Trucking At Night Versus During The Day?

Night driving can have great advantages for rookies.

1) No traffic so easier to relax

2) No traffic so easier to slow down to read signs

3) can run more miles with less traffic

4) can easily find parking at the end of the day

5) can grab up the loads others refuse due to not wanting to drive nights and....have hours to relay/repower loads for drivers who couldn't make it. This can be advantage for a couple reasons. Dispatch will see you as a go to person who can get it done, and you could wind up with more miles.

6) sometimes it is better to get through bad weather conditions at night without all the traffic.

7) in many areas high winds die down at night, although the day drivers may have shutdown due to wind.

However, its hard to read signs, see driveways, and find parking if you need to shutdown. Back roads can be scary at night, and winter sucks when the sun goes down.

...This will be my third paycheck in a row that has take home pay nearing seventeen hundred dollars.

OS, you are a business man and I'm not trying to insult you by thinking you don't know what 'take home pay' usually means, viz. net pay. So can you humor me and confirm that you are indeed clearing $1700 a week at times, and that is not a gross figure? If that is the case, I applaud your hustle. This is a figure that should be emphasized for anybody reading these posts to show what the top looks like. Those are paychecks in the truckload industry that are certainly not the norm, which obviously shows how much you're striving to be at the top of your game.

To reach a take home pay of $1700, you must be grossing close to $2300 a week, perhaps more if you have other deductions besides the typical 25% deducted for taxes.

Yes, you are correct. I absolutely understand the difference between gross and net. I don't even like sharing my numbers, but sometimes it helps illustrate the point I'm trying to get across.

6 stri mg, i can't speak for Old School obviously but I remember him posting a picture of a check showing $1500 net, so $1700 net is not unbelievable. I recently had a check that was $1664 net, so if I can do it, OS certainly can since his mileage rate is a lot higher than mine. (I remember stuff like that.)

Anyway, back to the main topic, when I first started, one of my biggest fears was that my sleep schedule would be so messed up that I would be driving sleepy. Happily, that is rare, even though I do a lot of night driving from time to time. (I just did two days in a row of loading at 0130 and delivering before 0700, for example.)

When I do feel a little sleepy, I have a few tricks to make sure I stay safe, including quick naps, caffeine at the right time, etc. The point is that I am very concerned with safety, but I also discovered that I could change my schedule around a lot more than I thought I could tolerate after years of regular bed times.

Driving all night is not my favorite thing to do, but it is one tool I have that gives me a competitive advantage. If others don't want to compete, that's great as far as I'm concerned. I'll look out for other drivers, but I sure don't owe them any great loads that I can get.

Honestly, I want to drive nights.. I drive everywhere in my car, but I see a clear advantage to driving at night, no traffic. I've driven a M1088 bobtail in the army with NVG's on so the lights can't be that bad ..

Yes, you are correct. I absolutely understand the difference between gross and net. I don't even like sharing my numbers, but sometimes it helps illustrate the point I'm trying to get across.

I figured you did. That's outstanding. I appreciate your humility, and share the same motive whenever I post figures, although for me usually it is to illustrate for folks that aren't aware of LTL income potential.

I'm glad you shared your paycheck. It serves as something more tangible when discussing earning potential for top producers.

Six String, now you understand why I haven't had the time to stop by and visit with you and your family.

Six String, now you understand why I haven't had the time to stop by and visit with you and your family.

I'm back on a Tues-Sat schedule. Off Sun and Mon. This will be till after Christmas. Hopefully we can make something work!

I'm exhausted just thinking about how hard you must run!

And by the way, just in case you forgot, driving safely is much more important than trying to one up your fellow drivers for more miles.

Having a elite -take no prisoners-every person for themselves attitude to Jack your fellow truckers is borderline low brow, and bush league. There's enough freight out there. Get it there safely and on time. Pretty simple.

You sound really awful saying that kind of garbage to someone like Old School. Like a whiny little brat.

And like the rest of us know, Old School is 100% right about what he said. Why would you let someone believe they can't drive at night? Of course she can drive at night! She's no more or less human than the rest of us and she'll learn to handle it just fine, like the rest of us. Everyone has their own preferences for how they like to run, but there's no reason in the world she can't do some night driving just fine.

And that's pretty much all I'll say on this topic.

Actually that's the last you need to say on any topic. I think you should go ahead and take a hike. Talk about low brow and bush league. Let a new driver believe she shouldn't be driving at night and then talk down to Old School like you could possibly be at a higher level. Unbelievable.

I'd just like to chime in and point out that there are a lot of places in this country, mostly on the coasts, where you're going to be hard pressed to find parking after 5pm, making it advantageous to start early and shut down early. I spend the majority of my time running the west coast, and generally try to be parked no later than 4 pm. Yes, that means I have to drag my carcass out of bed at 2 or 3 in the morning most days, but it beats the hell out of having to park on an off ramp or a wide spot on the shoulder because there is no safe truck parking left at any of the truck stops or rest areas.

And if you see no problem with parking on the shoulder, I invite you to Google Bhandal Bros. Manny Bhandal nearly lost everything because one of his drivers chose to park on the shoulder one night. Parking on a shoulder or off ramp is nothing but **** poor trip planning, plain and simple. If you can't trip plan to find a safe place to park, you need to not be on the road.