What are the disadvantages of being an OTR LTL driver?

Not even knowing the details of these people's stories, YRC drivers have received a 15% pay cut and a 75% pension cut with no 401(k) or IRA match to make the drivers whole on retirement.

 

Got a group text message that a fellow from church needed help moving. Turned out he was a manager at ABF. I
was trying to go in a different direction and moving as well so I didn't get a chance to know him. Lost opportunity I'd love to have back.

I've been out of trucking for 8 years. At the time I left I was a local fuel delivery driver.
What route would y'all recommend to be a viable candidate to work at one of the companies that have been mentioned?

 

Dayton Freight hauls long boxes despite being LTL. So for them, just find out what their experience requirements are.

The rest of the companies haul doubles, so it can vary. Most of them are perfectly happy to teach you how to drive doubles, but may require more OTR experience to get in.

At the end of the day, as long as you are very careful about what is in front of you, pulling doubles is easier than driving a long box. Backing those things up is a beast until you learn how to do it.

 

Drove doubles doing dirt hauling. The tracking was nice. Never put myself in a situation to back up though.
Backing will be interesting. I had to back a truck with a tank connected and a trailer so 2 pivot points and of course a semi and trailer, 1 pivot point. It sounds interesting to learn how to back something with 3 pivot points.

How far do you back up?

 

I have had to back up about 40 ft a few times, because a situation arose. But I don't ever rely on my doubles backing experience for my job.

 

I learned to do it well one summer when I had about 3 hours to kill in Cincy waiting on sort. I had a big gravel lot with no one else around and I practiced every night with a set of mty’s.

 

If you wanted to jump right in without any recent driving experience, you would need to find a company that has an opening for their driver training program, which not all of them have. ABF and FedEx Freight do for sure.

 

With all the bickering aside, there is some good information on this thread.

My view is that the OP asked too broad of a question and the rainbow of companies we represent each are in their own bubble. Even going from USF Reddaway to USF Holland is a completely different experience on the linehaul side.

I think we can all agree that P&D (city driver) is pretty much all the same. You have some kind of start time and either work the dock for a bit and then hit the road. You always clock out and are home at night. There are also some nuances were you might double or triple to your delivery area or just single with a 53 ft trailer.

When it comes to the linehaul side, I don't think I've read any wrong responses. With all the differences in companies, what people explained might literally be how their company is set up. Even down to the terminology.

Some places call it linehaul, some call it road driver. Some places run sleepers while others run day cabs which will then be used by a city driver while the road driver is sleeping. You might be back once a week and off weekends, or you might be home daily.

The #1 factor that will determine your setup is your network. If you are a regional company like Reddaway, you might be home every morning with a few monthly layovers. If you work for ODFL with a national network, you may run a sleeper. It varies from company to company and even from one barn to another.

Here is what LTL linehaul isn't: you do not interact with any of the shippers or receivers. You go terminal to terminal. There are OTR companies that run LTL. Back in the day I almost joined Watkins Sheppard. They would be out several weeks at a time going city to city bumping furniture store docks.

 

@expedite_it
@LtlAnonymous is seriously trying to help you by steering you away from a company that can go belly-up at a moments notice. You really want to go to a company that is on solid ground, both financially and legally.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

The absolute sheer driving force of our national economy - without truck drivers, our entire national economy would come to an absolute standstill - if not outright be dead.

Over the mountains, through the woods, into the valleys, coast to coast, from sea to shining sea - truck drivers can and do go anywhere and everywhere, every day, all year round.

 

Well, I'm trying. He's a bit of an ornery sort.