My experience with Lester Coggins.

It depended on the customer. Delivery for MBM on Old Tampa Highway in Lakeland, FL was 1am in the morning, but # MBM on Knights Station Road in Lakeland, FL would be 6 am. There wasn't a whole lot of deliveries in the middle of the night, but it did occur. The deliveries in the middle of the afternoon were the worst. Most of the loading was in the morning, except for Coca-cola in Auburndale, FL, where you could be there 10 or 20 hours. They usually loaded # night. LCT did have some drop and hooks on the shipper end.

Idling policy for non-APU trucks was 25%, I believe, but man it is summer time and the temps are around 100 here in the southeast. RUN THE TRUCK - They have A/C in their office don't they???

 

No, not unless some driver says he's going to be out of hours. Then they'll try to make you wait where you are and then run the load the rest of the way after the other driver drove all day.

Remember, you're not getting any miles with LCT, so why would you be running at night? You'll have 3 days to make a delivery.

 

BTW, things have taken a turn for the better for me lately. I leave on Sunday, with a preloaded trailer at noon and do a bread run to Montgomery, AL(I have to unload - it is a little work - 4 drops). I then pickup a load somewhere around Atlanta, GA and drop it at the yard in Greenville, SC. I think pickup a preloaded trailer of empty plastic drums in Greenville, SC and take them to Bedford Heights, OH, which is a drop and hook. I then deadhed to Willard, OH and pickup a preload trailer full of cookies and do a route containing 5 or 6 drops coming back to Augusta, GA(again manual unload), where I am done on Thursday afternoon. I am off Thursday afternoon until Sunday at noon, and sometimes I can get by the house on Wednesday night to sleep in my bed, which has happened the last two weeks. I bring home between $750 and $800 depending on how many stops I get, but it is truly gravy.

In other words I make the same amount of money that I did with LCT, but I am home for almost 70 hours each week. I never even come close to running out of my 70 hours on the log book, and I never have to cheat. Plus, I do the same thing every week, so it is becoming routine. I have been able to get a lot of crap done at home on the weekends.