Someone explain "Dedicated" please
 

I thought that dedicated meant that you go to the same places over and over. I thought you might pick up a load in Ohio and drive to Florida and pick up something else in Florida and drive back to Ohio and then you repeat this over and over.

I am on a dedicated account but I drive to several hundred different locations across Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois. I am always going someplace different every two to three days.

Are there companies where you drive to the exact same places from state to state instead of just going to different places all of the time??

There are all sort of dedicated runs.

Here are some of the variations:
Same shipper/same reciever
Same shipper/different recievers
Same shipping customers pick up different warehouses/same or different recievers
Different shippers hauling to same reciever

Also sometimes you may deadhead back, pick up a back haul to the shipper, or work your way back doing general freight.

Many trucking companies have this type of run, but they may also have any and all of the above too. Your best bet to get on to this type of run is to go to work for the shipper/factory directly. Companies like Ashley Furniture, Kraft Foods, McClane Food Service, Autozone as a few examples. Many of these companies though you need anywhere from 1-3 years of T/T experience before they will really talk to you.

What kind of dedicated are you on, most dedicated is say. You are on a sears dedicated account. All that means is 98% of the time you are only going to haul sears loads. But you could haul to every sears in the state of ohio someday. I know that is how most of the bigger companys do it.

Thanks for responding, I am on the Schneider Walmart (and Sams Club) dedicated account.
I drive to Walmarts all over Ohio,Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and even New York!!

Yup... you're on a single customer dedicated. I ran Target dedicated for Swift for awhile... I worked out of one particular distribution center, but could service any of the hundreds of stores that got freight in a three state region from my DC.

I ran Walmart Dedicated for Swift in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Northern & Central California. I loved the driving, was not too pleased with the DM's and some of the cramped backhauls that I got. You're gonna have a trade off no matter what.

If you're gonna do it, talk with other dedicated drivers before you make any move and see how what they have to say!