Trucking Companies And Vacation Time - How Does It Work?

See how NOT normal they are???? Hahah

Trucking ISN'T NORMAL. Neither are most Truck Drivers!

I heard that.

Time off paid - seems to be less of a concern to most drivers - than an extended period of time off the truck, making the company slip them out of a unit they're familiar with mechanically/idiosyncrasy-wise and have all their crap setup in.

Truck becomes your home - it's not necessarily hoarding if you've got it setup the way you're comfortable with.

On the flip side, depending on where your company runs, you can get a 34 hour (or more) break anywhere you want.

From what I've seen - companies aren't going to let you go too far out of route - to do a 34, unless you're taking it as home time. So you aren't going to normally get routed somewhere you want to grab a 34. If you're out of hours and need to do a reset - you pretty much have to take it pretty close to where you run out of hours. You don't necessarily want to give up accrued home time for a 34 - unless there's somewhere you REALLY WANT TO DO IT - in which case, put in for home time at that location and the company will get you there (eventually - LOL).

Versus hometime - which location you can request anywhere within reason of where your companies lanes run - which gives you the opportunity to hang out/visit places like Vegas, see relatives, etc..

Most folks save up for vacations - if your finances are so tight, that the 5 days of pay are the deciding factor to taking time off - some enhanced financial planning might be in order.

Have a friend that works for AME, 35 year vet driver (the last 4 with AME). He takes a week here, a week there for cruises/etc. - they don't slip him out of his truck.

YMMV...

Rick

And I believe it is much different for a person WHO doesn't have to be home or take some time off: no wife,kids,girfriend(boyfriend)...It means a lot to some of us and not much for the ones who just want to drive and drive and drive.But it all depends on company you are working for.

Trucking ISN'T NORMAL. Neither are most Truck Drivers!

I heard that.

Time off paid - seems to be less of a concern to most drivers - than an extended period of time off the truck, making the company slip them out of a unit they're familiar with mechanically/idiosyncrasy-wise and have all their crap setup in.

Truck becomes your home - it's not necessarily hoarding if you've got it setup the way you're comfortable with.

On the flip side, depending on where your company runs, you can get a 34 hour (or more) break anywhere you want.

From what I've seen - companies aren't going to let you go too far out of route - to do a 34, unless you're taking it as home time. So you aren't going to normally get routed somewhere you want to grab a 34. If you're out of hours and need to do a reset - you pretty much have to take it pretty close to where you run out of hours. You don't necessarily want to give up accrued home time for a 34 - unless there's somewhere you REALLY WANT TO DO IT - in which case, put in for home time at that location and the company will get you there (eventually - LOL).

Versus hometime - which location you can request anywhere within reason of where your companies lanes run - which gives you the opportunity to hang out/visit places like Vegas, see relatives, etc..

Most folks save up for vacations - if your finances are so tight, that the 5 days of pay are the deciding factor to taking time off - some enhanced financial planning might be in order.

Have a friend that works for AME, 35 year vet driver (the last 4 with AME). He takes a week here, a week there for cruises/etc. - they don't slip him out of his truck.

YMMV...

Rick

Hi everybody.I know there are probably 500 different trucking companies you can work for but I would like to know what are the one provide best vacation plans for truckers?Most of them will give a week of vacation after one year,2 weeks after second(not all of them) and probably 3 week after 5-7-10 years of driving.Could you please share your vacation time and years of service and company your are driving for?Thank you

Pitkin,...when I started paid vacation was the furthest thing from my mind. Didn't even realize it was available until the terminal manager asked me several years ago if I had planned to take a week off.

Are you sure you want to do this? Family time is indeed important,...but life as you know it will be completely different, requiring a paradigm shift to a new reality.

Not sure if you have read the contents of these two links:

Truck Driver's Career Guide

and

Becoming A Truck Driver: The Raw Truth About Truck Driving

Might want to read them both and expect to level set your expectations. Not trying to scare you, just trying to ground your thinking a bit.

Good luck!

Wow...did you just imply family isn't important to some of us who drive OTR?

You do realize that many DO this for their families and come from areas of the country where jobs are scarce.

As G Town said, a newbies first concern is not vacation. His or her first concern is for not killing anyone while learning to drive.

You are getting ahead of yourself anyway. Most drivers don't make it past their first year in trucking. So pointing it out as a major concern before you even get on the road is a recipe for disaster.

Most people have unrealistic expectations when they sign up then get frustrated and quit cause they didn't understand the lifestyle.

Want to concern yourself with vacations? Get trained and safely drive the 80,000 pound 75ft long vehicle for a year. Then decide which company you want to hop to. You might find out that you aren't up for the challenge to "drive and drive and drive".

Thank you for another great reply but my original question was: what company are you working for and how many weeks(days) of vacation they provide?I never said,this is my first concern.I know,Im about to start something I have no idea what to expect.I read everything I could possibly find here.So please everybody!We all have millions of questions and this was one of them.I know i have to learn how to drive and a year from now I could realized this isn't for me.We all have out priorities in life,we want all help and provide for our families.We all dream about finding job that fits our lifestyle.Some want to see country,some go home every day.But benefits are very important to and many of you picked your company because their pay,home time,miles provided,or new truck.We all came from different areas of this country,perhaps other countries around the world(myself).Im not trying to be rude or disrespectfull,I'm trying to simply change my carrier and ask as much as I can so I have an good idea what Im getting into.Sorry Rainy D and G-Town about my previous post about home time

Wow...did you just imply family isn't important to some of us who drive OTR?

You do realize that many DO this for their families and come from areas of the country where jobs are scarce.

As G Town said, a newbies first concern is not vacation. His or her first concern is for not killing anyone while learning to drive.

You are getting ahead of yourself anyway. Most drivers don't make it past their first year in trucking. So pointing it out as a major concern before you even get on the road is a recipe for disaster.

Most people have unrealistic expectations when they sign up then get frustrated and quit cause they didn't understand the lifestyle.

Want to concern yourself with vacations? Get trained and safely drive the 80,000 pound 75ft long vehicle for a year. Then decide which company you want to hop to. You might find out that you aren't up for the challenge to "drive and drive and drive".

Pitkin maintains his conviction:

Thank you for another great reply but my original question was: what company are you working for and how many weeks(days) of vacation they provide?

At SWIFT; paid vacation is earned at the completion of each full year (12 consecutive months of service) of full time employment (based on anniversary date) and a minimum of 6,500 miles driven.

Completion of 1 year - 5 days - $400.00

Completion of 2,3,4 years of service - 10 days, $1000.00

Completion of 5 years of service or more - 15 days, $1800.00

Realize that when you take vacation time of 3 or more consecutive days, in all likelihood you are giving up your assigned truck and will need to clean it out and move into another one when you return. There are no paid holidays at SWIFT.

Prime bases theirs on miles driven. Its not one year but one year with 125,000 miles. So although my date of of hire was Oct 30th. I didn't get out of training and go solo til Feb 14th. I just hit my 125k. I also accrue sick leave and have about 50 hours banked.

Primes pay for 125k miles is $700 for one week vacation.

This links numbers haven't been updated...but gives you an idea.

Prime benefits

And yes, I can take unpaid time off but anything over four to five days can force me to lose my truck. My truck that is safe and dependable and my cat loves.

At prime you can bring passengers aboard too if you are missing your family.

I could take a longer period off if I turn my truck in and get a new one when I come back on the road. A friend took two weeks unpaid and did this. But I have so.much crap on the truck it would feel like I was moving into a new apartment lol

RD, I talked to a Prime recruiter last year and was informed they only allow 4 days off maximum. My question was, if I worked for say 3 months straight without taking the one day off allowed per week, would I be allowed to take a chunk of days off, in this case 12 unpaid days. Answer was no.

Did the recruiter think I meant 12 paid days off?

I could take a longer period off if I turn my truck in and get a new one when I come back on the road. A friend took two weeks unpaid and did this. But I have so.much crap on the truck it would feel like I was moving into a new apartment lol

RD, I talked to a Prime recruiter last year and was informed they only allow 4 days off maximum. My question was, if I worked for say 3 months straight without taking the one day off allowed per week, would I be allowed to take a chunk of days off, in this case 12 unpaid days. Answer was no.

Did the recruiter think I meant 12 paid days off?

You can bank days, but Prime only allows four at a time. I guess in some instances you could take five without much hassle depending on the reason and your fleet manager.. My FM actually offered me 5 days off instead of four in January because he was getting me home a day earlier than planned, and I had run all of December. I didn't take him up on it though because of having one less day to run before payday cutoff. Four days in a row typically feels like enough time off.