Starting with TMC

I just graduated too from driving school over 3 1/2 weeks ago, Im flatbedding owner operator.
I'm 5 10" 210 and I box... I tell you rite now driver... Tarping great exercise! Not easy as it looks, wait until you have to tarp machinery.. Matter of fact I just got my 2nd load today, had to be tarped, this was my 2nd time. 1st time it took me over 3 hrs, today it took me 30 mins to lay the tarp over my load with out strapping it of course , and additional 2 hrs to strap it down.. Doesn't look great but my load is secured and covered... The 2nd time went a lot smoother then the 1st. In time im getting the hang of it. It is going to be interesting in the winter with the wind and snow blowing in your face like a beeotch.
looking forward to that.. Congrats too you driver, be safe your going to HAVE a lot of FUN
Keep On Trucking!

 

Just wait until you gotta tarp that load of hay in the dead of winter...in the middle of somebody's farm in upper Minnesota, the Dakotas, or Montana somewhere...with nothing to block the wind from cutting right through you. In sub-zero temperatures. THAT'S when the fun comes in...lol.

(In all seriousness, though, lemme let y'all in on a little trick I learned. If you ever find yourself having to tarp a load that tall (and I've pulled hay loads as tall as 14' 2") in windy conditions, take 8 chain binders up there with you. Before you let down one side of the tarp, hook a binder to both corners, and then SLOWLY let it down the side of your load. (Do it too quick and you just went bye-bye. Also, lay as flat over the rest of the tarp as you can to prevent both it and YOU from sliding off.) Do this with all four corners on each tarp, and it'll keep the wind from blowing them off. It'll also give you something to grab hold of if you need to adjust your tarps once your feet are back on the ground.

 

Anybody on percentage pay with TMC? They are the only ones I know of that offer new student the percentage pay option.

 

Thanks for the heads up driver! I'm in Texas takin my break at Loves, I just had to un tarp this madir fakir in this heat man it's hot!
I then picked up PVC pipes and they were two stacks ,it was very high. I had a problem throwing the straps over the pipes, it was a pain! I kept trying and trying and I couldn't get it... I took a break had a smoke.....so then what I did was pull the straps out completely and rolled it. Then I launched it shot rite over!oh boy did I get burned today.
Flatbedding separates the men from the boys!

 

If I had to guess, I'd say somewhere around 80% of TMC's linehaul guys are on percentage. If you live in the midwest and are a home-every-weekend type, I'd highly recommend it. Really, unless you plan on going out west a lot or find yourself preferring to runs lots of longhauls, there's really no reason to run mileage, in my opinion. Reason being, on percentage, your pay isn't tied to miles. At least in the midwest, I'd say your average length of haul may be somewhere in the 350-375 mile range, with a gross amount to the truck of around $620-ish (again, that's just a rough guess average). The thing about the midwest, though, is that some trips will be 350 or miles with a $660ish gross to the truck; or you could get that same length of haul with a $500 gross to the truck. Just depends on where you are. (For some reason, at least in my experience, loads into Memphis were BAD about those gross totals...on several occassions I ran 500-mile trips into Memphis that only grossed like $550 or so.)

The key to making money on percentage if you're a home weekly type is in frequency—in other words, dropping as many loads as you can. (The goal is 4-5 drops per week.) It adds up, provided you're at a decent enough percentage. And speaking of that, don't expect to make s*** out the gate at 23%. But, after your first month, once they calculate your points, most can certify at 26, even 27% by month two, without really even trying all that hard. (And you pretty much have to be sleep and driving backwards to certify 25% or below...or be a total s#**bag...lol.) I spent the majority of my time at 27-28% just by doing my job and keeping the wheels turning. (It also helped that I was able to keep my out of route pretty low, too—that's a pretty big one on the percentagr scale.)

Far as mileage, if you find yourself going out west a lot, as I mentioned earlier, definitely go mileage. I ran several trips out across the Rockies, two separate times to Washington state...not one single return trip east was under 1800 miles. In fact, one load of black gold (that's iron pipe, or."griffin pipe", as you'll come to know it—and then understand why many of us call it "black gold") took me from Council Bluffs IA to Seattle. My retun trip bounced me from Seattle clear back across the state, about 300 mi to be sure, to Spokane to load up, then clear back across the country—and I mean CLEAR across—to drop in Baltimore and south Jersey...about a 2600-mile length of haul all total, by far my longest run. (I did this in winter, no less, most of it between 0° and -13°. That one whupped every last bit of my #####...haha.)

 

any tmc drivers running the florida region ded. on here would like to know what kind of money an real hometime ur getting thx