Indian River

Do you get dispatched by the terminal that you are closest to, or are you always dispatched by your home terminal?

 

It depends on who you ask. I've been told to only deal with my dispatcher, but I'm also in the pump division and I think that's a pump division thing. It doesn't matter where you live for the pump division, your home terminal will be Winter Haven.

 

In the driver handbook I got at orientation it maps our the country and shows you which terminal covers particular zones. That's how I determine who to call for my next load or to update ETAs etc. This was before we had driver managers. Even with the DMs I still contact the terminal for that region and haven't been told I should do it any other way.

My DM is based at the Bensalem terminal and has no knowledge of what is in California or how they run the customers out that way. As tanker82 mentioned, my DM is my first point of contact for hometime etc and also for any loads originating in the NE. I don't bother them with anything outside of that.

 

Some questions here for all the drivers of IRT...
In your own personal experience and if you can please give some examples I would greatly appreciated.

Is there any period during the course of the year (months) that you experience a particular slow down in your regional driving area or if you are a OTR driver what months during the year do you experience a slow down and what strategies do you implement personally to lets say survive those slower months?

Note: The reason I ask these questions is because I understand that not all IRT drivers are regional or OTR drivers and some live in different parts of the country.

Thank you in advance for your response.

 

I can't say that I notice a seasonal slowdown. I do a lot of juice in the NE, and supposedly during school holidays there is less being shipped to the bottling plant that we mainly supply in Canada. The main reason I am not running as much as before is because other carriers are doing runs for that customer.

If there aren't any juice loads to Canada I usually wind up hauling dairy out of VA and MD going to Florida and Alabama. Once empty they usually deadhead me back up to Bensalem.

During Cranberry season we load quite a bit of it in Quebec Canada. We have customers for cranberry in Florida, California and Washington State. I will occasionally take a Florida load all the way through, but the West Coast loads I drop for someone else to deliver.

I have to say they are pretty good about getting me miles somehow. I am making less than I was this time last year (mainly because of other carriers doing what we used to), but I am still doing ok.

I could post the miles from the past couple months, but I had some unplanned time off due to family circumstances. I can still post those if you really want me to.

 

What is your gross pay so far for the year?

 

Can’t believe he asked that!