Thinking about team driving

Wow you are braver than I am. My husband and I run team flatbed and have done so about 10 months maybe closer to a year and we haven’t hauled coils yet. We have stayed away from coils just because those things come lose chances are your a goner. Anyways, team running. Well most of the time your right one is in the sleeper and one is driving. I guess it really depends on how much sleep one needs as to how much they sit up with you. I’m not sure how many company drivers of flatbeds are teams, you could always inquire about your interest in becoming a team driver and see what the company says. It sounds to me like you were feeling like you needed a little longer with your driver trainer and that is ok, just because they say you will have a driver trainer for a week and that week is over if your not feeling it you can request to have the driver trainer longer, they will allow you to do so. The thing about teaming with someone you just met you don’t know any of their habits, smoking, dirty, stinky feet what have you, but you could always give it a try and if you don’t like it tell them teaming is not working out. Remember those company’s need you to drive so you have to be honest tell them what you want or what your feeling, chances are they will work with you to get you better suited to what your looking for.

 

If you're working full 12 hour 600 mile shifts day after day or night after night, you're probably gonna need to be sleeping when off duty rather than checking maps or doing paperwork or helping to back. I definitely wouldn't be in any shape to drive my shift if I was on call during my break as well.

It probably won't be like your experience with a trainer. The pace is slowed down with a trainer...you're not alternating 600 mile shifts at the wheel, other than maybe a few days at the end, and your job descriptions are different throughout...you're not equals. A regular team is two experienced equals.

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Right, log sleeper berth when you're supposed to. I used to do that, but still sat in the passenger seat and BS's with my buddy. We got along great ,both in the Navy at the same time and his wife and my wife are cousins.

 

You still live near Pittsburgh?
There's some decent team jobs around there doing West Coast turns.

 

Each team is different. My dad had been an OTR driver. My brother and I went with him on a couple of trips while in middle school. My 8 weeks with my trainer were among the hardest I had in my 28 years of trucking. My trainer was great, we got along, never argued, I just could not sleep in the truck more than 2 hours if that. I would lay in the bunk more tired than I had ever been and the movement of the truck and the potholes would wake me up every few minutes. It was brutal. My first month OTR on my own was also difficult back before there was GPS or cellphones. It was real lonely, mostly because cellphones were rare and expensive. I went back to my previous job that I hated so much, I chucked it and wen to CDL school.

My second job in trucking OTR with my pet dog was mostly fun. The dog was a companion, something to think about besides "poor me" and a great truck alarm. Make friends with someone during orientation if you can. My trainers always gave me their phone numbers to use to ask questions. You might only need a person to talk to about how you feel or an experienced driver to ask about how to handle common situations that aren't covered in training, like a customer located on a street with "No Trucks Allowed" sign, getting a good satellite view of the customer property before you drive to it, or how to check the reviews on Google Maps for a customer and see what important info drivers have posted for others. Those kind of things helped me out a lot. On Google maps search for the customer name in the city and also on the street address without the customer name. Companies are bought and sometimes your dispatch is to ABC Foods and 123 Main, but 123 Main was Smith Processing for the last 10 years until they were bought last month.

I would not team because that other person has strong opinions about things and it more like a marriage than somebody you work with, not to mention there are some bad drivers and waking up on the wrong side of a guardrail because the driver was playing with his phone can ruin your life. Pets are better than a team driver because they don't play the radio loud, play on the phone or care what restaurant you eat in. I'd get a pet that is already housebroken.

 

That's how I viewed HazMat tanker. Drive it like you were trained, no shortcuts, double-check the important stuff, and don't be an idiot. Anyone losing their load driving a truck is not going to have an easy time, so do everything like you are trained. Personally I did dry van and hardly ever cared what was in the back. I didn't care if there were baby giraffes, or zombie midgets. Freight is freight. Don't forget to close the doors.

 

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Runs teams to California and back.