Team Drivers Vs Solo Drivers

In researching companies, I have already noticed that there are some companies that have predominately team drivers. What are some of the advantages/disadvantages to team and solo driving? Here are some of the differences that I can think of. I can just imagine the *pain* you would have if you were teamed up with a real "stick in the mud" partner. As a solo driver, you would only have yourself to blame for any mistakes made whereas with a partner. . . Naturally, with a partner, you have an extra set of eyes, an extra brain for ideas and strategy and safety. Do the miles driven with a team count towards both paychecks, just divided by 2? If your spouse is a CDL holder, have there ever been spouse teams that are company drivers?

I will do my best to help you out. I'm in school right now with Celadon, recently they started to require new students to team drive for 240,000 miles to pay for the schooling. Now this sounds like a lot but should be no more then a year. The way they work the CPM is 36 cents is split between the two drivers. If I'm driving and you are sleeping then you are still getting 18 CPM. The also have a 3 CPM bonus for hitting 17,000 miles in a month.

As far as husband/wife teams, yes it happens all the time. We have a whole family here in class right now, husband, wife, daughter. They have all got their CDL and are waiting for trainers. I have also helped someone from this site who wanted to team with her husband.

I like being alone so for me the year of team driving with be tough but at the same time I will be going though the same thing as they are, I may have certain skills they don't and Vice versa.

Yeah, in the beginning of your career running team can be helpful because like you mentioned there's two people working together at times to figure things out. But most people hate running team. It's very, very difficult to live with another person in a tiny space 24/7 and you're always having to sleep when the truck is moving. Every decision you make is a compromise which affects the other person.

Husband/wife teams tend to do very well. They can save up a lot of money together and they don't have to spend time apart. But for most drivers there is no advantage to running team. You're not really going to make more money than running solo and it's really tough sharing a truck like that.

Thank you, Brett. I don't think I would want to hook up with a company that forces team driving, unless of course, it was my spouse. I think I could endure the trainer as I believe while the trainer is there, you are on team status. Knowing that the team status will be ending and solo starting, I could endure that. A team partner other than your spouse would have to be someone that you know really well and have worked with before in order to have successful runs, in my opinion. In the Army, we called them battle buddies. We had to *make* it work in the Army and for the most part, it worked well. Inside a truck may be a different animal. I think I'll take solo.