OTR or Local?

i'd say start local and run with it. i don't see the point of otr unless you own your equipment. i've been local since day 1 (2009) and made 55k+ every year, been home every night and worked VERY FEW saturdays. my daughter is 9 and i have a 2 week old son. at this point in my career i make too much money and have built too much of a life to ever go otr.

 

An old timer once told me he's been otr for 20 years and raise 4 kids,I ask him how much home time he gets and said he goes home every 3 months..some folks idea of raising a family are very different than others as I learn

 

What about regional

 

It's pretty much just like OTR only a smaller radius. You'll get home more often and not stretch out as far. Other than that, basically the same. If you go regional I would leave the wife home where she can work and you two can have more income.

 

Does regional have tighter schedules than otr

 

No. It won't be like a local job when it comes to rush, rush. Think OTR as loading lemon juice in Visalia, California that delivers at the Tropicana plant in Bradenton, Florida. Say it's a 2,600 mile run and your company gives you 24 hours for every 600 miles when setting up your delivery time.

Now think of regional as loading flour in Arkansas City, Kansas that delivers at Panera Bread plant in Houston, Texas. You load this morning and deliver tomorrow morning. Enough time to cover the miles there, take a 10 hour break, then deliver.

Now think of local as getting in a day cab, going from the refinery in Ponca City, Oklahoma to the port in Tulsa, OK. Back to Ponca, back to Tulsa, back to Ponca back to Tulsa, then back to Ponca, wait in line at the yard to get fuel with 45 other day cab coworkers, park your truck and go home. You got to work at 3am, ran your 696 miles non stop pretty much because you're unload and load takes 5 minutes on both ends since it's an end dump trailer, you had a 14 hour window to cover 3 round trips to Tulsa and back (696 miles) and now it's finally 430pm or 5pm and you're headed home in your pickup. Your body is toast, you're wore out from running a hard non stop day, and guess what... you have to be back at the yard at 330am tomorrow to do it all over again. You get home at 530pm, shower, eat, watch tv till 8pm, then hit the bed in order to get 6.5 hours of sleep before the alarm goes off.

 

^ story of my life minus the 6.5 hours of sleep haha. If I ONLY do 12/13 hours I'll get about 7 hours. 14-16 hours you'll get about 5.5 -6 if you go to bed within 20 minutes of getting home.

 

Not on a cross country run; drive time, mandatory break, 15 min. pre-trip. You could push it to 12 hours taking a leisurely meal break on top of the mandatory break. Take the wife along on those coast to coast runs, then if she tires of it, go local.
Many times I wouldn't use all my drive time if I knew I would get to a customer too early and knew for sure they wouldn't take me early.