Flatbed questions, how much physical work is involved?

Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by CalculatedRisk, Feb 28, 2023.

  1. Buc

    Buc Medium Load Member

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    Nov 17, 2012
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    Re: the tarping...over twelve years of doing it, I'd say the weather conditions average out. In fact, I'd say that more often than not I tarped in more favorable conditions, be it weather, inside a warehouse or some tarp shed (or some kind of overhead cover). That said, in certain parts of the country (like most of the midwest, especially the closer you get to the Dakotas ans Wyoming), there's just no escaping the wind. And there's just no way around it come wintertime: tarping outside sucks, period...but untarping is worse, because by then, if the ground is wet, slick, snowy or muddy, all that slush is getting rolled right up into the tarp, which helps nothing once they ride in the box long enough to get frozen with all that condensed moisture inside (which also makes them heavier, more so than the winter cold already makes them).

    As for the less miles, that can be a positive pr negative depending on the type of operation one runs for and one's pay model (read: miles vs percentage). Case in point: my first four years with TMC were all percentage. Didn't rely on miles as much, as my average length of haul was somewhere around the 380-400-mile mark. (Of course, some were longer, typically on Monday-Wednesdays, when I could get them.) BUT...they strongly encouraged us to track revenue both ways, by mileage and by percentage, and if we ever saw where one way made more, they let us switch pay models for like a month at a time. The only time I saw mileage being worth it was running loads back east from the west coast/pacific northwest, and even then it wasn't by much.

    The last flatbed outfit I ran for was strictly miles...but again, they ran a different type of operation. Much of their core business was with three dedicated customers, so many trailers from those three were preloaded, which saved a boatload of time. (Less time loading = more time moving which = more miles which = more $.) I may have tarped 20% of the time with that fleet, and of that, less than half of those tarp jobs required 8-foot drops. I say all that to say this: sometimes it's about finding the right fleet/operation to maximize your time/miles/value.

    Yes, yes, and...yeah buttt not really. I saw (and still see) plenty of old hands out there well into their 50s and 60s still slangin' chains, straps and tarps like it ain't nothing. Now their joints probably feel like firecrackers on the inside—like mine started to before injury forced me out of skateboarding—but they were still out there getting it.

    But yes, younger bodies are definitely more productive in this business.
     
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