how "long" is long haul ?
 

how "long" is long haul ?

That depends on the company you drive for - for some a long haul is 400 miles, while for others it's 1,500+.

I don't know that there is a rule of thumb, but I would say anything over 700 miles could be considered long haul by some companies. I consider long haul coast to coast, but that is just me. With most carriers you basically have regional and long haul drivers. I would think most regional drivers would travel out no more than 500-700 miles. Anything beyond a region would be considered long haul. I would think that any load which takes more than a day to run would be considered long haul.

In my opinion, anything outside of Local is longhaul. What we call Intrastate and even Regional is still long haul, although not as radical as Coast to Coast.

Even an Intrastate driver can log one hellava lot of miles in a week. My cousin runs Upper Michigan to Detroit steel runs, and is out all week doing it. He puts in as many miles as me running from N.Michigan to L.A. California in a week...and he never leaves Michigan.

So...is he a long-haul driver?

I think any Driver that is out past Local is technically doing long-haul.
....anyway....size doesn't matter. :lol:

Well at Werner it meant 250-300 mile trips on the East Coast . :wink:

I would say anything over 550 miles would be considered long-haul. 550 is the practical limit of what you can do in a day cab.

Here in Reno we have a line run half way to Salt Lake City. If a Driver does Carlin turns every night he will have run ~2640 miles by the end of the work week.

If you just want to drive it is considered one of the best runs in CWX. Some guys hate the monotony versus bouncing around Northern CA and working the dock.

My understanding is that "long haul" doesn't really refer to how many miles you drive in a week, but rather the number of miles you haul a "load" before dropping it or unloading it.

Many companies pay different mileage rates based on short haul, medium haul, and long haul, paying a higher rate for the shorter hauls to help average out the drivers' pay.

In these cases, I believe I usually see LONG haul starting at around 900 miles for the run.

But, I wouldn't argue with say... 700+ miles, or anything not ONE, but TWO "regions" away.

Big Jeep wrote:

Thanks, I needed a good laugh :lol: :lol:

My two cents. A long haul driver is based more on the accumulated time away from home. "In it for the long haul". Short trips, long trips and everything in between that adds up to weeks on the road between home time.

As far as a literal definition of a long haul, I consider anything that takes more than two days of driving to make a delivery a long haul. ie. 1200+ miles.

75% of truckload freight is under 500 miles
15% is 500 to 1000 miles
10% is over 1000 miles

Most of the long runs are being pulled by trains these days.

Shorthaul for me is 6-800 miles. Long haul is preetty much 1,000+ miles :wink: