Going Local

I’m going to take on a local driver opportunity with my same company. It’ll be a little pay bump but the big selling point is home daily and weekends off. If I end up not liking it, they told me I can go back to OTR whenever I say the word. I’m sure it’ll also help me fine tune my backing as I’ll probably bump more docks in a week than I normally would in a month.

Any advice for maximizing time from local drivers? I got pretty used to sleeping at shippers and leveraging detention time time for 10 hour breaks. Any tricks anyone has for maximizing the clock or pay for a local driver would be great.

Doing something local was my long term goal, I’m glad I am able to do it with the same company and much sooner than I thought possible. I’m also glad I started OTR. It taught invaluable lessons in route planning, HOS , backing and maneuvering in traffic in a safer environment.

Go out and help other people on their routes

Local work is far less about managing HoS or maximing your time and far, far more about chasing closing times in my experience

I agree with Daniel. You'll likely have a set time to start your day and it'll feel more like a typical job (minus the hours) in that you're given your workload needed to accomplish for the day. It's quite possible you'll only be off for your 10 hours. How far away from your home will your truck be? Are you keeping the same truck or are they going to give you a daycab? Is this a dedicated type account or will you just be running trailers that were dropped somewhere due to too much time on the load? One thing you may want to inquire about later on is if your company will allow you to use the 16 hour rule. To be eligible for that you must start and stop from the same location for the previous 5 work days. You can use it only once every 7 consecutive days unless you get a reset in. Not that you'd need it frequently but it has personally saved me numerous times from not getting home at night.

It’ll be about a half hour from home to truck. They tell me it’ll typically only be 8-10 hours per day. I may see if I can pick up some extra a few times a week to make more.

It sounds like it’ll be mostly picking up at local shippers and bringing it to a yard for an OTR driver to deliver further away, or, picking up a relay from a OTR driver and taking it to a cons in the MSP area. Most runs are 25-50 miles from the yard, so, all in the MSP metro.

They’re keeping me in my current truck for now, they have some day cabs on order as they’re trying to build up the local driver fleets, but they said it’ll be a while before I see a day cab. The ones on order are going to more congested metro areas. Which is nice so that I can keep the fridge stocked.

There are many incidental pay add on’s that will make it less miles and more “other “ pay. I’m used to long days on the road and making money only when rolling, so, The new pay scale and short runs will take a bit of getting used to.

Is this a hourly job? Doing local work in a sleeper truck will be tough, they are ment for open highway not for constant tight maneuvering that a lot of local work requires. HOS usually can't be toyed with as much if your hourly there is a good chance to be paid you have to be "on duty".

I would do what Rob says and find out about how they want you to work the 16 hour rule or is it like ours where they don't want you to use it.

Good luck though! Remember to GOAL

Dude, the Minnetonka/Wayzata area SUCKS driving a truck through in the winter time.

If you are not worried about clock. I would say get to know your receivers to help you get in and out quick. Most locals have a separate door for ltl picks and deliveries which makes getting in and out easy once you know them. If you are local to MSP then you know the roads suck in the winter. Do you know have the demonstrations subsided or still going on. 2 weeks ago I had to go across town from west to downtown ST. Paul and they had a demonstration out around some bridges on 394 so I went around to the south to stay away from them.

I really like the company I drive for, who hauls corrugated cardboard for two paper companies. I start my day at International Paper, at an assigned time (usually between 4 and 6 am). Occasionally, I will start my day by hauling an empty trailer to IP in Streetsboro, OH or PCA in Newark, OH and pick up a loaded trailer there. I take my first assigned load and deliver to the consignee , either a live unload, or dropping the loaded trailer and hauling an empty trailer back to my home yard. Sometimes, I get directed to another IP or PCA in another town to drop the empty and pick up a load and deliver that. Then repeat, usually hauling 2-4 loads over 11-13 hours. I rarely get pushed too close to my 14, and have only used my 16 hour exemption once due to a breakdown. I definitely like being home in the evenings, and off weekends. Relating to HOS , the only thing I really need to worry about is making sure I take my 30 min break within the first 8 hours, and making sure I am documenting my pre- and post-trips for the tractor and trailers haul. The only thing I dislike about my job is if I get stuck at a consignee for 2-3 hours. That can hit me in the wallet if it happens too often. I think of my job as a "glorified day-shift delivery boy"; except, I don't have to worry about getting it delivered "in 30 minutes, or less."

Have you started doing local yet, Wild Bill? If so, how do you like it?