Any Female Flatbed Haulers Here

I am getting ready to go back to school in January and I want to do flatbedding myself.I am going with Western Express for it.I have heard a lot about them from some drivers for them and it is a just a couple of companies that are willing to take a chance with me.Go do it,have fun,and everything will come together like it should

My $0.02 It seems to me like you're taking the right approach. Having worked in a male dominated profession, you will be better prepaired for all the attention you'll get out here. Because you're not 100% for flatbed, you might want to consider companies who offer options. I know Prime, has refer, tanker and flatbed. Swift has everything. I think Schneider also has a flatbed division. Averit has a flatbed division, but I don't think they hire new drivers. With companies who have flatbed and other types of freight, it gives you options. For example you could start with dry van , hone your driving skills and then switch to flatbed. Then if you hate flatbed you can go on to something else in the same company. Good luck.

This site is just simply amazing. Thank you all for all the advice. Thank you to the moderators and administration for taking your time to help new drivers out. Maybe one day I will have enough knowledge to help others.

Terri D, my general philosophy in life is to take the straightest path to what you want. I know it isn't always the fastest, but often times the challenges make you stronger. I was nervous about driving a semi period, even more so about flatbed with how much more responsibility goes in with load securement, but it is the path I decided would be the most rewarding simply from proving to myself I could achieve it, I've got a long way to go before I will consider myself very good at what I do, but I know I can do the job. I used the philosophy on most things in my life, admittedly with mixed results in some instances, as this is not true for relationships. Lol. Either way. Just my opinion.

I used the philosophy on most things in my life, admittedly with mixed results in some instances, as this is not true for relationships

I like that philosophy in general but it may not apply well to high risk scenarios either. I hate to bring this up but anyone who is considering flatbed should read this story from one of our forum members after he rolled his flatbed:

The Life, Death, And Resurrection Of My Truck Driving Career

It's a good example of how the most dangerous things are often times the things we simply didn't know.

Brett, you are 100% correct, I should have forewarned that. Don't take unnecessary risks, don't get other people hurt. Definitely. From my brief existence I've realized often when someone takes a risk like that, they aren't the ones that usually pay for it. Can't tell the number of times I've seen a drunk driver that walked away from a crash fine but killed innocent people. The company I work for was very clear that if I tried flatbed but with my trainer I didn't feel safe with what I was doing, as far as securement goes, I could switch over to van division. Another note is if you are securing a load but you can't figure out if you did it right, call someone from your securement team, take a picture, send it to them. If you can't get ahold of them for whatever reason, which hasn't happened to me yet but just in case, most of the time their are other guys securing loads around you. They will help. Securing a tarp in a snowstorm, I've had help from drivers from other companies as long as I helped them back. I know not everyone is like this, but their is a certain comraderi of the road that reminds me alot of my time in the service. Their are bad apples, but most of just want to do the job, do it safely, and efficiently. Sometimes that means helping the green people, signalling to them it's okay to change lanes, or that their is another vehicle on the shoulder by hitting the marker interrupt a couple times before you change lanes.