Comments By Delco Dave

I am local as well. To add to Bobcats post, real truckers pull 2 trailers, sometimes 3😁😁😁.

But seriously, going local as a rookie is tough, I know cause I’m doing it. You will be on tight roads with lots of stop and go traffic and also have to back the trailer many times per day into some pretty tight docks and off the street sometimes. I had 25+ years of driving with and backing utility and dump trailers in the landscaping field before getting my CDL. I truly believe that my prior experience and understanding of how trailers react and move in reverse is what made it possible

Wow!!!! A 17 with over a million!!! Our oldest city unit is a 14 Mack manual with 850,000ish and that will probably be the next one to go. From what I’m told, ABF buys brand new trucks for the road drivers, mostly Mack Anthem’s now, when they hit 5-600k, they take the older problem laden trucks from local terminals and replace em with the 2-3 year old road units. Then get more new ones for the road/line-haul. Can’t wait until some of those Anthem’s get to us. I’ve driven a 23 with less then 25k on, still had the new car smell. Very smooth ride

We still do the UPack pup trailers as well. They seem easy now compared to this flatbed gig.

A Sterling? Talk about a throw back lol

No kidding, the senior guys said the last of those Sterlings got retired from the fleet years ago. That picture must be from when the cube service was brand new. I drive a 2016 Mack pinnacle during the day like the other pic. If the night line-haul guy I share the Mack with is running, I switch trucks around 6-7pm and finish my day in 18 FL Cascadia

I used to use the 3M safety sunglasses from home depot. 4 pairs in pack for about $20. They weren’t too dark to see phone/gps screens and convex mirrors but dark enough to cut the glare. I now have to use these safety sunglasses from readers.com. Although I have 20/15 far vision, I lost my close up vision after cataract surgery.

When I was hired I was asked if I’d be interested in learning the flatbed due to my prior experience in the landscaping and construction fields. Being a team player and always willing to learn/try something new, I said sure sure, My manager thought I would be a good fit since I’ve always been comfortable running machines and had knowledge of securement and rigging from my laborers union days working with the crane operators. Plus, most of the guys don’t want to have anything to do with it.

Well the time has come! I trained with another driver on Monday and ran with it in the afternoons the rest of the week. It’s a 43ft fixed tandem trailer with a cradle on the back to hold the forklift. I am enjoying doing something new and different although it is definitely more stressful since most of my drops and picks are moving cubes to residential customers. Some houses, but mostly apartment complexes, a lot of which are too tight for me to enter or turn around to exit. It takes more extensive trip planning to get into these neighborhoods as there can be a lot of tight turns. Finding a place to park and unload is the biggest challenge so far.

I didn’t think to take any pictures until this morning as I was focused on my tasks at hand while working. Here are a couple pics I pulled off the web of what I’m pulling and delivering.

As a former business owner I know all about taxes and 1099 work. I’ll just give you the basics here. First off it is illegal to have people working for you, driving your vehicles, using your equipment, tools, etc… and pay them as subcontractors(1099). 2nd, as a subcontractor you need to carry your own insurance to cover any liability. 3rd, if whoever your working for is getting away with it, you are responsible for your taxes, you need to pay your quarterly taxes to avoid end of year penalties which means putting away a 3rd of that $1500 every week. If you come up short with your tax payments, it could end up costing you1/4-1/3 more as the IRS charges interest daily on money owed.

Other things that have already been addressed that you will have to figure out and pay for are… medical, dental, or eye insurance. retirement plan. Stash money away in case you get hurt cause there’s no workers comp or disability.

If your buddy has a few trucks but can’t afford to run a business legally, thats a red flag that he’s not doing very well or has not done the proper research to run legal business and is trying to learn as he goes. BAD IDEA, one too many mistakes and he’s in a hole he can’t get out of.

An old landscaping colleague I know was paying his guys as 1099 subcontractors when he 1st started his business because he couldn’t afford to do it legally until he built it up some. He submitted the 1099’s for his taxes but the guys never filed or paid their taxes. The IRS came after him for all the back tax plus Hefty penalties. Almost put him out of business. Although also illegal, he would have been better off paying them under the table and eating the higher taxes on his gross profit then what it cost him in penalties

That Dayton ABF terminal is a regional mothership terminal, all road drivers, no local P&D. We send them direct loads through the Carlisle PA terminal, our mothership via the road drivers and our few utility guys. Once you get some seniority and off the Xtra board, you can choose a bid for specific runs. Our main road guy does 2 runs a night, 6 nights a week to our terminal. If we don’t have a 6th night worth of freight on Saturday, he runs to Virginia and back instead.

He says he does very well, paid a cpm rate then 15 min per drop and hook so 2 sets of doubles, 1 in and 1 out, is worth 2 hrs of pay for 45 mins time. They also get paid for placards per trailer and anything extra they may have to do to complete the dispatch.

I run LTL as a local city driver at ABF Freight. I’m still a rookie driver and haven’t completed my 1st full year yet. I ended up at $58,668.55 for 2022. That includes 9 weeks of training pay at $17 an hour. I did not start making full rate until the 2nd week of May. We use the Samsara ELD and I don’t know how or if we can access our total milage and hours. I run roughly a 1000 miles a week so that puts me somewhere around 35,000. My road time varies daily depending on my dispatches so I wont even try to guess an average for hours plus we also work the dock and yard jockey.

A full year should land me in the 75-85k range at our current rate. 2023 is a union contract negotiating year for us and we are currently paid quite a bit less then the non union LTL drivers. A rather large hourly raise is in the proposal and is likely to go through so that yearly number should jump by another 10k or more.

Not too much has changed at ABF. Things have calmed down a little bit at my terminal. We have gone from crazy amounts of freight to just plain busy. Still getting OT every week.

I too always run with them on for same reason as Turtle. As much vision to others as possible.

Always on here as well!