Home time when you don't live on a route or in a terminal city of your employer

All depends on the company and where they have freight coming and going from and where you live. Some companies will be fine with the truck in your driveway and some not. If your off the beaten path you'd best do your homework to make sure they can and will get you home. Some may make you park the truck on a major route and then you get your own transportation home. Those are all questions that one would want to make sure are answered before committing to working for a company. Hope that helps but it really, really varies from place to place.

 

are there any cities close with routes? sometimes you can get a route close and bobtail out of route a small distance to home, some companies dont like you going out of route too far though but less than 50miles sometimes is reasonable

this is what im dong tomorrow, got a load heading about 60 miles from home then going to bobtail

 

The reason for the occasional hiring freeze has everything to do with getting drivers home. If there are more drivers than freight coming out of Florida, it is hard to get them home at a reasonable cost.

There are a couple of unique challenges with Florida. There is a lot more freight going in that coming out for example. Florida is a consumer State. A lot of everyday things are brought into the State but there is not a lot of production to be sent out. Tourism is the biggest industry. Second, its geography does not lent itself well to getting drivers home. One does not Pass through Florida, one has to go there. I live in Delaware, my company is in Dallas, but we have a ton of freight that goes to NY, NJ, Philadelphia, etc that allows me to get home because of Delawares proximity and I95 and US 301 cutting right through there. Florida is the end of the line. If a load is not specifically going to Florida, you won't be passing through the State.

 

Those 7/3, 7/4, 7/7 plans you speak of ... that truck is not sitting for those "off" days, somebody else is driving it. And as such these plans require the participating to drivers to live in or very near select markets, and typically operate out of a service terminal market.

 

ST was spot on about the home time fleets. I did Roehl's 14/7 and you had to live within a certain radius of either a drop yard or terminal to considered for any of those fleets.

 

I have to ask, were you making enough money to sustain that kind of schedule? It sounds great on the surface, bit that is the equivalent of taking 4 months off a year. I don't think I can afford to do that. I have a good friend who take an week off a month, but he is an O/O with a clear title and no payments, and that is less time than a 14/7, but for the average company driver, that sure sounds like a lot of time with no income.

 

Some of the smaller motels let you pay to park, same for bowling alley's, they just seem to be friendly folks. I agree with some other posts though, if you take the full days off you're going to lose your truck. You may come back to find your stuff in lockup and a different seat.

 

Its going to differ from company to company. Some will want their trucks at a terminal or approved drop location and its up to you to figure out how to get home from there. I live in FL so usually deliver somewhere in FL, GA, or AL then deadhead home. I might get lucky and get swapped off a load near my house and get an empty to go home with. Thats another thing you will want to ask of recruiters... if you can take your truck to go home, do you bobtail or do you go with an empty? My company has us take an empty which plays a big factor in where I can park. I can park the tractor in front of my house and no one in the neighborhood cares, but there is no way a truck and trailer can get down my street! As is, I still have to do a three point turn in the little cul de sac to turn around when bobtail! I had to do my homework and get permission from a couple different businesses who dont mind a tractor trailer spending a few days. Once hometime is up, I am dispatched from my hometown and paid the miles to deadhead whedever the shipper is.