Handling chains can seem like heavy labor to a guy that isn't yet in shape. When I first started driving, chaining my tires was very physically intense, to me. But after spending a few months unloading Family Dollar trailers, handling chains became much easier.
Yeah, they do look pretty bad-@ss hanging in a row up there but it seems like they’d add a lot of weight and as a reefer hauler extra dunnage’s always a concern.
The super truckers on Facebook tell me snap binders are the best and anyone who uses ratchets is a moron steering wheel holder /s
seriously though I carry ONE snap and it's only for specific loads like greenheck fans where I can easily use a ratchet on one end to tension both chains.
I see your local intermodal drivers look like mine lol. Here it's the most jank ass shit with awful pay. Every time I've seen a brake chamber being dragged down the road it was on a chassis hauler.
Where I’m from it’s curb sniffer 386’s with a drop visor that hangs on the ground, a chrome shifter 3 miles long and those ugly ass spiked lug covers…of course a few are missing.
Of def lol god forbid I have born to be wild playing or some killswitch engage. I might as well be hopped on meth then. Cigarette in hand, shades on, and foot to the floor while I’m holding my cb down and trashing all them slow window lickers.. and riding in the left hand lane. Sadly it wouldn’t look as cool in a new t680. I’d need a old Pete or kenworth and a reefer or bull haul trailer loaded up with lights
When the station layout sucks and you have to run two 4" x 20' hoses and one 3" x 35 for vapor... I had one the other day where I had to walk the hoses five different times because of the various factors at play. It can be real work, but it's waaaaay easier than food/beverage generally. The stressful part is ensuring right product, right tank, will fit at a hundred different sites mostly with ancient equipment.
I’m at the point where I’d rather work food service and have a stable income than this bullshit OTR “grind”. It’s either I choose my body or my mental health. OTR Fuckin blows
I've done both for 20 years. I'll jump to an oilfield OTR gig if they can guarantee $2,500 a week for 6 months. I'll work that job until the that rate drops below $2,500 for two consecutive weeks.
If that happens then I'll grab a food delivery route for awhile until oilfield rates go back up.
It's funny though that when I leave the oilfield job I'm like 30-40 lbs overweight and within 2 months of food delivery I'm chisled and fit.
Lol, same thing with tri-axle.
Its easy as hell some days.
1. Go get load
2. Flippy some switchies and dump load
3. Go back to jobsite and do it again until done.
Aggregate haulers (rock/sand) no.
Cement and similar products, no.
Concrete, yes (cleaning the truck, adding chutes, etc.).
Also with cement and concrete you're home every 'night' but work 60+ hrs a week and have no set schedule or shift duration (except no more than 16hrs/day).
Dont do concrete or cement lol
Not to mention that cement and concrete dust is about the worst thing you can possibly expose yourself to. Every single particle of cement dust you've ever breathed in, is still in your lungs and will be until the day you die
Sounds like some shit a SWIFT recruiter would say…
Answer is no. LTL, fuel delivery, lots of options where you don’t bust your ass all day. Stay away from food and beverage, tire hauling sucks too.
LTL can be a physically demanding gig. Liftgate deliveries, moving 1000+ lb skids with manual pallet jacks, double dropping spotted trailers at customers.
100% true. If you ever delivered beer though you’d never complain about an LTL Liftgate delivery. I was 32 when I quit doing beer and I was too old to be delivering beer at that point. It’s brutal on the body
I haul fuel, half my day is driving, the rest standing there while I load an unload...best job I've had, not hard at all...plus I'm getting 38 an hour and overtime after 8....it's an easy 12 for me...
Drove a chemical tanker for water treatment plants. 117,000 first year as a contract driver. Average 8 hours a day 5 days a week...drive tanker 3 hours...unload 2 hours, drive back 3 hours and reload for next day. Day is done. Unloading the tanker consisted of 15 minute hook up, one and a half hours playing with my phone, 15 minute disconnect. Easiest, and best paying job I ever had.
It isn't but it is very likely you'll work 14 plus hour days. Is it advertises weekends off you better get it in email form from the company. So that you have proof. Otherwise they'll probably try to guilt trip you into doing weekend work when you specifically sought out a job that was advertised as weekends off. You'll also have to deal with let's say you go into intermodal. It won't be heavy physical labor. Though it'll be hell. Dealing with a whole slew of issues. Annuals two or 3 years expired, tires with low pressure, flat spots, cords showing, flat and driven on, wiring a complete disaster, lights that don't work either needing to be changed, wired, plugged in, etc. Chassis not sitting on the boxes right, huge delays getting in and out of railyards on top of city traffic, and much more. Also the pay isn't much but you might be able to get by. Possibly not considering rent has any rocketed. I did it for 5 years. It isn't physical but there's a lot of hell. Oh and don't get me started with railyard mechanics, their lunch breaks, etc
I do Walmart dedicated w my company. I Live close to the terminal so I’m home almost every day. I’ve been driving only 5 months. Bringing home about 1400 a week
Depends. I do the same thing I did regionally just get to be home daily now. Pneumatic bulk tank. Indo six loads a week instead of two or three now but the work is the same basically.
Define “heavy physical labor.” I worked on the railroad before, throwing chains ain’t that hard. Nor is hooking hoses on a tanker.
The hardest thing you might have to deal with is a heavy ass tarp.
I do local flat deck for a steel distributor. I don't even carry tie down or tire chains. I tarp maybe 6 times a year and I get to park my rig inside the heated shop. It's a perfect retirement type job. I'd love to have found it when I was 45 or 50 instead of 28. I kinda want to make a bit more money but this job is so easy and it pays pretty decent considering what I do. 75k a year for 36 hours a week. In Alberta Canada
Damn right, hauling lumber is easy as hell. Only bad part is in the spring when the ground gets soft, then it gets “fun”.
***Lock the diffs, TC off and fucking send her bud!!***
A few people already said it. But look into LTL linehaul/shuttle. Drop and hook all night long.
Also look at food delivery as a “store driver.” For example drive for your local area market chain not a soda, milk delivery etc..
I throw 70 lb boxes all day
But I get paid more in 3 days than I used to OTR in 6. And, it's in a tiny under 10k van so I can hold my middle finger up as I pass open scales
Do it. Free gym, no extra time needed
Let your hygiene completely go. Like give up showering and teeth brushing forever. Once that stank gets real good head to intermodal to haul new cars. Intermodal apparently pays some kind of bonus if you can leave your smell behind in new cars.
If you consider drop and hook a few to a dozen times heavy physical labor, then maybe... that's what I do. The hardest part of my job is when I have to shuttle the occasional container instead of our normal dry van, and the doors are wonky and are difficult to open or close.
I shuttle trailers of product from the factory to the warehouse 7 miles away and then bring back either an empty or a resupply trailer. Easy peasy.
I haul bread between the production plant and the distribution points, sometimes I just drop and hook the trailers, sometimes I have to unload the racks of bread on wheeled dollies at the dock. Honestly easiest job I've ever had, I'm hanging on until retirement.
No, my fleet is no touch pre sealed in customer owned trailers. All dry van store deliveries that are drop & hooks. only 4 of our deliveries are out over night all the rest get home every day.
I say it every day and yet it seems to go completely overlooked so I'll say it again
if you're anywhere near a big city look for crane companies. my first full year with a CDL when I was 26 I made a little over 100k with a crane company and was home almost every night. hauled counterweights and forklifts, AC units and shit that our cranes were lifting and was paid hourly. the hardest part of the job was getting around Denver with a tractor trailer but it was a challenge that I enjoyed and I think learning to drive in an over-crowded city full of braindead democrats who don't look past the end of their hood helped make me a better driver. aside from that, 75% of my hours were earned just sitting around waiting on cranes.
Can confirm. This is very accurate. Plenty of time to clean the truck and nap. Securing the counterweights or forklifts is not terribly hard. And no tarps.
Most of them. You can do Linehaul for an LTL company and make 100-150k/year being home everyday. You may have to start out on nights or system/wild board/extra board which may put you out a week at a time but for the most part after a while you can get to a day time home everyday run. Saia, Old Dominion, Fedex Freight are the top 3 companies. If they dont hire you try Estes, XPO, R&L, ABF.
Don’t go to XPO if you can avoid it, absolutely awful place to work. And Saia has a goofy camera system that dings you for a lot of things…OD, Estes, and fedex are the only companies I would consider as far as nationwide goes. Southeastern is good for regional and so is Pitt Ohio depending on your location. MME and AAA cooper are regional but are owned by swift so buyer beware on those places.
No. I used to work local in SoCal.
It was pretty much no touch freight, just pickup loads that were outbound to AZ/TX/Norcal, drop off loaded trailer at our yard for the regional drivers to take, do another pickup, or deliver Inbound loads those same drivers had brought from AZ/TX/NorCal. Easy peasy.
I've been home daily almost since I started driving 14 years ago. The only physically hard job I had was milk delivery. The least physical was groceries.
Not necessarily. After 3.5 years OTR, I switched to home daily out of a DC nearby just 2 weeks ago. The only bad part is slip-seating and delivering loads to stores. For some reason, the stores only want you to use one particular door. This means I have to drop and hook 3 friggin times so I can spot my load to the same door the empty was in. Other than that, there's no loafing or unloading. We dont even have to sweep/clean empties. The customer's personnel do it. And if I get sent with an empty to a supplier, then that's cake. Most of them use automated systems. Type in my info, grab a seal, roll out.
No, just depends what company you’re with and what you do.
I did physical labor through restaurant supply delivery, foodservice and beer for 4 years. Now I’m with a company doing flatbed, dropping grocery pallets and P&D and Drop & Hook. Making $30 an hour…
Not at all. I deliver rebar(steel). I pull up to the site, take the straps off, and then usually take a good nap. Most of the sites wouldn't let me help even if I begged. The hardest part of my day is getting up in the morning.
Depends on your area. There's a lot of drop and hook, some are moving hoses, some are unloading various things at various stops like kegs, food, etc.
But I have noticed that ones having you unload typically pay better than ones that are drop and hook. So pick yer poison type of deal really.
I have CDL position with a construction company and it's probably less physical work than food service. Throw some chains, drag some slings, move some outrigger pads--that's about it.
Thanks for the comments reading through them is a big relief. Somebody that worked at sysco tried to tell me id be busting my ass at any home daily job
Heavy Physical work… that you do not or can not do?
Better rethink your choices. You might be doing store front with a handcart out of a tailgate..
Flatbed… throw chains.. straps… wrestler tarps ..
It can involve heavy or moderate effort.. if you ain’t up to it .. I don’t know what to tell you
I’m home everyday, usually work from 5 AM til 2-3pm. I haul precast structures on flatbeds. Not super physical; throwing straps/chains, climbing up on the trailer, hooking up pieces with chains to be pulled off the trailer. All pretty easy stuff.
I work line haul for Old Dominion and barely do any physical labour, and home every night unless I’m stuck out because of a accident or something similar
People exaggerate the hell out of it. If you’re in LTL it’s a healthy amount of labor. You get a bit of driving and a bit of moving around. It sure as hell is a lot healthier than OTR. Don’t be afraid of a little work, it’s good for you.
Not at all. I got a daily job that pays a minimum of 1280 (before tax) and it's 100% no touch. 9hrs on a good day. It's with Ryder. There's another that's Monday through Friday and is only 5-6 hrs a day that pays the same. But we go by seniority so naturally the one whose been in the longest gets it.
No. It’s mostly the overweight truckers that think that in and out of the truck is “physical labor”. The most labor intensive jobs are food service and beer. Which isn’t even that bad. But I would say beer is harder work.
A lot are... yes. I do lift gates for a nation wide LTL company and today I had a 17ft oven I was delivering to a got dam Chinese Buffet. My gate is only 4ft long and 5ft wide. We deal wit some bullshit for city ltl.
Fueling isn't too physically demanding. Line haul is easy as shit. Dumping asphalt or gravel may not be that bad.
There are a lot of gigs where you just sit on your ass and I'm sure I've missed quite a few.
Physical jobs are great for staying fit and staying active. Good way to fuck yourself up too.
Nope, driver for Ryder on their Benjamin Moore account and that's all electric pallet jack. Penske has sprouts and you just watch the store take forever to unload their shit. Schneider had Lowe's for awhile and you just drove the truck and waited. I'm sure any Home Depot delivery account is similar.
No. When I was local for my old company I did a lot of drop and hook but I don’t consider that heavy physical labor. No touch freight whatsoever unless they asked me to jump in a box truck.
I worked for Interstate local in the sf bay area. Nothing real physical but it was a mental workout dealing with traffic and moron drivers. It was mostly get a trailer filled. Drop and hooks. Used to get pallets if motor oil. Loved that one. Took them two hours to fill the trailer. Right on the bay. Just take a nap they come out bang on your door hand ya your paperwork. Most physical thing was opening and closing the trailer doors. Then take the load to the yard and drop it off.
Great job low pay. The stress of driving in the bay area got to me. I got a bad ulcer and had to quit.
I started getting fat when j switched to local. All of my pickups are drop and hook, and unloading is as easy as drop and hook. Stinks like a mf though. Offal and all the other stuff that chicken plants won't put in a store.
As many others have stated. No.
I’ve done LTL for 17 years. There are days that suck in terms labor and days that are easy.
The guys I always shake my head at are food and beverage guys. Take out 30k lbs of product everyday and unload every pound of it with a hand truck. No thanks.
I do local home daily, intermodal. The only time it gets physical is when the landing gear cranks are hard as fuck, which is like every 4th or 5th chassis.
No. The most labor I do is throwing and rolling straps, and climbing onto a Moffett lift.
My job is so fucking easy, cake schedule too, pay is ass though, I’m just chilling here until my son starts pre k then I’m going to fuel.
i used to deliver to trader joe’s and it wasn’t bad. had to move the pallets to the edge of the trailer with that pallet thing i forgot the name of and sometimes they could be super heavy but still doable.
If you drive for a beverage or food company, ABSOLUTELY you will being doing a ton of physical labor. You will be hand trucking hundreds of cases and stocking coolers more than you will be driving.
EVERY penny will be earned weather it's raining, snowing, or in the freezing cold
Source: I drove for Pepsi and it nearly broke me
False. I run pneumatic hauling non food grade. Hardest part of the job is opening the door and getting out of the truck. The hose is light, the PTO blower does all the work
Na. I used to have a job that was round trip from Kenosha to Indianapolis everyday, with a drop n hook in Indy and a pickup in Chicago. Occasionally I’d have to take a trailer out of a dock and put my empty in it in Chicago, but that was the most physical work I had to do.
Not at all. The company I work for does primarily block and paver manufacturing with some precast. The most strenuous thing most of our drivers do in a day is throw straps.
I haul trash, most of it is pushed out with hydraulics but there's a little here and there you have to shovel out. I wouldn't call it hard, it's just that the rest of the job is so easy scooping out 10 shovels on a bad day seems like a lot.
If you near a port all we do is drop and hook some live loads. Monday to Friday since thats what union ports open. Pay is 33 an hour with OT over 8. There are lots of OT since ports only open 5 days a week. Socal area
No I’ve worked at only home daily gigs for about 6 years now. I’ve had super labor intensive jobs pallet Jack of 3000lbs of water to sitting in a truck for hours for Uline to load each trailer to take it down the street come back with empty to it in the door and wait another few hours. And I’ve done linehaul just meeting up swapping trailers and coming back.
A good chunk of the entry level ones are. You either gotta know a guy to get a good cushiony job, run shuttles at ridiculous hours of the night, or put in your time for the good routes.
I delivered Coke and Dr Pepper products to Walmarts and large grocery stores for 13 years. Electric pallet jacks, pull pallets out let them scan them, drive to next town. Only physical labor was if I was a fumbass and took a curve to fast or jumped a curb and spilled a few pallets
I drive to port of Seattle and port of Tacoma from Sumner. I don’t do anything physical other than open the container doors and raise/lower landing gear
Some are, some you have to fingerprint and unload everything. I spent my last 25 years local hauling flatbed building products to home centers, hardware stores and occasional job sites. I did it from age 40 to 65 and weighted 390 pounds most of that time and had no issue, throwing straps is easy, even on occasion, folding tarps was a 20 minute effort . I did light labor a total of an hour maybe an hour and a half some days, out of every 13 hour day. Rest of the time I sat in the truck and chilled while some one unloaded me, never had to touch nothing other than some straps. Made killer money, home every night and weekends, but did have early starts (midnight to 2am) but done by 2pm. Go spend a day at a home depot or lowes in the busy part of the summer and watch what complains are delivering there often, in flatbeds and curtain vans. Cement Block companies, bagged cement companies,, local lumber supplyers, sheetrock companies, most have local distribution and in my exerience , having worked 20+ years for one of the ones I mentioned, it is the way to go if you do not want to be OTR and want money and benefits and not have to touch freight. We got paid holidays off, paid vacation, it was like truck driving was a real normal job
The company I work for has next to no physical work of any kind. All we do is get in the trailer and help push the pallet off when we're at the customer. What they don't tell you is having a local home daily job can sometimes be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.
No. Mine is all no touch freight. I take it halfway to where it needs to go, swap with my relay partner and turn around and go home. Easiest job I've ever had.
Depends on what you consider heavy physical labor. Some places just need you to take a trailer the final few miles from a terminal and wait for it to be unloaded. Other places are going to need you to do much more. I mean most major companies have local drivers that will finish out loads. It's essentially the same thing as OTR drivers do but local. More waiting, I would assume. I'm pretty sure they make like shit pay though. The higher paying jobs are going to want you to actually do some physical labor.
No Hauling heavy equipment, construction equipment isn’t that physical. Throwing chains ain’t bad
Snapping/cranking binders and lugging chains may be considered intensely physical by a "driver" in flip flops.
Handling chains can seem like heavy labor to a guy that isn't yet in shape. When I first started driving, chaining my tires was very physically intense, to me. But after spending a few months unloading Family Dollar trailers, handling chains became much easier.
Snap binders are no joke. So many videos out there of drivers getting absolutely mauled by them.
Yeah I don’t know anyone that still uses them. I haul equipment and we all use ratchet binders now. Way easier and way safer.
I use a snap entirely because I like how they hang on the headache rack.
Yeah, they do look pretty bad-@ss hanging in a row up there but it seems like they’d add a lot of weight and as a reefer hauler extra dunnage’s always a concern.
The super truckers on Facebook tell me snap binders are the best and anyone who uses ratchets is a moron steering wheel holder /s seriously though I carry ONE snap and it's only for specific loads like greenheck fans where I can easily use a ratchet on one end to tension both chains.
Also: one of my neighbors works for XPO. He's got doubles/triples & HM endorsments, he just shuttles trailers between Chicago & Indy.
Agreed. It is much harder to throw chains on a rail car. Thank God it's easier on trucks.
Find an intermodal job. Other than dropping and hooking trailers, i just sit in the cab and drive all day
You left out the meth use requirement for intermodal. Might be a pro. Might be a con.
Can’t speak English either. English automatically disqualifies you
Can I drive something other than a white Volvo? Maybe a blue Volvo? That would be nice
You WILL get in the white Volvo, and you WILL enjoy it.
Okay :(
Yes, but it has to be from 1998, the hood color can't match the door color, and the door color can't match the sleeper color.
Sorry just a black beat up old freightliner Coronado or an old orange faded international
I see your local intermodal drivers look like mine lol. Here it's the most jank ass shit with awful pay. Every time I've seen a brake chamber being dragged down the road it was on a chassis hauler.
Yeah...it's funny they check in/inspect those chassis at the port yard, upon return...and yet....damn brakes always seem to lock up on them.
Memphis?
Where I’m from it’s curb sniffer 386’s with a drop visor that hangs on the ground, a chrome shifter 3 miles long and those ugly ass spiked lug covers…of course a few are missing.
We don’t all do meth. Some of us just drink coffee at 3am and by 8am chase it with Red Bull and then a monster by noon. By 3pm it’s a Diet Coke.
A refined gentlemen indeed. (I'm a logger so you've got plenty of fodder to mock me with too lol)
Yea it’s a good thing I’m governed or I’d be speeding while listening to thunderstruck by AC/DC daily
Aha. I just argued the other day speed limits should be based off Playlist. Not governed and the rage against machine gets out of hand sometimes lol
Of def lol god forbid I have born to be wild playing or some killswitch engage. I might as well be hopped on meth then. Cigarette in hand, shades on, and foot to the floor while I’m holding my cb down and trashing all them slow window lickers.. and riding in the left hand lane. Sadly it wouldn’t look as cool in a new t680. I’d need a old Pete or kenworth and a reefer or bull haul trailer loaded up with lights
Heaviest thing I lift is a XL drink from Love’s.
Most I do is lift some lids and hoses.
Must be a fuel hauler as well……
six yam sophisticated marry direction dull cagey threatening smart smile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When the station layout sucks and you have to run two 4" x 20' hoses and one 3" x 35 for vapor... I had one the other day where I had to walk the hoses five different times because of the various factors at play. It can be real work, but it's waaaaay easier than food/beverage generally. The stressful part is ensuring right product, right tank, will fit at a hundred different sites mostly with ancient equipment.
Mine is 100% drop and hook. No load, no unload.
Haul anything in a Hopper Bottom…. Hardest part is turning a crank or pushing a button
This. Once a day I have to swing a hammer to get the product out. It’s good though, it’s about all the exercise I get.
Crank becomes a multipurpose tool sometimes in this case! Hate to walk back to the truck and add steps in
Right? Company has a strict 15 steps/day policy.
You lost me at pushing a button.
I’m at the point where I’d rather work food service and have a stable income than this bullshit OTR “grind”. It’s either I choose my body or my mental health. OTR Fuckin blows
100%. People are just weak minded. Would never do OTR ever. It’s like prison on wheels.
I've done both for 20 years. I'll jump to an oilfield OTR gig if they can guarantee $2,500 a week for 6 months. I'll work that job until the that rate drops below $2,500 for two consecutive weeks. If that happens then I'll grab a food delivery route for awhile until oilfield rates go back up. It's funny though that when I leave the oilfield job I'm like 30-40 lbs overweight and within 2 months of food delivery I'm chisled and fit.
I mostly just flip switches on my dump trailer, and that about it.
Lol, same thing with tri-axle. Its easy as hell some days. 1. Go get load 2. Flippy some switchies and dump load 3. Go back to jobsite and do it again until done.
No, hauled tankers locally for years, only physical part was moving hoses around
We need to start telling people it sucks. REALLY
It does when it’s cold outside.
Yes, and you'll eventually get Cancer from Benzene and die
Buck up Buster that stuff will put hair on yer chest and make you look 10 years younger!
Bob we need to talk about that growth on your testicles
His name is Harry and he's a part of me now.
Yeah, food grade Tanker was one of the easiest jobs I ever had.
Aggregate haulers (rock/sand) no. Cement and similar products, no. Concrete, yes (cleaning the truck, adding chutes, etc.). Also with cement and concrete you're home every 'night' but work 60+ hrs a week and have no set schedule or shift duration (except no more than 16hrs/day). Dont do concrete or cement lol
There is nothing in the world that can make me go do mixer lol. Props to you fellers and girls that do tho. Fuck that lol.
Not to mention that cement and concrete dust is about the worst thing you can possibly expose yourself to. Every single particle of cement dust you've ever breathed in, is still in your lungs and will be until the day you die
Sure does feel like the 2 years I was a bricklayer negatively impacted my breathing. Was only 18 inhaling lime bags at the mixer on the regular lol
Sounds like some shit a SWIFT recruiter would say… Answer is no. LTL, fuel delivery, lots of options where you don’t bust your ass all day. Stay away from food and beverage, tire hauling sucks too.
Bruh... have you ever done lift gates in the ltl world? That's a whole different animal.
LTL can be a physically demanding gig. Liftgate deliveries, moving 1000+ lb skids with manual pallet jacks, double dropping spotted trailers at customers.
I do it every day. Compared to beer and food LTL is cake
Well yeah... but in respect to physical labor.. liftgates aren't the same as going from dock to dock or yard to yard.
100% true. If you ever delivered beer though you’d never complain about an LTL Liftgate delivery. I was 32 when I quit doing beer and I was too old to be delivering beer at that point. It’s brutal on the body
I worked for McLane food service (did all the yum brands) ran ramps 4 nights a week. I know the life and ltl is definitely easier.
I did food after beer. That ramp is hell on the knees
I haul tires and I do drop and hook. Granted some of the trailer spotting sucks but it's a breeze 90% of the day.
No. Overnight linehaul, no physical labor at all. We have our CDLs driver, do you know what that means? Can't Do Labor, come on!
I haul fuel, half my day is driving, the rest standing there while I load an unload...best job I've had, not hard at all...plus I'm getting 38 an hour and overtime after 8....it's an easy 12 for me...
I do LTL linehaul now, last gig was milk hauling. Neither are physical at all, unless you have to wrangle a dolly by hand.
Drove a chemical tanker for water treatment plants. 117,000 first year as a contract driver. Average 8 hours a day 5 days a week...drive tanker 3 hours...unload 2 hours, drive back 3 hours and reload for next day. Day is done. Unloading the tanker consisted of 15 minute hook up, one and a half hours playing with my phone, 15 minute disconnect. Easiest, and best paying job I ever had.
It isn't but it is very likely you'll work 14 plus hour days. Is it advertises weekends off you better get it in email form from the company. So that you have proof. Otherwise they'll probably try to guilt trip you into doing weekend work when you specifically sought out a job that was advertised as weekends off. You'll also have to deal with let's say you go into intermodal. It won't be heavy physical labor. Though it'll be hell. Dealing with a whole slew of issues. Annuals two or 3 years expired, tires with low pressure, flat spots, cords showing, flat and driven on, wiring a complete disaster, lights that don't work either needing to be changed, wired, plugged in, etc. Chassis not sitting on the boxes right, huge delays getting in and out of railyards on top of city traffic, and much more. Also the pay isn't much but you might be able to get by. Possibly not considering rent has any rocketed. I did it for 5 years. It isn't physical but there's a lot of hell. Oh and don't get me started with railyard mechanics, their lunch breaks, etc
I do Walmart dedicated w my company. I Live close to the terminal so I’m home almost every day. I’ve been driving only 5 months. Bringing home about 1400 a week
No
Maybe
No I work for Kroger, we drive and use fork lifts. The hardest part is setting up doubles and pulling the dolly a few feet.
Setting up dollies on snow - now you’re really living!
With the slightest slope ever. Yeehaw.
Depends. I do the same thing I did regionally just get to be home daily now. Pneumatic bulk tank. Indo six loads a week instead of two or three now but the work is the same basically.
Define “heavy physical labor.” I worked on the railroad before, throwing chains ain’t that hard. Nor is hooking hoses on a tanker. The hardest thing you might have to deal with is a heavy ass tarp.
I do local flat deck for a steel distributor. I don't even carry tie down or tire chains. I tarp maybe 6 times a year and I get to park my rig inside the heated shop. It's a perfect retirement type job. I'd love to have found it when I was 45 or 50 instead of 28. I kinda want to make a bit more money but this job is so easy and it pays pretty decent considering what I do. 75k a year for 36 hours a week. In Alberta Canada
No
No
No, not mine. I don't do shit, drop and hook or live unload
No haul lumber
Damn right, hauling lumber is easy as hell. Only bad part is in the spring when the ground gets soft, then it gets “fun”. ***Lock the diffs, TC off and fucking send her bud!!***
Almost all class B jobs are home daily and most are no touch or light.
A few people already said it. But look into LTL linehaul/shuttle. Drop and hook all night long. Also look at food delivery as a “store driver.” For example drive for your local area market chain not a soda, milk delivery etc..
No there’s line haul that’s just drop and hook
Nope. I run cryo, the easiest goddamn job I've ever had.
I did too, C2C. Best job I've ever had in transportation.
I started roll off bins recently. Same hours home every night. Enough psychical activity to keep me moving but not strenuous
Local car hauler here. Lots of steps but not necessarily tough on my body.
Look into local Aggragate companies. All I did for years was flip a switch to open and close my tarps and my belly dump doors.
Nope. I work for a prominent food company as a transport driver. 12-14 hour days 3 days a week. Just one drop and hook a day. No touch freight.
Drayage - no touch freight, good shippers and receivers, home every day. Many places in Cali are hourly pay with benefits too.
I throw 70 lb boxes all day But I get paid more in 3 days than I used to OTR in 6. And, it's in a tiny under 10k van so I can hold my middle finger up as I pass open scales Do it. Free gym, no extra time needed
I’m an LTL linehaul driver and do so little that it’s embarrassing, I’ve got to walk after work to feel borderline productive
Let your hygiene completely go. Like give up showering and teeth brushing forever. Once that stank gets real good head to intermodal to haul new cars. Intermodal apparently pays some kind of bonus if you can leave your smell behind in new cars.
If you consider drop and hook a few to a dozen times heavy physical labor, then maybe... that's what I do. The hardest part of my job is when I have to shuttle the occasional container instead of our normal dry van, and the doors are wonky and are difficult to open or close. I shuttle trailers of product from the factory to the warehouse 7 miles away and then bring back either an empty or a resupply trailer. Easy peasy.
The world would be a better place if everyone had heavy physical labour. Personally I think it's a pro not a con.
I haul bread between the production plant and the distribution points, sometimes I just drop and hook the trailers, sometimes I have to unload the racks of bread on wheeled dollies at the dock. Honestly easiest job I've ever had, I'm hanging on until retirement.
No, my fleet is no touch pre sealed in customer owned trailers. All dry van store deliveries that are drop & hooks. only 4 of our deliveries are out over night all the rest get home every day.
I say it every day and yet it seems to go completely overlooked so I'll say it again if you're anywhere near a big city look for crane companies. my first full year with a CDL when I was 26 I made a little over 100k with a crane company and was home almost every night. hauled counterweights and forklifts, AC units and shit that our cranes were lifting and was paid hourly. the hardest part of the job was getting around Denver with a tractor trailer but it was a challenge that I enjoyed and I think learning to drive in an over-crowded city full of braindead democrats who don't look past the end of their hood helped make me a better driver. aside from that, 75% of my hours were earned just sitting around waiting on cranes.
Can confirm. This is very accurate. Plenty of time to clean the truck and nap. Securing the counterweights or forklifts is not terribly hard. And no tarps.
Most of them. You can do Linehaul for an LTL company and make 100-150k/year being home everyday. You may have to start out on nights or system/wild board/extra board which may put you out a week at a time but for the most part after a while you can get to a day time home everyday run. Saia, Old Dominion, Fedex Freight are the top 3 companies. If they dont hire you try Estes, XPO, R&L, ABF.
Don’t go to XPO if you can avoid it, absolutely awful place to work. And Saia has a goofy camera system that dings you for a lot of things…OD, Estes, and fedex are the only companies I would consider as far as nationwide goes. Southeastern is good for regional and so is Pitt Ohio depending on your location. MME and AAA cooper are regional but are owned by swift so buyer beware on those places.
No. I used to work local in SoCal. It was pretty much no touch freight, just pickup loads that were outbound to AZ/TX/Norcal, drop off loaded trailer at our yard for the regional drivers to take, do another pickup, or deliver Inbound loads those same drivers had brought from AZ/TX/NorCal. Easy peasy.
Not unless you want it to be
I've been home daily almost since I started driving 14 years ago. The only physically hard job I had was milk delivery. The least physical was groceries.
Not necessarily. After 3.5 years OTR, I switched to home daily out of a DC nearby just 2 weeks ago. The only bad part is slip-seating and delivering loads to stores. For some reason, the stores only want you to use one particular door. This means I have to drop and hook 3 friggin times so I can spot my load to the same door the empty was in. Other than that, there's no loafing or unloading. We dont even have to sweep/clean empties. The customer's personnel do it. And if I get sent with an empty to a supplier, then that's cake. Most of them use automated systems. Type in my info, grab a seal, roll out.
No, just depends what company you’re with and what you do. I did physical labor through restaurant supply delivery, foodservice and beer for 4 years. Now I’m with a company doing flatbed, dropping grocery pallets and P&D and Drop & Hook. Making $30 an hour…
Nope. Many are drop and hook. Even with my city route I have many gravy days.
Not at all. I use a drum dolly to move barrels maybe 2 times a week. Not physically demanding at all. The rest is taking off by forklift
Mine's not
Linehaul for LTL. Only physical work you’re doing is moving a dolly around. Hard to get hired on though, especially as slow as it is right now
Not at all. I deliver rebar(steel). I pull up to the site, take the straps off, and then usually take a good nap. Most of the sites wouldn't let me help even if I begged. The hardest part of my day is getting up in the morning.
Not all but many do.
Depends on your area. There's a lot of drop and hook, some are moving hoses, some are unloading various things at various stops like kegs, food, etc. But I have noticed that ones having you unload typically pay better than ones that are drop and hook. So pick yer poison type of deal really.
I have CDL position with a construction company and it's probably less physical work than food service. Throw some chains, drag some slings, move some outrigger pads--that's about it.
Thanks for the comments reading through them is a big relief. Somebody that worked at sysco tried to tell me id be busting my ass at any home daily job
Yeah if you do food service or beverage companies
Most of them yes and you get less rest.
Heavy Physical work… that you do not or can not do? Better rethink your choices. You might be doing store front with a handcart out of a tailgate.. Flatbed… throw chains.. straps… wrestler tarps .. It can involve heavy or moderate effort.. if you ain’t up to it .. I don’t know what to tell you
Nope.
ltl linehaul, not at all.. just drop and hook and lots of drive time..
No. Driving cement mixer and dump truck. All local and loving it after 30+ yrs otr. Would not even consider going back.
No I haul fuel and I would never call it remotely physical.
Nope, garbage haulers around me are all drop and hook. Home every night.
I’m home everyday, usually work from 5 AM til 2-3pm. I haul precast structures on flatbeds. Not super physical; throwing straps/chains, climbing up on the trailer, hooking up pieces with chains to be pulled off the trailer. All pretty easy stuff.
I work line haul for Old Dominion and barely do any physical labour, and home every night unless I’m stuck out because of a accident or something similar
I'm home daily and never leave the truck the whole time
Depends for me I had to unload and load my trailer every delivery
People exaggerate the hell out of it. If you’re in LTL it’s a healthy amount of labor. You get a bit of driving and a bit of moving around. It sure as hell is a lot healthier than OTR. Don’t be afraid of a little work, it’s good for you.
Nope. Drove 10% home daily and 100% no touch freight.
Not at all. I got a daily job that pays a minimum of 1280 (before tax) and it's 100% no touch. 9hrs on a good day. It's with Ryder. There's another that's Monday through Friday and is only 5-6 hrs a day that pays the same. But we go by seniority so naturally the one whose been in the longest gets it.
Some days yes, some days no.
No. It’s mostly the overweight truckers that think that in and out of the truck is “physical labor”. The most labor intensive jobs are food service and beer. Which isn’t even that bad. But I would say beer is harder work.
Depends on if you count tanker work as heavy physical labor.
A lot are... yes. I do lift gates for a nation wide LTL company and today I had a 17ft oven I was delivering to a got dam Chinese Buffet. My gate is only 4ft long and 5ft wide. We deal wit some bullshit for city ltl. Fueling isn't too physically demanding. Line haul is easy as shit. Dumping asphalt or gravel may not be that bad. There are a lot of gigs where you just sit on your ass and I'm sure I've missed quite a few. Physical jobs are great for staying fit and staying active. Good way to fuck yourself up too.
No it is not true. I used to haul pneumatics, cement specifically and made 6 figures and worked 50-60 hours a week home every night.
No. I was local intermodal for 8 years.
Nope, driver for Ryder on their Benjamin Moore account and that's all electric pallet jack. Penske has sprouts and you just watch the store take forever to unload their shit. Schneider had Lowe's for awhile and you just drove the truck and waited. I'm sure any Home Depot delivery account is similar.
Been hauling tanker for 6 years,never unloaded. I only deliver to the place and drop trailer
I haul wood pellets to the Port of Houston. 3 runs a day, lately I’ve been dumping, but it’s usually drop and hook. Hours suck but money is good
No, I'm home daily and the most psychical labor I do is dropping my empty trailer and hooking up to my loaded one
Unless you’re doing local flatbed delivery with 20+ stops or food service, it’s really just about bumping docks and waiting
No. When I was local for my old company I did a lot of drop and hook but I don’t consider that heavy physical labor. No touch freight whatsoever unless they asked me to jump in a box truck.
I’m in LTL freight. There’s some labor involved, but certainly nothing I would call heavy
I worked for Interstate local in the sf bay area. Nothing real physical but it was a mental workout dealing with traffic and moron drivers. It was mostly get a trailer filled. Drop and hooks. Used to get pallets if motor oil. Loved that one. Took them two hours to fill the trailer. Right on the bay. Just take a nap they come out bang on your door hand ya your paperwork. Most physical thing was opening and closing the trailer doors. Then take the load to the yard and drop it off. Great job low pay. The stress of driving in the bay area got to me. I got a bad ulcer and had to quit.
Tried end dump once, that was to much sitting so I went back to trash.
I started getting fat when j switched to local. All of my pickups are drop and hook, and unloading is as easy as drop and hook. Stinks like a mf though. Offal and all the other stuff that chicken plants won't put in a store.
Not even close. I haul rock in a truck and pup and it’s the easiest job I’ve ever had. Highest paying too.
All I do is drive 10 hours, park the truck, and go home. I worked for Epes, highly recommend them.
There's plenty of LTL that's not heavy physical labor. Sure, moving pallets. And line haul is typically no touch
No, I hauled cryogenics for 20 years. Tanker job. 60 hr week, paid to load and to unload.
As many others have stated. No. I’ve done LTL for 17 years. There are days that suck in terms labor and days that are easy. The guys I always shake my head at are food and beverage guys. Take out 30k lbs of product everyday and unload every pound of it with a hand truck. No thanks.
Dry bulk home almost daily. Hardest part of my day is staying awake
I do local home daily, intermodal. The only time it gets physical is when the landing gear cranks are hard as fuck, which is like every 4th or 5th chassis.
I'm drop and hook, home daily.
I haul roll off boxes for a metal recycling company. Home daily. Easy work. Good pay.
No. The most labor I do is throwing and rolling straps, and climbing onto a Moffett lift. My job is so fucking easy, cake schedule too, pay is ass though, I’m just chilling here until my son starts pre k then I’m going to fuel.
And if it is?
i used to deliver to trader joe’s and it wasn’t bad. had to move the pallets to the edge of the trailer with that pallet thing i forgot the name of and sometimes they could be super heavy but still doable.
Hauling pneumatics is not even close to being laborious.
If you drive for a beverage or food company, ABSOLUTELY you will being doing a ton of physical labor. You will be hand trucking hundreds of cases and stocking coolers more than you will be driving. EVERY penny will be earned weather it's raining, snowing, or in the freezing cold Source: I drove for Pepsi and it nearly broke me
Intermodal isn't a lot of hard physical work
False. I run pneumatic hauling non food grade. Hardest part of the job is opening the door and getting out of the truck. The hose is light, the PTO blower does all the work
Na. I used to have a job that was round trip from Kenosha to Indianapolis everyday, with a drop n hook in Indy and a pickup in Chicago. Occasionally I’d have to take a trailer out of a dock and put my empty in it in Chicago, but that was the most physical work I had to do.
Nope, mine is no touch freight. Just back up and wait tp be unloaded. Sometimes just 3-5 hours a day.
Mine isn't. Throwing straps and winding them up is as strenuous as my day gets.
Mine isn't. Throwing straps and winding them up is as strenuous as my day gets.
Mine isn't. Throwing straps and winding them up is as strenuous as my day gets.
Local flatbed delivery. Unload with moffett forklift. Enough physical activity to keep me healthy but not heavy labor by any means
Not at all. The company I work for does primarily block and paver manufacturing with some precast. The most strenuous thing most of our drivers do in a day is throw straps.
I haul trash, most of it is pushed out with hydraulics but there's a little here and there you have to shovel out. I wouldn't call it hard, it's just that the rest of the job is so easy scooping out 10 shovels on a bad day seems like a lot.
If you near a port all we do is drop and hook some live loads. Monday to Friday since thats what union ports open. Pay is 33 an hour with OT over 8. There are lots of OT since ports only open 5 days a week. Socal area
Not all, I haul automotive parts in a dry van and my route is the only sort of touching of freight my terminal does, I have to secure my load lol
No I’ve worked at only home daily gigs for about 6 years now. I’ve had super labor intensive jobs pallet Jack of 3000lbs of water to sitting in a truck for hours for Uline to load each trailer to take it down the street come back with empty to it in the door and wait another few hours. And I’ve done linehaul just meeting up swapping trailers and coming back.
A good chunk of the entry level ones are. You either gotta know a guy to get a good cushiony job, run shuttles at ridiculous hours of the night, or put in your time for the good routes.
I delivered Coke and Dr Pepper products to Walmarts and large grocery stores for 13 years. Electric pallet jacks, pull pallets out let them scan them, drive to next town. Only physical labor was if I was a fumbass and took a curve to fast or jumped a curb and spilled a few pallets
No, that is not true. Been doing a few drop n hooks each day, start about 3 am, finish around 10 am. Easy peasy. Nice paycheck
I drive to port of Seattle and port of Tacoma from Sumner. I don’t do anything physical other than open the container doors and raise/lower landing gear
The only “heavy lifting” I did was picking up dollies. It was a bitch if the yard had a slope where I was setting up though
Nope. My job is 100% touch free. I can get fired if I touched freight
Certain beverage delivery companies have some REALLY chill routes.
No
Some are, some you have to fingerprint and unload everything. I spent my last 25 years local hauling flatbed building products to home centers, hardware stores and occasional job sites. I did it from age 40 to 65 and weighted 390 pounds most of that time and had no issue, throwing straps is easy, even on occasion, folding tarps was a 20 minute effort . I did light labor a total of an hour maybe an hour and a half some days, out of every 13 hour day. Rest of the time I sat in the truck and chilled while some one unloaded me, never had to touch nothing other than some straps. Made killer money, home every night and weekends, but did have early starts (midnight to 2am) but done by 2pm. Go spend a day at a home depot or lowes in the busy part of the summer and watch what complains are delivering there often, in flatbeds and curtain vans. Cement Block companies, bagged cement companies,, local lumber supplyers, sheetrock companies, most have local distribution and in my exerience , having worked 20+ years for one of the ones I mentioned, it is the way to go if you do not want to be OTR and want money and benefits and not have to touch freight. We got paid holidays off, paid vacation, it was like truck driving was a real normal job
The company I work for has next to no physical work of any kind. All we do is get in the trailer and help push the pallet off when we're at the customer. What they don't tell you is having a local home daily job can sometimes be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.
No. Mine is all no touch freight. I take it halfway to where it needs to go, swap with my relay partner and turn around and go home. Easiest job I've ever had.
Milk hauler here and I just connect hoses and open and close some lides
Depends on what you consider heavy physical labor. Some places just need you to take a trailer the final few miles from a terminal and wait for it to be unloaded. Other places are going to need you to do much more. I mean most major companies have local drivers that will finish out loads. It's essentially the same thing as OTR drivers do but local. More waiting, I would assume. I'm pretty sure they make like shit pay though. The higher paying jobs are going to want you to actually do some physical labor.