Question On Dedicated Route

I was offered a dedicated route with my company. It is basically a trip out and back from San Antonio to Indianapolis. The trip out is not bad at all, pick up at SA Mon night and deliver to Indy on Thursday night, at which point I will be given a return load. The return load can be available from 9:30 PM to 1 AM and I am told by other drivers to expect later. The load must then be delivered back to SA at 6:30 PM the following Monday and I would have to take a 34 before that delivery so that I would be set to do the entire route again.

I am new to this still but to me it appears that the return leg is going to put me out finding parking at some very bad times in places where parking is already tight and flirting with HOS violations. It seems that the return leg just barely works on paper if everything goes right. I just wanted to get some experienced truckers views on this in case I am overlooking something that makes this more feasible. Would you all take it or turn it down?

Its 1145 miles, assuming you're running hard because a reset, should put you stopping around Joplin on i44. There's a sister station to the Iowa 80 there that always has parking, but it shouldn't be an issue, this run is designed to be nights, so you'll be looking for parking around 8 to 11 am. You'll be able to have rock star parking anywhere that time of day.

You should easily put down 650 miles a day if you're not worried about recaps. Should be Monday night drive, sleep Tuesday day, drive Tuesday night, sleep weds day, deliver weds night though. I'd see if I could push delivery and back haul. Should, if my math is correct be able to do the trip in 4 shifts, leaving you spending 47 hours or so of your 70.

If your getting paid by the mile on this, its only 2200 miles a week, plus or minus.

That's the problem i had doing dedicated being paid cpm. I could only muster 2200 to 2600 miles a week. If im doing resets with available freight, I like to see 3500 miles plus.

Davy, thanks for your reply. You mention delivering on Wed night but I can't deliver early, the shipper/receiver explicitly forbids that. That highlights the main issue with this route...the backhaul. I have to deliver Thursday night 9:30 PM -12:30 AM and pick up the load going back during the same time. Other drivers have told me that the outgoing load is generally not available until many times Friday 1 AM. It is on the backhaul where the issues arise, I would have from Friday early morning to get back to SA and do a 34 reset prior to Monday 6:30 PM delivery. If I could deliver and pick up on Wed night it would be much easier but that is not the case unfortunately.

You also brought up the other issue I have with this, you need to run nights. I generally like to drive from about 4 AM - 3 PM. That can be done on the way out but to get the load back on time given the delivery restrictions I would have to invert that completely and hope that everything goes smoothly with regards to traffic etc.

Another issue you brought up, this is indeed per mile and there is only a 2 cpm boost on this particular route and it would of course be less than 2400 miles. I can generally get around 3k just running general freight and keeping a schedule that works better for me.

Do the reset on the front half.

You really need to assess your wants and needs. At the time I was doing dedicated, my overriding goal was to make as much money in the type of freight I was hauling while keeping certain aspects of my truck like I want, so it didn't fit to my needs. Same went for local. At that company, I maxed my earnings potential in that position.

Your overriding goal make be to make money but balanced out with more home time or a more regular schedule. If that's the case, even though the money isn't as much, it could be a better fit. But I hazard a guess that money is still the bigger priority.

I took a long time in changing jobs and did so primarily because the company and position fit my needs and wants more. Keep in mind though, that those are dynamic and may change over time.

Davy, that is a good point. I looked at what I liked about this route, which is that it is predictable and weighed that against the downsides.

I have decided that I am not going to take it. For me it is not worth it. 2400 miles running like this is not lucrative enough for me to accept the numerous downsides. It is a very tight schedule and one in which you have to hope everything goes right, if not you are flirting with HOS violations. In addition to inverting my sleep schedule and running an extremely tight schedule they don't give time off. No holidays...nada. You get your reset at home and that is it. Requests for things such as doctor appointments have to be made months in advance. I spoke with another driver that was running the same account but with more flexible delivery dates and he said that he would not take what I am being offered either.