Comments By DumDriver

Yeah, I'm on vacation this week and I was just playing around on the Internet in this crappy weather. I had forgotten about this board

To answer your question- it's 100% on the driver to log ( and keep track of) his hours. You might say log and keep track are the same. They are…sort of.

You could find yourself working locally with the 100 air mike radius exemption. In that case you don't have to fill out a daily log (unless you work 12 or more hours that day) but you still have to keep track of your hours so you don't go over 60 hours in 7 days.

Take plenty of time to learn all the HOS rules. It's one of the most important parts of this career. As important as shifting and backing

Philadelphia. I found it to be worse than NYC because there's no rules. At least none enforced anyway. It's chaos. At least in NYC there's specific places trucks can and can't go. It makes it a pain, but you know that going in. In philly it's survival of the fittest.

Also it's $18/HR usually 35-40 hours weekly

You can make more than that for that run. Of course, if being home is more important to you that's fine to. All depends on what's most important to you.

Northeast really isn't as bad as some people make it out to be. You can do it

Wear glasses if you have / need them. Sounds like you're good without them, but if you wear them you absolutely can wear them for your physical. Your license might say "corrective lenses required", but that's no big deal. If you need them I'm sure you'll be wearing them when you're driving.

There's enough things to stress you out in this industry- don't let things that aren't an issue cause you stress. ;-)

Not to sound discouraging or anything - but.

Have friend who was a district manager for pepsi. Asked him about a driving job.

He told me - you see all those nice stacks of pepsi cases in the supermarkets - 12 feet high, all nice and arranged? GUESS WHO DOES THAT.

Pepsi (and many other distribution drivers) are the ones who unload and stock product in supermarkets (even the ones that drive tractor trailers). If you're driving a trailer with a liftgate - chances are - YOU are the guy who is unloading, and at multiple stops a day.

Now - if you're into this type of work, great.

My friend knew that I ain't the type to go in for this - and he had no OTR positions.

Not to say that, as an OTR driver, you won't have to drag pallets of your box and onto a dock once in awhile.

Therein lies the difference between OTR, and local/distro type of work.

Rick

As a Pepsi driver you won't build those big displays in supermarkets. They have merchandisers that do that. At the most you'll build a display in drug stores once in awhile, but most likely you'll be doing small convenience stores, gas stations and things like that.

If you're lucky enough to get bulk (supermarkets, walmarts etc etc) that's just wheeling off pallets with an electric jack.

In terms of money, you can do well. You'll work hard for it, but you can make 60-70 your first year of your in the right area. Independant shops can actually be a little better than PepsiCo these days.

If you have any questions feel free to email me. It's not a perfect gig, but you could do worse.