? Then you get, at most 6.5 hours to sleep. On the other hand, when an OTR driver is on hometime they generally get a few days. Just food for thought. ............ Jim
I am averaging about 10-12 hours a day at work doing local gas hauling. But I am off 2, sometimes 3 days a week so I wouldn't trade it for regional.
Being local definitely has its perks and yes the hours can be long but dont forget, working for the same company he would probably be on the same 70 hour 8 day clock as he would be while out on the road so it just depends "where" he takes his mandatory time off. How is the pay compared to his job now? He should really talk to some other local drivers there or someone in the know because it's possible he talked to the one grump in the whole local fleet. He might be working 12 and 14 hour days but he would probably get to see you more eh? Then again he might be working 9 and 10 hour days and for local that would be pretty gravy. Most local jobs have varying start times during the day just because that is the nature of the business unless you are union. The job I have now pays pretty well but sometimes I will start at 12 am, next day 6am, next day 3am etc... and stuff like that can wear you down. On the flip side my last local job was basically 9 to 5 and the one before that was just the "early shift", starting anywhere from 3am to 6am. Anyway good luck to him.
I work "local" and average anywhere from 8 -12 hours a day depending on the run. 1 - 2 days off a week usually on the weekend. The hours can be a little goofy like rockee said but in my opinion it's better to be home in your bed for 6 hours than sleeping on an exit ramp in New Jersey. The dedicated account I'm on pays better than a lot of the OTR guys with the same company as well
I run fairly local these days.That is,I run 10-12 hours ,usually run around 500 miles and am heading to the house around 3 pm..I like it better than OTR..
I should clarify that the company my bf is working for now doing regional work is not the company offering daily work. He would be switching to a new compnay he knows nothing about ... yet. My bf heard of this daily job through a friend so hopefully he can get the inside scoop about how schedules really run from someone inside the company. But with the economy as it is there's prob 300 guys vying for the job so who know's if he'll get it. It's just that when we first heard about it we were both really excited and then this one driver he talked to worried us. I work a 9 - 5 with weekends off. In this regional job he gets every other weekend home so it works out. If he switched to a daily driving job where he gets 3 days off but it's monday, tues and wed then I'd really never see him. Thanks for all your answers! I guess until he hears about the schedule from the horses mouth it's best he stays put where he is.
