Hourly Pay Vs Mileage Pay

At OD drivers start at $25 a hour and usually work 40-55 hours a week. Generally I make more on mileage but they have a more of a 9 to 5 type job.

Whether you're unloading yourself or not, local work is a routine

Brett, until you just put it that way, i guess i never thought of it like that.

If i got up on Monday and said "this is the beginning of my week" i would want to jump back in bed. Now my week is this current load and if i want a day off I message dispatch that im taking off. i feel less trapped.

its easy cause i'm alone and no one likes me. lol even youz guyz are afraid i might fly over lol.

if i had family it would probably be different.

It depends...

how fast is your truck

how often do you stop to go you know .... 1 or 2

I personally averaged 500miles in 8.5 hours consistently, and that helped me when my DM would call and ask if I could do a particular load... he would know what I could do and just needed to get me to commit.

it was a lot easier to figure it out that way then to try and see if I had enough hours... cause I never ran myself out of hours...

longest I stayed out on the road without ever taking a day off ... 10 weeks... even the dog was barking at me when I walked through the door

cause I never ran myself out of hours...

I have to say, I don't think anyone here, myself included, understands your fascination with limiting your hours so you can drive every single day. I'm not sure why you would want to do that. What is that accomplishing for you?

No one turned more miles than I did throughout my career, so you're certainly not doing that. And no one had more fun than I did over the years in Vegas, New Orleans, Seattle, Atlanta, and all the fun places I knew people or had favorite hangouts. So you're certainly not doing that.

I would much rather run as hard as I could when the miles were there and if I ran myself out of hours then great! I get to take some time off and go have some fun. Heck, we didn't even have 34 hour resets throughout most of my career. I might have turned even more miles if I could've done that.

Not to mention, I've probably hauled 500 loads over the years that required you to run a hell of a lot more than 8 or 9 hours a day to make the delivery on time. Heck, I literally drove that much by noon much of the time. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to run the loads I ran if I had refused to run the way I did.

So if you're not turning more miles, making more money, getting access to special loads, or having more fun than I was when I ran hard and took some days off along the way then what exactly are you accomplishing with your system? I just don't get it.

Well, it does work for a few. Dave Reed recently says he does it and then takes a mega vacation. I think it appeals more to us old farts than to you young bucks. And yes, I am talking about you Brett, you party animal

Each division is differrnt too. My loads vary too much with weird appointment times to do that.

Some sadistic sales reps give me appointment times like tonight. 0300 70 miles away.. live load. deliver 289 miles away by 0800

on what planet they think that is happening with a live load i dont know. lol

19 Hourly OT after 40 and sometimes per diem I work and drive but Im ready for the Full OTR Experiance but my best offers so far are between .36 and .40 pm and not much talk at all about per diem seems a lost if mile arent there.

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?

All this complaining about local work... i think ya'll are only thinking about food delivery local work. Which really is the worst type of local work requiring an insane amount of physical labor.

Why anyone would want to unload an entire trailer themselves full of boxes and work 13 hours and 45 minutes only to come back exactly 10 hours later is beyond me. Look into P&D work. I do 8am to 6pm M-F and make more than most OTR drivers (70k+) and don't come home with a hurt body.

Assuming I pass when I test out, I will be hourly.

Regional , Northeast. I started today near Syracuse, and I am in Scarborough ME. 460 miles or do, I forget the exact number.

What I like about hourly is all time spent in the truck other than sleeping is paid. Waiting to load/unload, traffic, etc.

Tomorrow will be Poland Springs ME to Buffalo. 700 some miles.