Maverick: Want to hear why people are quiting

Yep....She must REALLY think all of us tanker drivers are not "real men" either..Just because we use brains instead of all that manly "brawn"..

 

Flatbedding. So easy a middle aged broad can do it.

Or does that make me a "real man"?

You might want to mention that to my ex husbands. They will be pissed.

 

You're*

 

I looked at the various types of trucking in the industry and after obtaining a license to learn(CDL)- I chose OTR flatbedding.Door slammers running a specified route and never home was not for me. Only been driving a short time but I'm able to average over 60 hrs/wk, paid hourly with OT, home most Thursday nights and finished work by 3 on fridays, get a jump start on sunday night.
I have to say that I'm extremely proud to be running down the road in a premium truck with a well secured load on display for anyone to analysis. For tarped loads I usually have a wait for loading so I get my arse out of the truck and over to where the boys are tarping. I watch and learn and give a hand when i can and when I pull out- I've got a well tarped load. I make myself available for hot loads so shippers and receivers roll out the welcome mat when I'm driving up the street. No waiting. My Dispatcher must be doing his job because I'm seldom unloaded before I have another load waiting to be loaded. It seems like there is so much more responsibility and knowledge required for flat bedding- especially wide loads. Challenge!!
Give respect, earn respect and life is good!

 

OK, last one in this thread. OK, I may understand somebody taking a flatbed job as a challenge for a year or two, I may understand somebody paying his flat-bedding dues and finding something more lucrative & safer after that, what I cannot understand (and personally accept) when a challenge gradually grows into lots of extra work and risk for no/little extra pay, year after year. It's not a challenge, it's not you being a macho proud flatbedder, it's YOU being worked for cheap (even without counting in substantial risks that sooner or later will bite you in the arse) using your childishness (yup, that's what it is essentially). Are you man enough to work 14+ hrs/day, are you man enough to put many hours of free labor/day, are you man enough to climb icy trailers, are you man enough to haul loads secured only with your good luck (yup, there are loads like that), are you man enough to discover a new ways to hurt yourself every other day, are you man enough to take tonnes of extra risks and responsibilities and so on and so forth.

There is a thin & vague line between meeting a challenge and being challenged (in multiple ways) and manipulated. I've done a lot of things in flatbedding, I did it good, I've met a challenge and I found that thin line after crossing which you just feel stupid. You'll find it too, sooner or later, I have no doubts

Home every week? Oh, please, I've done that (thanks to a good DM), but driving for up to 250 out of route miles (for free) after swapping loads & equipment with aspiring supertruckers who do NOT give a dime about securement, equipment, trailers, taking wild chances on tarped loads that may make your hair raise (after untarping), putting hours of extra work/wait to make things right, NOPE, I had enough of that, I have my 2+ days off (clean and clear) right now, and I was really lucky to get one "clear" day off (after disregarding each and every HOS regulation) when I pulled a flatbed, and I was spent to do much with that time other than sleeping and staring lifelessly on a flickering screen.

Excercise, gimme a break, average flatbedders look just about the same (fat, aging fast and unfit) as your average van driver. And guess what? A flatbedder's exercise comes at a steep price to your health which is called a risk of (severe) injury. Personally, I was fit enough to climb a tarped load of hay on the snowy Nebraska evening, I was fit enough to balance on the slippery surfaces, fit, fat and stupid I might add. As a van driver you'll have at least 2 extra hours per day to do every imaginable exercise under the Sun without extra flatbed baggage.

Just for the fun sake, I want to take securement & tarping bids on the load like this. 90 minutes, 1 hour, 30 minutes, do I hear 10 minutes? Most of the supertruckers in this thread never spent more than 1 hour per load it seems. No shortcuts on securement, no load damage please. As you can see I had about 6 of "custom made" V boards everything else had to be made up with 4x4s and corner protectors (which don't really like to stay in place, they want you up and down, up and down).

 

I'd say about 75-90 minutes personally. I also disagree with your assessment of flatbed drivers. I'd say 1 in 10 flatbedders are overly obese. I'd put that for van drivers to about 6 in 10.

 

#1--please stop with the generalizations. I believe your experience was with 2 companies. Just because they were unable to get you 2 days off per week does not mean other companies can't do so for their drivers. The experiences you have described do not compare to many of the experiences of flatbedders I know.

#2--You keep talking about securement on loads that should not be hauled. I am not sure why any company would haul double stacked rolled roofing. Usually shippers of rolled roofing require v-boards to keep the load from shifting. Additionally, it is dangerous to get on top of this type of load to tarp. If these are the only loads you hauled, I can understand why it took you sooooo much time, and was soooo dangerous. Again, not all flatbedding is like what you experienced.

 

Well the poster complains about tarping.
But look at the pic and you will see he has his tarps strapped down on top of the ld.
So this ld. was a no tarp ld. or he took a chance and not tarped it.

Also look at his straps, all the winches are on the drivers side execpt for the first one.
Me I would of staggered them. Hauling lumber / pipe / ect. that is the thing to do.

Been awhile since I've hauled a ld. like that, but I believe I can have it safely done in about 1 hour at the most.

Each person works at their own pace.
Just make sure it's correct.

 

Boyd issues 4 tarps, it took 3 to tarp the load, you see one tarp strapped and the rest are just thrown on a trailer (untarping and unloading locations are not always the same, just a reminder). Boyd has all 12 or 14 winches on one side. There are 15 straps because one winch (I've bought from an Arrow driver in 2009) is portable and it can be attached to the passenger side of a trailer only.

In my experience, tarping takes (much) less time than securing (especially good securement). I know, I really do, how superfast truckers get to be so fast, once I swapped a load with a guy, (one layer load of rolled roofing), no v-boards, no 4x4s on top, not even edge protectors, just a single loose strap across shrink wrapped bundles + tarps (holding the load in place, keep in mind they don't use excessive amount of shrink wrap on those bundles).

There is no way under the sun you can do decent securement job on the load like this + 3 tarps in 1 hour. Even lousy job + 3 tarps would take little bit more than an hour. It maybe not obvious from the picture but bundles of roofing are not exactly smooth & even (both individual bundles and bundles with respect to each other) actually everything is so uneven you can't even use standard sized v boards (two pallet length), they will not stay in place, neither rolled roofing is fun to walk on. Small v boards on the picture are just barely usable because bundles were so uneven. 15 straps, 30+ edge protectors, 7 of 4x4s & 2x4s, shifting and falling of everything once you start to tighten things up, climbing up and down multiple times to fix things, it's not as easy and fast as it looks, and you don't want ANY strap marks on the rolls.

In my experience it takes on the average 5 minutes per strap (6 minutes per chain), that counts unwinding, throwing, re-throwing (if needed), flattening, hooking, edge protecting, tightening, retightening, walking in between. Before jumping and saying that you can do all of that in 30 seconds, please, try to get some average real world numbers first using your real loads instead of your imagination. It's simple, your hand touched strap #1 for the first time - start clock, you are done with securement stop the clock, count the number of straps/chains, calculate minutes per strap and tell us all about it (after 15-20 loads are clocked).


It takes more than 5 minutes per strap on the loads like this because everything is so uneven and shifty. I don't want to go in details, but Boyd trailers are a pain in the butt to strap, if you have a decent trailer you may save 30 seconds per strap.

BTW, at what speed would you drive a load like this on I-40 in E. TN and Western NC? How much extra (unpaid) time is required to deliver a load like this from IN to SC as compared to a dumb box load of equal weight? Will your extra 2 cpm make up for the lost time? In case of emergency, what would happen (most likely) - a roll over or your losing a load (hint, straps are fairly loose to avoid load damage)? Is your flatbed company medical insurance any better than that of a van OTR driver to compensate for elevated risks to your health and long term well being?

 

You don't actually wait until they're done loading you to start securing it, do you?