Hourly Pay Vs Mileage Pay

Im looking at switching companies only been driving a few months which is better miles or hourly? How many miles are averaged within 8 hours?

You need a tad bit more information to answer that question. Information like what is the hourly rate and what is the mileage rate.

With only a few months experience why are you already looking to change?

Im looking at swithcing companies only been driving a few months wich is better miles or hourly? How many miles are averaged within 8 hours?

Morgan, the Trucking Truth philosophy is that a rookie driver should stick with their first company for at least one year. Other companies aren't excited about hiring job hoppers.

As for pay, only local jobs pay hourly. OTR is paid by the mile. And your daily maximum drive time is 11 hours. That means you'll do good to roll 600+ miles/day. That won't be every day, anyway.

But local is often several stops a day and unloading yourself. that is a whole.different animal.from OTR.

My trainer told me Schneider used to offer new OTR drivers an hourly option. It was $180 per day and required 8 hours of driving/on duty time. For some reason they ended that program, not sure why.

But local is often several stops a day and unloading yourself. that is a whole.different animal.from OTR.

To add to rainys point keep in mind the days are pretty long as well. Morgan you will likely have trouble finding someone to take you on without a year of experience. Getting a year in will help you be better at backing. When you're making several stops a day you usually don't have much extra time, you need to get backed in as quickly as possible. I'd hate for you to get into a rush and end up hitting something because you're running out of hours. If you're determined to go local right now perhaps look into line haul however that's mainly done overnight. I'm currently working for a grocery chain and depending on the day have 1 or 2 stops and drive 500-600 miles a day. Many days I'm making it back to the yard with less than 20 minutes left on my clock. Not sure where you're at but here we deal with a lot of snow and ice and it adds additional stress of needing to drive safe but also wanting to make it back home that night as we run daycabs. The days I work, I'm usually only off long enough for my 10 hour break and in that time have to commute, shower, eat, sleep and try to find time in there to spend with the kids and wife. It's not uncommon that once all that's taken care of I'm left with only about 4-5 hours to sleep. Why do you want to leave your company already?getting a year in where you're at will really help you in the long run.

If you live in California, CFI pays you hourly and they make it close to what you would make with milage pay.

Rob, the more i hear about local, the more i wanna say "screw that". 600miles a day... yeah when I am teaming.

Usually i run 400 to 500, 7 days a week so 2800 to 3000 miles at a higher pay than many companies so i do just fine.

that local stuff sounds like.... well.. like WORK!!! lol

that local stuff sounds like.... well.. like WORK!!!

It's interesting, because some of it really is hard work, like if you're unloading the freight yourself. Other jobs require no physical labor but are so monotonous or gruelling they certainly feel like work.

There is no adventure in local work. It's drudgery. Whether you're unloading yourself or not, local work is a routine, and a routine is the opposite of adventure.

I'm all about adventure, but I'm also willing and capable of doing hard physical work. Regardless of whether or not there was physical work involved, local work feels like a "job" and regional or OTR feels like an adventure.

For people who want to be home fairly often I did find that regional work (getting home weekends) was a nice mix of adventure and home time. You're living on the road during the week, which is always an adventure, but you're home on the weekends which a lot of people like. You can also make great money that way because you can burn through your clock and turn a ton of miles in the 5.5 days you'll be out on average. Of course you'll only be home 36 - 48 hours and you're going to be tired as can be. By the time you catch up on sleep and do your chores it's time to get back on the road.

Every decision we make is a compromise in the end.

I'd rather be driving this much than unloading my trailer by hand again but it still gets exhausting. If it werent for my kids I'd go otr so I could, as pack rat said, get some sleep Haha! Yesterdays route left Des Moines at midnight with 2 stops in western Illinois then a backhaul at kraft in Aurora Illinois. They sent me and another driver in a sleeper cab since we had 1 extra driver and it was longest route. 648 mile trip and I would have ran out of hours 10 miles from the yard had I gone alone. Because I was logged into sleeper for the last 2 hours of our trip (once other driver had his 10 in sleeper) I began my day today only 8.5 hours after I left yesterday. This morning I ended up getting a more local route, unloaded my first trailer now I've been sitting back at the yard for 2 hours waiting on other load to be ready while my clock continues to tick. Total mileage today will be about 200 with 5 stops between 2 trailers