Comments By ThinksTooMuch

Yep they were probably promised to have loads as soon as they signed. Guess that didn't happen.

What difference does it make what large company sold the trucks to this person/company/people? Sounds like they should've stayed company drivers lol.

A recruiter for USX came by my CDL school here in Houston TX; he said all there newer 2014 trucks and up are going back to manual transmissions. Anything before that is an automatic.

Simply not true. I drive for US Xpress right now and I have a 2011 International Pro Star that is a 10-speed. There are probably more automatics than manuals in the fleet currently but not a huge amount more.

When I was looking for my first driving job I also spoke with Kim at Roehl. I agree with you Wine Taster, she was informative, nice, and not pushy. Roehl was on my short list of companies to start with.

I think a lot of new drivers sell themselves short when choosing their first company. Drivers have to remember that the trucking companies need us just as much as we need them. Better to ask lots of questions and contact lots of companies than to just jump into the first or second one that accepts you and sounds decent. I think part of this mentality comes from the current economy; people are just so scared they won't get a driving job that they jump on the first offer.

I asked Crete a while ago before I went to US Xpress local account. She said those home daily positions are almost exclusively reserved for current drivers, they very rarely hire from outside for those because current drivers want those positions so much. I know I've seen Crete day cabs running on 476 from Clark's Summit down to Allentown area, pulling intermodal containers.

Doesn't hurt to ask if they will hire you into those positions. But it is nice to know they exist so that when you have 6-12 months with Crete you can get put on the "list" to get one of those home daily jobs soon as you can.

Yeah I go down to D.C. area sometimes.

Yeah I drive by the Harley plant in York once or twice a week. Sounds like a good account.

Sorry if I misunderstood lol. What Brett said about oil fields is true. A lot of manual labor and super dangerous. Also it's more expensive, on average, to rent an apartment in the North Dakota oil fields than in NYC. All other expenses are also super inflated in the oil fields.

I drove a liquid chemical tanker as my first driving job. I'll shed some light on what I think your question is... But I think you have 2 questions. You are asking if O/O makes more money? You are also asking if tanker drivers make more money than other types of freight?

O/O gets paid more but has more bills to pay. If you are an O/O you are a business owner, so you have to pay for your truck payment, your fuel, your repairs, taxes, permits, insurance... ALL that kind of stuff. So what you really have to look at is what is an O/O's net profit compared to a company driver. Trucking has low profit margins because it is not really a value added service. We move stuff from A to B, and so does the other company, and the other, and the other. All the companies are the same pretty much, there's nothing that makes one company special compared to another. So it is hard to charge more to a customer because they can just go to the next guy and get a lower price. That's trucking a nutshell I guess.

Now your second question is about tankers. A topic near and dear to my heart! lol. Tanker drivers generally get paid more than dry van or reefer drivers. But flatbed drivers also get paid more than dry van and reefer. The reasons are because there is some physical labor involved and some added danger of driving a tanker or flatbed. There are probably only 150,000 tanker drivers out of the several million truck drivers in total, same with flatbed drivers, I am not sure of the number but it is smaller than dry van/reefer drivers.

Tanker drivers get paid per mile just like other drivers, generally more than dry van/reefer. But we also get paid for loading and unloading the product. The general rate is $25-$35 for a load and same for an unload. So for example, I get to a shipper with an empty tanker and I get my hoses, connect them, and take 2 hours to load 6,000 gallons of product into my tanker. I get paid $25 for those 2 hours of work. BUT if I get there and the shipper's staff do the loading... I STILL get paid $25 even though I sat in my truck for 2 hours and watched a movie. Same goes for unloading, I get paid if I unload or if the customer does it. Most companies pay that unload/load pay if the load/unload takes 2 hours or less. If it takes more than 2 hours you get the load/unload pay AND detention pay which is hourly $10,15,20/hour whatever it is for your specific company.

With all that being said, the reason there is load/unload pay for tanker drivers is because there is not much drop and hook freight. The load/unload pay is the company paying you for your time not driving. If you get paid $25 per load/unload and the average load/unload takes 2 hours... how many miles can you drive in 2 hours? About 100 miles. So it's the equivalent of $0.25 cents per mile for those 2 hours. But sometimes a load/unload takes 30 minutes, so in those cases it's the equivalent of $1.00 per mile.

You may pick up a pre-loaded trailer (no pay)... drive 1,000 miles (pay)... and unload the product (pay). You may pick up an empty (no pay).... drive 10 miles (pay)... load product (pay).... drive 1,000 miles (pay)... unload product (pay). You may pick up an empty (no pay)... drive 10 miles (pay)... load product (pay)... drive 1,000 miles (pay)... drop loaded at terminal for another driver to unload later (no pay).

Flatbedders have a similar thing with tarp pay. They get paid whether they tarp the load or whether the customer tarps it or even if it was pre-tarped I believe.

If you can stomach it, I highly suggest starting out in tankers. You get paid well. It's fun, you learn interesting things, and you develop very good driving habits.

Farthest trip I take is a 5 hour drive one way (250 miles). I get home every night so it is local. Only reason I go into multiple States is because NYC Metro Area is made up of small States.

I will say that what I do now is different than OTR. I think I had an easier job OTR lol.