What is LTL freight?

I did LTL (FedEx Freight, city driver) for 18 years, finally got tired of the politics and constant policy changes that actually made our job worse. For the last 14 months I've been driving for a hospital system, with its own warehouse and dedicated fleet. It's been a huge adjustment (working graveyards now, and I just turned 48 a couple months ago...), but it's been worth it: my starting pay was higher than my top of scale at FedEx, my stress went down about, oh, 90%, and I've discovered the joy of not having to fight traffic any more.

 

Don't you "see" the irony in your posting?

Hospital AND graveyard?

I'll just bet the patients see you a'comin', and try to hop around before you dock!

 

Yeah, I thought about that, I took a chance nobody would catch it! 😄

 

I don't work for Schneider

 

Yup. Unless you're up the seniority scale and/or putting in 60+ hours a week...you're not going to be making $70k+ as an LTL driver. I'd say that $50-55k/year would be a more realistic number for a new guy. That assumes ~50-55 hours per week worked. My $.02... LTL is a good deal, but the big perk...to me...is that the hours are pretty much fixed (drivers at my terminal generally go out around 0900 and 90%+ of them are back WELL before 1900) and you get to sleep in your bed every night. You're paid hourly (SEFL...at least)...so if something happens (i.e. breakdown or traffic jam)...you aren't hanging out in the truck for free.

You're not going to get rich, but the hours are reasonable. As a trainee (only averaging 40 hours a week)...my gross is literally more than the average newbie OTR type is going to get while putting in 10+ more hours a week. Netting ~$650/week. That's nothing to write home about (my $.02), but it's not bad money for only putting in ~40 hours...as a newbie...in this line of work.

 

At my place, the customer gives us electric pallet jacks, which work quite well, when the trailer floors are dry, or the loading dock area is dry. We too have heavy pallatized loads, many nights myself, I'll have a pallet of say about 3,000 to 4,000 pounds, now add wet flooring, and I ain't goin' no where's. I have to actually call the manager of the location, wake him up, and he has to come on down, to unload me. Now, I have tried kitty litter for traction, and soaking up the wet floors, but they are wooden floors (in the trailer i speak of course) and they still do not provide traction for those heavy pallets. Part of the reason why our trailer floors can get soaked, are the main warehouse we dock to, hasn't very good door seals, and the land around the docks sorta dips a bit, allowing for the nose to become nearly flooded. I will continually keep pulling forward till I am as perfectly straight with the loading dock, and there are NO painted lines for us to be guided by. The customer "feels" we are supposed to be professional drivers and as such, need NO lines. The other drivers, back up, dock, go home, and their trailers are worse off for water collection than mine. They do have a rubber squeegie to push the water out, but again, once those floors are wet, we are, well you know, the "F" word with the "ed" at the end.

And don't get me started with the ICE and SNOW on the dock plates at the places we go to, another round around the merry go round we go! The ice can be high enough on the dock plates, that a bulldozer cannot move! Oh, they have rock salt at each location, but I ain't got no time to wait for a mound about 10" - 13" tall by about what 4 feet wide, to melt. So I gotta leave, no unloading and the daytime drivers for our customer has to make THAT delivery. That ticks 'em off, but hey, what else to do?

I should add/point out. Our deliveries are done at night, when these places are closed. We have keys and alarm codes, but NO help from the customer, unless we have to call the location manager to come on in and HE uses the fork lift. We are NOT allowed to use thier fork lifts, period!

Sometimes when a load cannot be delivered due to circumstances beyond our control, and we "make the calls" to OUR boss and the the customer, the customer either comes in, at say anytime from 11 PM till 3 AM, YEP, or they just tell us to bring it back to the main warehouse to be delivered the next night, or a day truck delivery will have to be done by the warehouse. many times, when we call our boss? He says, screw it, return the load to the main warehouse, let them deal with thier problems!

BUT WE STILL get paid for the stop! As we WERE THERE!

 

TYPICALLY Roadway or Conway or Old Dominion will have you make 8to 12 deliveries a day mostly dock to dock then do 4 to 6 pickups and take em back to your base. LESS THAN TRUCKLOAD