Has anyone working in the LTL business gotten a line haul postion right out of cdl school without having to do the usual local pick up & delivery first for awhile?
Jamspeed, don't hate me, but I want to stay anonymous here. I can tell you the reason I got linehaul right off the bat was that because of the location of the yard, they can't find as many drivers as they want. They also have a lot of regional OTR drivers, but the OTR guys don't want the linehaul. Too boring for them.
Going straight into line-haul out of school is only cheating yourself. Yes you will make more money but there will come a point where you will eventually do city work and you won't know how to back your trailer up. Do city p&d first and master the fundamentals of driving!
Night-time line-haul is much more dangerous than daytime OTR. Statistically you have 4x the chance of dying at night than in the day. Not being used to the schedule/sleepiness at the wheel and inexperience is a big killer. Line-haul generally doesn't let you stop for big naps- that'll cost you your job quick- at least here.
When I worked for Conway there were 4-5 guys going through the apprenticeship program that worked linehaul as a flexboard drivers. Some did ok and others had a very rough time in real world situations. Each linehaul job is different though, some jobs your just running trailers from yard to yard. Other jobs your hooking sets of doubles, breaking freight and re-hooking and going home.
I think it's best to have some OTR experience before getting into local/LTL jobs. Most new drivers I have seen starting local/linehaul get discouraged very easy and quit because they haven't polished their basic driving skills.
New driver straight to line haul?
I can tell you the reason I got linehaul right off the bat was that because of the location of the yard, they can't find as many drivers as they want. They also have a lot of regional OTR drivers, but the OTR guys don't want the linehaul. Too boring for them.
