Cursed Living In South FLorida

OP same boat as me....

I am in S Florida. Haven't look at any of the megas because they are all OTR and that is not my 1st choice. Surprised swift or Prime won't hire it odd some people I know have went through Prime. My Buddy tried CRST and hated it!

Jacksonville is about 8 hours north.

Trucking may not be good for s Florida.

Starting to hate I moved to this state.

Prime used to run intermodal in FL. We have since closed the operation. When Prime shuts down any dedicated or regional area, they usually run those drivers in the area and place them. Closing the hiring area temporarily is not unusual. Once they find new accounts to place those drivers they open the hiring again.

So yes, we have a ton of drivers from FL, including Miami. It must all be about timing. My best friend is from Miami and so is his current trainee. However, over the years Rick has called and been told he is out of the hiring area, despite me having a student from Fort Lauderdale and one from Orlando.

Ok but Rainy what does that mean? If they say they are out of the hiring area... but you say yo have students from that area..?

Craig, hiring areas change all the time. There are dynamic fluid factors that affect hiring areas. A driver could be out of their hiring area one month, and within their hiring area next month.

There's a lot of factors. It could be they have more drivers than they need in a certain area. It could be rate related. It could be freight contract related. All these factors change rapidly. It's a dynamic environment, but South Florida is tough most of the time.

It means what OS said. As customers get added and removed, new opportunities arise or are eliminated.

yes we have customers in FL. I have delivered to Ft Lauderdale and met Rick, then picked up seafood in Miami. Tropicana, Coca Cola, corn and floral loads are huge shippers out of FL for Prime.

Companies worry about getting loads for people to go home and come back out. Our tanker division runs only as south as Savannah. So if you live in FL they cant get you home.

It isnt about trying to frustrate people, it is an ever changing market. So this month may not be a FL hiring month, but in a couple months, there may be more routes added.

Going local is very competitve. Most people want local and whoever has the most experience will get the position.

What about shipping port? Del Monte and Dole have fairly decent routes here coming out of the shipping ports. A lot of our fruit comes from Hondoras, Venezuela etc. I would think there woukd be something similar??

Ok but Rainy what does that mean? If they say they are out of the hiring area... but you say yo have students from that area..?

Orlando is a better shot, north of Wildwood is better still and north of I-10 better than all.

Spots open up when drivers leave, or contracts with shippers get signed.

Prime was doing Prime Floral, a division of the company doing flowers out of Port Of Miami. I guess someone underbid them, and it became not ocst effective to maintain that division.

SoFla is the ARMPIT for freight and rates. Not much coming in, not much going out - and the RATES SUCK. Mainly because shippers KNOW they have carriers over a barrel, they just want to get back into the freight lanes. Many OO's I know, won't come down unless the rate is SO GOOD, they can afford to turn around and run empty back up north of I-4 (where things open up a little bit).

A carrier has to get a driver HOME once in awhile - and if there's no loads going in/out - then they have to run them EMPTY round trip out of the freight lanes. JUST NOT WORTH THE EXPENSE for them - hence - they don't hire in the region.

So getting a "major" to hire out of here is very difficult, and has been for some time.

Rick

What about shipping port? Del Monte and Dole have fairly decent routes here coming out of the shipping ports. A lot of our fruit comes from Hondoras, Venezuela etc. I would think there woukd be something similar??

Many of these companies have their own fleets that move product off port warehouses, to grocery distributors. I believe you dropped at one, that time we met down here (Associated Grocers in Pompano, that has since sold to someone else). Sun Distributors handles a lot of the produce coming off reefer containers - most O/O's I see in their yard, very few big companies (unless they grabbed a broker load to move an asset out of here).

SoFla being the first east coast deepwater ports, much of the stuff coming from S/Central ends up on our docs. Savannah is another port that does a lot of produce also.

Rick

Very good points, Rick.

I don’t mind OTR , In fact I want to get a bunch of OTR months under my belt to one day work at something that’s pays really good like Walmart fleet ... I’m going to give CRST a shot . Too bad the others aren’t hiring from Florida but people have moved on from their starts so I just gotta push through the struggle for a better future job ....Out of all the Megas that are available ,which would be better -Crst or Pam, even better feed back from former contract trainees