Texas Dedicated
 

[quote="nobotox I am considering moving to Midland-odessa and signing up for the tex dedicated. How long a waiting list they got for that??[/quote]

I don't know how long the list is. We just added 3 drivers this week. We run mostly Houston to Midland/Odessa and back and most of our drivers live in that path or close to the sheetrock plants in Sweetwater. If you are interested in joining us my best advise is to stop into Joplin and introduce yourself to Dave Price. He's our coordinator. Dave, Dale and Rick are in the middle of the dispatch floor. I will say this...it's not easy dealing with pipe loads out of Houston and the looonnnnng wait times. I was at a shipper yesterday for 9.5 hours and had to be 500 miles away by the next morning. :shock:

Re: Texas Dedicated
 

And of course TMC rescheduled your delivery time,because you went on break,right?

Re: Texas Dedicated
 

Not. I got my 10hr break at the shipper and then I got to Midland this am and now I am getting a real 10 break at the TA in Sweetwater. Atleast it looks legal.

3 Weeks
 

Well I got a whole 3 weeks under my belt, been running around like a chicken w/ my head cut off :lol: Went to New York for the first time ever hahahahahah :D . If a dedicated driver didnt pass me on the side of the road while I was looking for directions into the LaFarge plant I would probably still be there. What a place to send a Newbie. :lol: My ditchpaster (sic) said "gotta break you in some time", it was all good any how. :D Speaking of Dedicated Accounts is there some kind of list anybody might have that people could look at and see whats available, I know alot of NC drivers are dedicated to the Griffin Pipe out of Lynchburg VA. Might consider it after some time goes by getting experience as a line hauler.

Yall (thats NC talk for "you all") drive safe, I tell ya its a 4 wheeler conspiracy, a 4 wheeler conpiracy :wink:

Re: 3 Weeks
 

Welcome to the northeast. Yes, the way in and out of Buchanan is quite exciting. I hope that you went down through Tarrytown to head home; that way you can pretty much tackle anything short of NYC.

Well, I'm stuck here in Tulsa. I had a run from LA, CA area to Tulsa, even taking my time I'm more than a day early. At least I will get to sit at the Flying J and get my 34 hours reset, what joy.

I had a delivery in Huntington Park, CA. I was there during rush hour traffic, it wasn't so bad. I was coming down 395 to CA 14 and because time was so short , I had 30 minutes to play with, I was going to stop at the first truck stop I came to. I never did find one, so I kept going I arrived at the consignee with minutes to spare.

I had a tentative pick up in Rancho Cucamonga so I headed for the Ontario, East TA truck stop, before I drove 2 miles I was offered another run, Norwalk, CA to Tulsa, OK run. I was less than 5 miles from the pick up address so I drove over there to check it out, I thought I would still have to go to Ontario to spend the night. When I got there everything was shut down, it was about 2000 hrs. by that time. They had docks, so I bumped one and spent the night.

I wish I could have spent more time there. Years ago I was stationed at Camp Pendelton, El Toro and the Helicopter Station in Tustin. I spent alot of time in the area, mostly just south of there. I lived in Santa Ana and Fountain Valley. I spent a lot of time at the beaches.

Re: 3 Weeks
 

Yup went through Tarrytown and Sleepyhollow (thats where the dedicated driver found me).
Never seen so many 9 A's in all my driving career. :shock:


Gotta ask a ?. If a driver can, at the most do 5 drops a week, (which I think is very hard to do and drive safely at the same time if there 5/600 mile runs (not considering logs being creative, but just the fact of falling asleep at the wheel), I only can see a driver making at the most $650 unless he gets up to 26/28/30 %. So, if you only drop 4 times a week at lets say 28% thats only still going to be $750/800 a week. Where is my math wrong or what am I not seeing? Why would I want to run like crazy and do 5 drops a week and possibly fall a sleep at the wheel driving with creative logs? To me it seems like I would be able to find a local job which might pay the same as 23% and be home every night. I guess what saying is I dont think a driver is going to be able to run legal and make $.
Can a driver run legal and make $850/1000 like I have heard?

Re: 3 Weeks
 

I'm Long Haul, so it isn't exactly the same. I have longer runs that pay more, but I have less runs. Without doing any math, just my impression, I would think it equals out. Shorter, but more runs, vs. longer, higher paying runs, but fewer runs. I jumped up to 29% my first snapshot. I missed 30% by three points. I had -5 points for not turning in my paperwork fast enough, so it was my own fault. I am grossing over $1,000.00 per week. My highest so far was over $1,500.00. Some weeks are a little high others a little low, it averages over $1,000.00. I am a brand new driver, I have little more time in my truck than you. I am living proof that these claims are possible.

"The majority were fresh out of school drivers, easy to pick out in a crowd with their deer in the head light stare. Out of the 75, 25 of us were experienced 50 were no experience. "

I was in this same class. I didn't have a "deer in the head light stare."

"I instantly had flash backs of MCRD San Diego."

Here's your problem, you went to MCRD, San Diego, Not Paris Island, SC! :D Is it true that they issue sunglasses to the Hollywood Marines? :D All we were issued were sand fleas.

"I have been in my truck for 7 weeks now. I have put close to 20k on it. My YTD gross for loads is $5071. That is a little over $700 a week gross. "

I grossed over $819.00 per week in my first month, even with my "deer in the head light stare."

Your experiences are not my experiences, I am extremely happy with TMC and can recommend them to anyone without reservations. Is it a perfect company, no. But the good far outweighs the bad. I have found the claimes by TMC and those on flatbed fred's website, so far, to be true. I really don't expect my opinion to change as time goes on.

Re: 3 Weeks
 

Wait until you get your first snapshot to see where they bump you up to. After that keep track of your loads and pay and paid miles. If you compare percentage and mileage and find that one pays better than the other then you can switch twice a year. Alot of percentage pay depends on you and how you work.

I personally can not get percentage because Texas Dedicated doesn't offer it, but I have been keeping track of what loads pay because I want to buy my own. Most times short runs pay better per mile than longer runs but you make more on longe runs because of more miles and less time to load/unload. Each area of the country is going to pay different and have different kinds of runs. Ie...Texas has alot of short runs that pay $2/mile but they are 2-300 miles. The desert SW has a lot of low paying loads like copper at 96cpm. Florida has very few loads and they don't pay worth a darn. The general rule is the worse the weather the better the pay. So do you run the NE for percentage or the sunshine states for mileage? That's your choice.

Ps. I make $1000 a week and not always legally. My truck grossed $15,200 for march and $10,400 so far this month.