Dennis is one of the most respectable, honest, enthusiastic, positive, experienced drivers I have worked with. You struck gold with finding Dennis to interview. What a great guy.
Very cool guy, I miss hearing from the vets. The industry has been so flooded with cash grabbers. It’s good to hear from a humble, down to earth driver.
I’ve met him and we’re from the same county. He has dispatch that runs him. Most of us go home everyday because we run no log agriculture exemption. We run how we want. There a load board for bulk loads. You can run state to state or around your county. All hog and chicken plants make the product. All grain is the cheap loads. Most pay by the ton and grain is by the bushel. Dogs and cat food food protein meal like sand. Animal by product has to get use in something
910 all day!!! Good interview this is dope I did OTR I stopped it was a mistake but I'm going flatbed this time...not even goin to do a Harper but I just stuck around small world let's get it NC
Most bulk hauling is monday- friday 6 am to 4-5 pm for load unload times, depending on what im doing with my hopper im only in the sleeper 2 nights a week. home weekends and 3 days a week, im regional/ local-ish hopper. Sure if you wanted to you could stay out in a hopper and run it just like OTR, if he's running it that hard i bet he did double his salary! Bulk loads pay better, always have and always will, the only exception in the last 20 years was the post pandemic 18 month explosion of dry vans, that was easy to see that was a huge bubble
Been driving 24 years only about 4 years hopper. Hopper generally pays less to company drivers per mile but!;you can use ag exempt for HB which more than makes up for it. The main thing I like is not sitting around all the time. It's hands on and I never wait to get a load. Very busy pay off the trucking world
@@ChrisL-oz4lp its deff not double, but its similar to above the avg dry van rate by time you figure the pay per tonnage, at least it is as a O/O. you can be home way more running regional local-ish hopper if you want, i can be home weekends and 3 nights a week if i want to run my hopper "full time" in the winter, if he is running his like OTR i bet his sallary did double, he's earning it! Us hopper drivers cant back up! lol but hopper comes with its own set of headaches, cleaning out trailers is a daily thing
@@growthefarmup2606been trying to get into cattle hauling past 8yrs, now i get my cut a HBT yes ill be new to it but i got bored of flatbed dry van & reefer
Everytime I met a old trucker, thats been doing it 20+ years. They all said that same thing. I wouldn't do it. Its not worth it. I lost all my family. Did 5 years otr, started a business home and been home every since. Im glad I left.
It’s our fault as company drivers for allowing the industry to take advantage of our skill set. The numbers matter!! Let’s get these numbers in our favor!!
Yep, get a peterbilt and a cornhusker you will weigh less than 25K empty with 2/3 full fuel tanks! I run a tag axle and pusher axle so that adds 2K lbs= but can haul 15K lbs more in the MAP 21 states
To pull a hopper, do not buy an aero tall sleeper, a midroof or flat top works just fine. His air lines sitting on the deck plate should not be, even with the covering over the hoses.
Dryvan boys stay where you are. Our rates also dropped and we don’t need y’all low bidding gas money guys coming in. Hopper weight can’t be run for gas money
@@cdlshorty74 for starters they’ve run so cheap the last few years I doubt they could afford to buy a hopper and there’s a waiting list to finance one either way. Secondly they’ll go broke even faster trying to pull this weight if they under bid loads.
agreed, all the successful bulk load fleets out west of missouri river are 5-20 small fleets of O/O with stretched Petes and pusher axles and long trailers with Tag axles, hauling 95K with overloads, that about the only way to make hauling Bulk even sort of worth it, you gotta stretch a truck and get a new hopper with a tag, i dont see the extra axles on any hoppers east of mississippi other than michigan. Is it just to difficult to permit overloads around the eastern states?
Don't get into hopper. Money isn't there. The hurry up and wait is worse in hopper than any side of trucking. I own my own business truck and trailer. You can't make it in a new truck with e-log. Oakley trucks always complaining about it. Gotta load heavy to clear money. Can't make it hauling strictly for brokers. They're taking 15-25% of every load and that's FACT. Find a local gig pulling a hopper, you'll do better than an OTR hopper. Good luck if you decide to do it.
if hes running a hopper like its OTR i bet hes making more than a avg dry van annually. Hopper is a totally different world, its all about who you know and what terminals are close to you, the thing with hopper is he prob never waits on getting loaded or unloaded more than 30-45 mins except the expected long lines here and there
That just comes down to principle/pride. I smoke and never toss my butts or trash on the ground. (Strong winds being the exception occasionally) I have an ashtray in my truck and a pocket ashtray too. I haul glass and am mostly backed inside bays for loading and offloading. I always keep my messes cleaned up. (Tape, cardboard, plastic, foam, ect..) I also take the time to sweep around the loading bay too as I'm being worked on. 90% of the time the messes I'm cleaning are from other drivers. Also anymore just a problem in society today. Even where I live due to issues with rampant homelessness and transients. We used to have garbage cans available in parking lots and a long the sidewalks, always had a place to toss trash. Now due to changes in local regulations to crimp down on the homeless problem. They removed most all of those, literally gotta go on a treasure hunt just to find a garbage can or dumpster just to throw my trash away.. I live on the Oregon coast too, right next to the Pacific. Not exactly an area where you'd want to see an increase in litter and trash on the ground. But in a few weeks I'll be moving back to the Midwest, to Iowa, where I grew up. Anymore and I'm absolutely fed up with the West Coast. I love the mountains and the scenery.. but the politics, cost of living, crime, homelessness, ect is getting ridiculous.
