Thinning out the big nasty's

Get out and physically knock on the door? I hate to tell you this, but one of the mega carriers may be your best bet, at least for a couple years. The big ones are self insured, the little guys are the ones that have to please a d%mn insurance company.

 

When i got my lic i didnt want to sell my soul Swift wanted me to committ and they wanted to pay for my license but nah forget that so i paid it myself and my endorsments then i looked around and got hooked up with a O/O doing the grape season 08 then trained on dryvan with the same guy in the winter then did tomato season 09 after that i had good shifting skills and jumped to regional with a company here in the San Joaquin Valley worked out pretty good right now you might still get into tomato season 11 with Morning Star from Los Banos Ca they also provide housing for the duration of the season i made 18000 dollars in 3 months as a driver the tomato season stars in July and the grapes in August hope this helped you.peace

 

Well it's not only insurance being the issue but it's also got a bit to do with pay. Companies can pay rookie driver's to haul the same load as you from the same point A to point B but pay them less. Most smaller companies don't offer a refresher program as they are not a school or offer any training. They are there only to haul freight. They want experiance right out of the box to keep them rolling. It does cost a company a lot of money to hire someone but for big companies this is merly a government program that pays to hire people in to train people in a new career in the workforce and more than likely the companies get a tax write off or atleast a deduction. Smaller compaines don't want anyone who has been out of a truck for more than a year or so at max because it makes you for a high insurance statistic so the insurance company will say no because your to much of a risk. insurance has the final say in the hiring process. Not sure exactly detail for detail how it works but it's a basic picture painting mock up explanation. If I have mentioned something that is a mistake or not fully true please feel free to correct me. Just mostly what I have gathered from experiance and stories of others.

 

Hell yeah! That's money right there for driving someone else's truck. Maybe I need to come over that way and jump into something like that.

 

actually working for an LTL company "can afford you" more job opportunities. for one, if you wanted to make extra money, you can work the docks. if you want to do what is called "line haul" which is typically done at night, you can move into that spot. if you have seniority and you'd rather do local work, you can bid on that.

if you wanted to get into OS &D, you can do that, dispatching,etc,etc. since you would be an employee, you may have better chances of moving into different jobs at an LTL carrier.

working the docks for the 20 years as you say, gave you experience which you already knew that, and you can apply your driving as well to another LTL carrier if you leave your current one, which there ARE better ones out there.

and yes, many times it is the insurance companies that dictate who gets hired or not. a smaller company may have no problem hiring you, but then too, you need to be in the right place at the right time.