Handling freight

I have loaded my truck for years, Just take your time. Always remember balancing your freight, like when you go over the dock plate lip, freight can tip forward and fall over. Look at your whole load before you start. Usually a 48ft trailer you can put 22 pallets straight in. Also see how much the load weighs, distribute your freight properly, and after, if your not sure on weight distribution, go scale the load.

 

Unless you're going into LTL, loading your own truck will maybe never happen in your career. In the truckload world, UNloads are common at some carriers, but most of these are authorized to pay an unloader (lumper) to unload on driver's behalf. You as a general rule should NEVER be asked to operate a forklift or other device that belongs to a shipper or receiver. Where I am we unload fresh/frozen meat almost exclusively outbound and d/h Dollar General inbound and I NEVER touch any freight. My company routinely pays $200 to $300 each load for lumper expense and doesn't want it's drivers touching or moving any freight.

But I understand many of the larger mega-carriers move certain freight to certain locations that may require driver assist or driver unload and there are no lumpers. Tire loads are a good example of loads that require a lot of driver labor to get off the truck.

 

Well you can be a shunter in a large yard and get wacked by trailer door from the wind.

But if you think about it this way,
If you lift a 20 pound box 500 times a day every day for weeks,
you will get stronger and stronger every day,
and then that 20 pound feels like 2 ounces.

Some of them UPS drivers got some wicket pecks and arms on them.

Full 6 gallon Bottle water jugs will get you fit really quick too after lifting 1000 or more.

 

I just took a dry van load of square hay bales from NY to MD. No pallets, wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Fortunately, I was not tasked with loading / unloading...

 

YRC we have dock guys who load our trucks. At stops you might have to unload or load your own truck though

 

in the reefer world you touch nothing usually

 

I unload my trailer twice a week, box-by-box. But this isn't a job you'll get by accident.

 

We'll that's fine to load your own truck so long as you are well compensated. if you spend 2 hours loading or assisting, that's potentially 2 less hours you're going to be able to drive that week. You drive 120 miles in 2 hours and make 35 cents a mile ... did you make somewhere near $42? If so, fine if not you're setting yourself up for failure. Many make good money in loading pay, but many don't get paid enough to justify the loss of driving production. Than there is the fatigue factor you have to deal with. Spend 4 hours unloading tires in Phoenix in an August and see how refreshed you feel to make it to Los Angeles that same day.