I couldn't imagine doing anything but flatbed. Keeps you in shape. About the time you tire of physical labor, you get to chill out and drive, when you are about to go crazy from driving too long, you get outside and get some movement. For me, a perfect balance.
Did flatbed work for 13 years. Never minded the wind, cold, or time it took to tarp. The older I got, the more clumsy I got. When I fell off an 8 foot load, by not stepping on a solid surface. I said stick to the reefer work.
Local flatbed work is very intense. Sometimes I had to tarp and untarp 4 to 5 times a day. That's why flatbed drivers prefer longer runs. Where you tarp the day before and untarp the next day.
I'm otr flatbed.its mostly pre tarped drop n hook. I throw on a few extra straps and bungees and I'm out. Make maybe one or two deliveries a week where I got to untarp.
i bought my first truck in 1977 refer then dry van boring as hell went to flatbed in 92 wish i had done this first at 71 i still love flatbed straping chaining and tarping are what keeps me young.
Try spending 3 hours in minus 20 degree weather trying to tarp and secure lumber load of various types and products. Then the next day, untarping that load at zero degrees and try folding those frozen tarps. Is flatbed as hard as digging ditches 14 hours a day? You got me there. The hardest, most labor intensive job I have ever done was loading boxes for FedEx, double shift. Compared to that, yea flatbed is a walk in the park. But we are not comparing those jobs to flatbed work. We are comparing it to other truck driving jobs. In the trucking world, flatbed is the most labor intensive.
Good point. The fact that some people avoid it do to the labor though is shocking. I applied for an ice delivery job once and once the lady saw I was OTR she asked if I could handle unloading bags of ice with a lift gate… She said a lot of people that come from OTR quit due to the labor! That’s barely any labor, people just like to sit and drive until their physically pathetic!
It can be if you are lazy and out of shape. But definitely the best trailer to haul you get you use your brain how you secure the load and stay in shape
DUDE! i quit fedex after 1 year of hell!! it sounded so easy but when you get in those trucks and those boxes come piling down, its a different story lol. Never looked back after i quit FedEx
I just got my CDL A January 4th. The main reason I want to get into flatbed is to stay active, I think a lot of truck drivers have so many injuries because they don’t take proper care of themselves
I once had to recover the tractor of a flat bed driver who was tarping his load when a wind gust took the tarp and driver over the side which landed him in the hospital.
@@alouette87 Yep, for every 10°C Below zero, freezing point of water, for the American cousins, you expend approximately 15% more energy, just to stay warm. When I worked in the Arctic in the 90's, I ate +4,000 calories a day, without gaining weight.
That's why I went flatbed from the start.not to mention you can get hired anywhere.a lot of my loads are pre tarped but we have the heavy duty 120lb tarps. Usually two per load. Delivery I roll them up and throw em on the trailer.i don't wait for the forklift. All the loads always need the tarps fixed and be strapped. So it's not just drop n hook.still not as much work as you think but it's better than no exercise.
I like flatbed better than dry van. Yes, I don’t like to tarp or untarp in -30 nor 100 degrees or with snowy, icy, rainy, or windy weather but I rather have some exercise and feel good afterwards than sit, eat, sleep, repeat. All day, everyday.
@@fridelx this is my favorite company I've been with. I like this MUCH more than Melton. Melton wasn't a bad company, it just wasn't my style. We run HARD at system. 1. Lots of chains 2. Back to back loads. Don't go off duty after a load, thinking your day is over 😆 3. I sweat a lot here
I just got my CDL last week and I'm basically gonna be doing flatbed local deliveries for a home depot account, with a forklift attached to the back!....
I have been a long haul skateboarder for 30 years. Tarp in minus 50 can be a challenge but trying to get the tarp off at -25 with 40 MPH wind is going to kill the rookie. Just the same skateboards are the only way to go. Been trucking since 1973 and still love it. Who the hell calls it a flatdeck???? Aluminum tarps make you fat, sick and you have to many ridiculous appointment hours.
I have been doing opendeck for 30 years as a o/o and a company driver. Take that by the mile and you can keep it. Local work i could make 300 dollars a day that we back in the 90s i got 30 percent . As a o /o i avg 250 to 300 grand to the truck on 90 thousand miles with 13 percent deadhead. I also pick my loads. As a company driver now i get 30 percent of a 100. This week 5200 on 1800 miles loaded and empty again i pick my loads. General freight is garbage freight always has been. If i do oversize loads they have to pay great money any more. The problem is to many brokers are plain stupid and don't know how to bid freight. I have seen brokers cut a lane just to win the freight. Had a lane for 2900 a loser broker came in and got the lane 2200 we got the lane back now we get 3300 for that lane service counts.
@@gazaalley3862 if you are just starting out and doing otr look at mercer transportation out of ky that's if you are going o/o . Great company if you are new to the o/o . The truck I am in now is leased to ace doran. I sold my truck and trailer to a friend and he let's me do my own thing. I work with a team of agents that I built when I owned the truck.
New owner operator, the first six months was the hardest. My best month was 27,000 ever since I hit six months a lot more of the market has opened up and it’s easier to get loads. I will typically get a load for three dollars plus or just below three dollars as a flatbed driver harping and shading is awesome. It is brutal to drive a box truck hats off to all of you who are willing to sit and have nothing physical to do in my office time. I take out my badge, dip bar and straps to work out I have no idea where all of this pain comes from I will say after 11 hours of driviing My butt starts to get unhappy lol thank God you guys don’t love to tarp it leaves me a lot of options. Thanks!
I prefer flatbed to box just because 90% of my freight is delivered or picked up during daylight hours. I'm not a fan of all hours deliveries/pick ups. I don't mind the extra work involved because it keeps me in shape.
i been a flatbedder my whole career, look man, idk how u think flatbed makin more! listen if anything reefer is tha way to go. fucc we workn loads for tha same 2.50-3.50 a mile a loads with an off load sometimes paying $4 a mile or so. but it aint worth tha head ache.
@@stevanledesma9651 ehhh, maintence all tha way around is subjective on tha driver or company, the type of equipment and preventive maintence that is done. division doesnt really have much to do with wear and tear unless ur like pullin 100k pounds consitantly
People have gone soft… Here in the US, loading/unloading time is generally much quicker than any van freight and a lot of it can be left untarped, that really just depends on the customer. Also pays much better for independent O/O than can freight would. Going through a company is a whole different story.
As a retired driver I think back the only thing I didn't do was live stock and liquid tanks but between flat bed and van I would answer a job for van /refer long before a flat bed for all the same reasons he just said plus tarps are unsafe in a little bit of wind I have seen drivers get thrown over their trucks just because cause they wouldn't let go also I became too fussy tie down a load of round bar then look at it I could always find a bar that wasn't tied down by anything spend half the day trying to get all bundles tied satisfactory
Ran reefer with hand bomb every peice from pallets to ucarts for 7.5 yrs. We were happy when we got power Jack's Instead of barely working pump ups. Lol. From there a few years hauling cars on my own interstate that's a lot of work making them fit on a 5 car. Ad others 4 hours with frozen straps sucks n auction lots in the dark no starts, digging out of snow drifts in Upstate NY where most of them came from I live here. Similar to flatbed no walk in the park with many sore days but, much more active. While registering my new to me truck, again I still look at 6-7 car trailers or a step deck, doing w2 drop & hook at 53 yrs old. If you're trucking just dock bumping n roll that's maybe as easy as trucking gets. 🚚 it's gotta be in you, can't train everyone to not lose their crap with all the patience you need, traffic, run out bad weather no matter what, whichever physical demands, etc. JIT work did that 3 mo that sucked royal being ran over hours with personal conveyance ya you know that shtick some serious bs with appointments overlapping when out of hours. If you can hack that kudos. I'm sticking to cars, vehicles, machinery isn't so tightly scheduled. I'll take the work. All pay is similar.
I have NEVER spent 8 hours trying to get a dock door at a "big wharehouse" if done right I am the 1st driver to unload in the AM and then onto my next load for the flat bed within two hours for my reload. I only have 30+ years in flat beds and yes IT can be painful but that is the price to have a good job
Any time I have a FB show up to pick up a vehicle purchased by a client, I do the best I can to make sure it is running and can move on it's own. The absolute biggest beef I have is drivers showing up at the end of the day AND / OR unscheduled. I understand that $hit happens and I am more willing to work with drivers that actually contact me beforehand and let me know what's going on. Ironically, the vast majority of FB drivers I have encountered are middle aged to downright elderly. I had one "gentlemen" show up that had no clue how to drop his trailer as he was a last minute replacement in a pinch (so he says). I felt so bad for the guy, I talked him thru the process of dropping the trailer, I loaded the truck on his trailer and thought that was the end of it, but nope. This person proceeded to "chain down" his load so ineptly that I felt it was a danger to the public so I had to talk him thru that process as well. Then had to guide him thru the hookup to the trailer just so I could get him out the gate before quitting time. Having said ALL that, watching FB drivers, it IS hard work. Often chaining loads in cold miserable weather. Is the few $ extra worth it??
Def NOT hacking on them for being old or a FB driver. My point was that many of today's drivers don't seem to have the work ethic, these older drivers have.
ALL trucking TODAY is not worth it!!! Rates don't pay guys just simple as that. If your a flatbed driver (company driver) doing Otr M-F you should be grossing 2000-2500 as the norm. That's 125k to 130k easily. I did flat bed for 8months before I got out of the industry & was grossing 1200 to 1300 a week equivalent to .43 CPM or 20% of the load. I got a local job paying me the same money and I'm home every night with my family plus weekends off.
You fail to mention how much a refer trailer costs to buy, compared to buying a flat bed trailer. ( this of course applies to owner operators) but in the end, food will move in tough times more than other freight.
Hi I am considering doing flat bed driving I have a couple questions. I am looking to buy a 2010 Chevy 3500 2W drive with roughly 287,000 kms. The flat bed trucking world seems so interesting but I am not sure how it pays and what to expect . Any advice would be appreciated
I disagree with your point. I have done van reefer and now flat .as an owner operator I rather do flat because I’m active and I sleep at night and have my weekends free. Meanwhile in reefer you don’t know when you will sleep and your waiting g times are super long van just don’t pay.
Us highway drivers are not making much money nowadays. I made 2900 hundreds (NET) on June last year and never went to reach 5k till December that I did 5600 hundreds NET. Lots of flatbed drivers are quitting flatbed as company driver . I'm a company driver.
Check the stats and see fie your self since 2021 flatbed pay went 9% bellow reeefer and 6 % lower than dryvan so if you get paid per dollar like normal companies pay than you are more set paying per mile it’s a trap it’s why big companies don’t pay percentage but per mile instead
There is no way I’m doing that job! Not even if you pay me 50/h. I’m from EU and worked my entire life on curtain side trailers. I’m done with that! Not even reefer. Dry is the best!
If the average pay for flatbed drivers is 75 Cpm, I’d love to know who is paying that kind of money. I’ve never seen a single ad by any well known company paying near that. Are you averaging OO with company drivers? How did you come to that number? In my experience 60- 65 CPM is closer to the real avg.
@NorthAmerican-Trucking-News No, it's dangerous without the right facilities, the tarp becomes very hard at low temperatures, and with the ice and snow, you can easily slip off your trailer if you're not careful , and don't get me started on the Osha violations most of the clients force/coerce drivers to do if you're trying to take the necessary steps to do your job right on securing the load.
I used to work at a company that had flatbeds loads all man seers hi beams all that I worked in the yard. I dislocated my shoulder for throwing chains, strapping them on to the cement slabs that they throw on these trucks and I became a truck. driver flatbed divisions will not give me a job, because that reason they’re scared that I will end up taking my shoulder out again and they going to get sued because I got a trick shoulder now
Why are drivers being paid by the mile, it’s time for a change. Miles is a big scam. As for a trade drivers need to be paid more for what we do. Time to stop this madness let’s get paid for the time we spend operating a truck on a daily basis and compensation for hours over 40.
Are you hiring company drivers from Vancouver? Just on boarded with a company here, 3 weeks and still no first load. My dad was a long haul truck driver for over 14 years until he quit in 2007. Looking to get in the game so I can travel with my wife. I got experience driving semi’s since I was 15 years old. I’m safe with zero accidents.
So Ronen. Today, I did have one of your drivers contact me. The reason was that I did buy another truck, and I was looking for the driver So your driver contacted me saying he's not happy on your company. So I know he's the idiot bulshit. So here is the story He's saying working for you 8 months doing flat bed. * I think you do only 3 years experience. Correct ?) And was saying he's driving not more than 10k miles per month. And you pay him 3k per week ( 12k for 4 weeks ) Really? Not even 1 year experience and attention is the company driver not OO. . I told him I will call you the same day to sell my trucks and trailer and work for you. So you give me yhe job? . 😂😂😂😂. I know he's lying also, i told him 10m miles per month. And $12k per month clean and you leaving them? What the joke, lolol
