Could someone please explain...

Yeah, tough call. Me? The only thing I would ever consider doing again would be a line haul. No screwing around, come in do your drop and hook, usually at night, no traffic and go home. P&D is a lot of daytime stuff, dealing with traffic and old people, and going back to someone, because they " just found another pallet". Regional could be anything, you never know what would be next, dedicated is probably the best OTR thing, again, going to the same place, at least one way, who knows what the backhaul might be to get you back to your dedicated load out, then if the backhaul screws up and there's a chance you might miss your dedicated load, and they give it to someone else, it's not cast in stone.

 

[QUOTE="semi" retired;4215377]line haul. No screwing around, come in do your drop and hook, usually at night, no traffic and go home.[/QUOTE]

This is something that I think would be good for me. How would I go about getting something like that? And what companies make that type of run?

 

Just about any freight outfit that has terminals in different cities. For example, I drove for a freight outfit,now defunct, that had a terminal in Madison, Milwaukee and EauClaire, Wis. and I would take a load of freight from one to another, sometimes twice a night. Got a little boring, but didn't have any of the P&D hassles. Once in a great while, they'd have me stop at another freight outfit to make a pickup, as all the freight outfits load their trailers at night for the next days deliveries. Make sure you go in ,in person, rather than just e-mail. I've had much better luck that way.

 

Keep in mind with most LTL companies you do not get to pick what you are doing at first, you work your way into a good position based on seniority, meaning you get what ever no one else wants when you first start out, maybe even just dock work and occasionally driving throughout the week. There is noting wrong with this, but do not think that as a new hire, regardless of your experience level, that you will get to choose what type of run you get from day one. We had the same thing in the car haul business when I worked for a big company, the new hires would get mad at us senior drivers because we got the "gravy" runs and they had to work their butts off, but we earned those runs by working our tails off when we first hired on as well.

The important thing about LTL is that most companies, you do have your bad LTL companies, but most are good jobs with very little turn over, meaning once you get hired on there you have a job for life, unlike in the OTR world where you may work for two or more companies each year until you realize they all spout the same bs.