Is LTL the best area of trucking? What's the catch?

Hilarious.

 

I still think it’s bull crap LTL don’t use electric pallet jacks. I even offered my boss to give me all the bullcrap freight if I could buy an electric Toyota jack, and was told “no”.

no logical reason electric pallet jacks aren’t used; heck they always wanna talk about a driver shortage let the old farts stay longer… GIVE THEM AN ELECTRIC JACK

some other bullcrap they don’t tell you is you’re gonna have a delivery on a main road like palm beach boulevard, which was probably built in the late 1800s and you have to park right on the road with you hazards on praying no illegals hit you or your truck and they don’t have a forklift so now you have to walk the pallet to them.

Oh, and don’t forget about them cul-de-sac deliveries.

They’re gonna given you the last house on a cul de sac so you’re gonna have to attempt a “3-point” reverse into the dead end street while continuing to reverse down a residential for a mile or more.

Oh, you can’t fit or reverse down the street? Start walking that pallet to them

welcome to Naples Florida

 

When you say LTL are you talking about linehaul or P&D? Because they are different.

LTL is a great sector of the trucking world. But it's not for everybody, me included.

Cons for linehaul:

1. Night time driving and messed up sleep schedule
2. Doing a lot of "hurrying up and waiting" (to be fair this is true for trucking in general)
3. Having to deal with a dolly in messed up weather conditions. I promise hooking a set of doubles and trying to get that dolly to cooperate after it's been sitting in snow and ice is MUCH HARDER than hooking up a single 53' footer.
4. Hotels - This can either be a pro or a con. A lot of people like having their own sleeping space in the truck and knowing that it's clean. LTL isn't going to put you in the Hitlon everynight and if you sleep in hotel rooms everynight, your chances for bedbugs or ####roaches hitching a ride with you back to your place goes up exponentially (and both can be pricey to eradicate in a personal residence). But then again you have your own shower and bathroom. So I mean, this can be a pro or a con.
5. Having to flip your sleep schedule on the weekends. You don't have to do this, but many drivers with families do. Try going to sleep between 10:00am - 7:00pm M-F and then trying to sleep 10:00pm - 6:00am on the weekends so that you can see your family and tell me those extreme shifts in sleep schedule don't take a toll on the body or mind

Cons for P&D

1. Slip seating and all that entails (nasty drivers are the worst, you'de be surprised how many apparently don't even know how to pick up their trash when they're done with the truck)
2. At some LTL companies, drivers have assigned trucks and the P&D guys need to have those trucks back by a certain time. Therefore, you'll drive two different trucks throughout your shift and have to move your stuff from truck to truck twice, along with a pre trip and post trip twice per day.
3. Dealing with city traffic all day
4. Dealing with dispatch and having to communicate with them ALL day. You are going to communicate with dispatch WAY MORE as a P&D driver than what you would as an OTR driver. If you have bad dispatch, it's not fun
5. One 30 minute break throughout the day. When you work 12-14 hours per day, that sucks to only have one small break throughout the day. But at the same time you don't really want to take another 30 minute break because then you're just going to be at work EVEN LONGER than what you already are. It's a lose-lose situation really.

Cons for both P&D and linehaul

1. P&D especially can have garbage equipment. Linehaul cabs are hit or miss but believe it or not, the Mega OTR companies usually have much nicer and newer equipment than what a lot of these LTL companies run. Some of the trailers I saw during my time in LTL were downright shameful.
2. Managers who have never driven a truck and don't have a clue and are only managers because of a college degree or nepotism or a combination of both (to be fair this is rampant in most industries anyways so it's not unique to trucking)
3. In many instances (especially nowadays), long hours. Expect to have no life. You won't be local, your home will be your sleeper birth instead of an actual home. If you have a high paying linehaul run, guess what, when you get home you're going to be in hurry up and sleep mode. No time for anything else. You will be living to work and not working to live. You are going to miss out on a lot of family time and a lot of family memories because of how much you work.
4. Vacation time - If you're OTR you get little "mini vacations" each month during hometime (if you're at a better company you can take 1 week off for every 3-4 weeks worked). If you're a local LTL driver, you get the crappy standard American 1-2 weeks of vacation per year for the first 4 years you're at the company. That's pretty crappy by 1st world standards but isn't unique to just LTL or trucking in general though.

The negatives of OTR driving get talked about all the time on the internet. For whatever reason the negatives of LTL rarely get talked about. But trust me, they exist. You have to put up with a lot of BS. It's not for everybody and it's not a perfect, no stress job.

That said, why is LTL considered one of the best sectors in the trucking world?

Money, benefits and you're local. You will get paid and you will get paid good. The benefits are usually better than OTR. And you usually get Saturday and Sunday off. It's as close as a "normal" M-F job as you can get in the trucking world. AND, you don't kill your body doing it like you would in something like food service.

If you can handle all the cons that I just listed, I would 100% recommend LTL. It's a great way to make a good living.

 

If you can't hack it, go drive for Swift while the Real Men get things done.

 

Okay, boomer ;p

that’s exactly why all the old guys have messed up knees, and hips. It must be cheaper to pay worker’s compensation claims than to buy electric pallet jacks, but what do I know about analytics I’m just a truck driver.

curbside delivery I drop that sheet by the mailbox and just write people’s name since covid. I love it; I just tell corporate I don’t feel safe with covid-19 so I just drop ship literally to maintain social distancing guidelines set forth by the CDC Lols

 

I'm not a boomer, I'm the 1st half of GenX, who were still instilled with a work ethic. BTW, I'm 52 and still in better shape than a lot of folks half my age.

"Boohoo, I have to back up, I have to move freight by hand, I have to know how to maneuver a truck in tight quarters."

Welcome to actual truck driving. Let me know when your balls drop.

 

The catch depends on which company and location, because they all do things a little different. Some might have you work the dock during your run. Could be for 1 hour, could be 8 hours. Others might not do dock work, but instead have you sit and wait unpaid for a few hours until they have a load for you. Some might have new guys do really short runs that barely pay anything. Or you might be running regional and staying in hotels all week. Also, there’s next to no chance that you’ll break 100k your first year.

No matter what company you work for, the longer you work there, the better things get. Guys will retire or quit and new guys will get hired and take the crap runs while you start getting the better stuff. More miles, less waiting/dock work, earlier start times, etc.

 

Only people that quit LTL jobs are bottom seniority guys cause of the schedule and they have no time invested so they’ll hop to another LTL or try something else. 3-4 day paid holiday weekends are nice also if your on a bid. Rather be home then at a truckstop for 3 days on a holiday weekend waiting for a shipper to open.