Does Schneider Have Forced Nyc Dispatch For OTR?

Does Schneider National force you to run to New York City? Their page on this site says no but I heard a rumor someone heard from a recruiter that they do. Thank you. This may affect my opinion in driving for them. Are you aware of any companies that allow their OTR drivers to waive those loads?

Best thing to do is to go to the source - always. Contact a Schneider recruiter and ask them. If you get a recruiter that gives a run around answer, be firm. If you need to, call back and get another one on the horn. KLLM advertises no NYC at all. If it means that much to you, check out companies that just don't run there, like KLLM.

I will tell you something that is in no way a secret and you will not hear anything about from a company. Many companies say "No forced dispatch" and for the most part it's true but what you will not be told is that if you turn down that load you will be sitting right where you are until another load comes up. Don't take the next load then you sit again till the next load. You sit and your not making money. And I have seen it happen dozens of times. Let's say you refuse a load going to New York. OK. They tell you that you will be contacted when a load is available in your area. An hour goes by and your Qualcomm dings and you look at the new load and guess what? It's the same exact load. Why? Who knows. Maybe your the only truck in the area that can take the load. At this point you have a choice to make. Refuse the load again and be pulled into a terminal and have a sit down talk with about 3 different managers or bite the bullet and do the job you are being paid to do.

See companies can't afford to have their trucks sitting still. And they can afford to have drivers not getting the loads to where they need to be. Want to be in the top 10% of the drivers in whatever company you go to? Never ever refuse a load. It can be career suicide for a rookie to refuse a load even if they were told they could.

Hear is the deal with driving a truck. You get paid to deliver load and pick them up. I have been to downtown Compton CA. It's nothing like it's shown on TV. It's a business district. Blame Hollywood.

Not sure where your not wanting to drive but starting your career off like this is not the smartest idea I have ever seen. Later on in your career you might be able to say your not going into a certain area but right now you have nothing to offer up. Zero experience. Hoping someone will give you a job.

Obviously you have an idea in your mind of where you don't want to drive so the best possible advice while keeping that in mind is to find a company that does not run in those areas. Regardless of what some websites says if the company runs those areas then you will also.

I will tell you something that is in no way a secret and you will not hear anything about from a company. Many companies say "No forced dispatch" and for the most part it's true but what you will not be told is that if you turn down that load you will be sitting right where you are until another load comes up. Don't take the next load then you sit again till the next load. You sit and your not making money. And I have seen it happen dozens of times. Let's say you refuse a load going to New York. OK. They tell you that you will be contacted when a load is available in your area. An hour goes by and your Qualcomm dings and you look at the new load and guess what? It's the same exact load. Why? Who knows. Maybe your the only truck in the area that can take the load. At this point you have a choice to make. Refuse the load again and be pulled into a terminal and have a sit down talk with about 3 different managers or bite the bullet and do the job you are being paid to do.

See companies can't afford to have their trucks sitting still. And they can afford to have drivers not getting the loads to where they need to be. Want to be in the top 10% of the drivers in whatever company you go to? Never ever refuse a load. It can be career suicide for a rookie to refuse a load even if they were told they could.

Hear is the deal with driving a truck. You get paid to deliver load and pick them up. I have been to downtown Compton CA. It's nothing like it's shown on TV. It's a business district. Blame Hollywood.

Not sure where your not wanting to drive but starting your career off like this is not the smartest idea I have ever seen. Later on in your career you might be able to say your not going into a certain area but right now you have nothing to offer up. Zero experience. Hoping someone will give you a job.

Obviously you have an idea in your mind of where you don't want to drive so the best possible advice while keeping that in mind is to find a company that does not run in those areas. Regardless of what some websites says if the company runs those areas then you will also.

Wise words.

Would it be okay/wise to ask for loads to NYC or a certain area? I have no intentions of turning down a load my company gives me, but there are certain areas of the country I would love to see. I know I'm being paid to haul freight, not site-see...

I am a company driver for Schneider and can tell u most dispatchers will ask u if you are confident enough to drive in nyc they won't throw you in there with no experience

I've been to NYC as a rookie. I survived, its just another city that you have to pay even more attention to. But don't avoid it at all. Sure its tough, but its a fantastic learning experience as well.

Would it be okay/wise to ask for loads to NYC or a certain area? I have no intentions of turning down a load my company gives me, but there are certain areas of the country I would love to see. I know I'm being paid to haul freight, not site-see...

If you drive long enough you will get to the places you want to see. Until then just enjoy the ride.

Just be for warned though. There are some places that you can not get a truck and some of those are the National parks where a lot of the awesome stuff out see on TV is.

In my opinion, and also in the opinion of many trucking companies, New York City is a beast that's entirely different than any other city in the country. I'll give you a couple of stats comparing NYC, the largest city in the country, to Los Angeles, the second largest city:

New York:

• Population: 8.4 million
• Population Density: 27,000 per square mile

Los Angeles:

• Population: 3.8 million
• Population Density: 8,000 per square mile

Chicago is third place is 1/4 the size of New York and barely over 1/3 of the population density.

But that's only the start. You have thousands of low bridges, restricted tunnels, and restricted truck routes snaking around New York in every direction. Most people that live in the city don't have cars so they can rarely even tell you how to get anywhere unless you're delivering your load by bus or subway. A large number of the truck-specific signs are wrong believe it or not. The bridges are often mismarked in New York State as being a foot lower than they actually are. Fortunately they started fixing that. Unfortunately they've gotten part way through the project and here we are years later not knowing if they'll ever complete it. To make things worse, often times there is no way to tell if the measurement is the corrected actual height or if it's still an uncorrected estimate showing the bridge to be a foot lower than it is. Indeed a ridiculous situation.

On top of all that, New York is right on the Ocean. So not only does that restrict the traffic to a much smaller area than with a place like Atlanta or St Louis, but you often times have to take a half a dozen different bridges going in and out of the city.

So the idea that NYC is just another city is ridiculous. Nothing compares in any way to New York.

I personally wouldn't take a job with a company that would send my into New York. I've done it many times over the years and in my opinion it isn't worth it as an over the road driver. If you want an exciting trip to New York then fly in on an airliner and run around Manhattan for a few days - an incredible vacation! But it's a nightmare in a big rig.

There are tons of companies that will not force you to run NYC and personally I would make that a consideration. What most companies will do is have you take a load going to NYC and drop it with a "shuttle company" in New Jersey. That company will take the trailer into NYC, make the delivery, pick up another load if there is one, and bring the trailer back out of the city to the Jersey side. So the shuttle company is only covering maybe 10-20 miles round trip but they're the toughest 10-20 miles anywhere in the country. Dry van companies do this most often. Refrigerated companies offer require you to run NYC but I'm sure there are some that make exceptions.

Thank you all!!...Brett, Tony, and the rest.