Question:
i deliver beer, been doing it for a year and a half on a 40' sideloading trailer. recently i got a call from a hunt recruiter and they were looking for a dedicated regional driver for circuit city stores. i told them my experience and then he asked me how long of a trailer i was pulling. when i told him he pretty much said have a nice day. he said they need a driver with box van experience. im not really looking to switch jobs right now but was kinda surprised when i didn't meet the quals. i really dont do too much freeway driving but alot of city driving and my thought is that driving 50 miles in the city is alot tougher than 500 miles of highway driving . i actually got this beer thing down pretty good, when i first started i was really hating it but now 5-700 cases a day is pretty easy for me.

Answer:
Ok... Is there a question? Just keep doing what you like doing. There is a difference from local driver to OTR driver though. Local is the same places same streets everyday doing basically the same thing with a routine. Driving OTR in one day you may experience hot weather, rainy weather, snow, and ice in the same trip. I don't know many city's that have that type of climate. OTR you will go from flat land to climbing 10,000ft mountains. OTR you must know how to navigate through every type of highway and city there is out there. Plus if you went with JB Hunt you would have to be docking 53ft dry van in tight spots which I think is worse than just pulling in and out with your lil 40'. I have done local and OTR and I will say local is easier. Plus you should stay away from JB if you want a routine schedule and a life. Stay with what you know how to do and good luck.
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What he sed
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Hmmmn... I've done local in Chicago and challenge your statement.
OTR is a mindless routine that folks can be trained for in a very short time.
Local can take longer.
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JB Hunt turned you down? and you're upset!?! Man, take it as a compliment!
p.s. please tell them to stop calling me!

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OTR is just a completely different job and (here it comes) "lifestyle".
You may know how to operate the equipment, and could handle a 53 and everything else just fine, but you're not a proven "dweller".
He's thinking:
What if you don't like being away from home?
What if you don't like living in the truck?
What if you get frustrated and cranky about being paid mieage instead of hourly?
What if your marriage or relationship suffers....
What if you decide it's not fair to the kids to abandon them while you travel.....
The J.B recruiter knew what he was doing. You may be the most talented truck handler they could possibly hire, but you represent too many "unknowns", having never lived on the road in a plastic box. He'd rather hire someone who's already lived the OTR life and knows first hand what it's about. Less risk they'll change their mind. It has nothing to do with your skill, value or experience at operating the equipment.
Consider it a blessing. Surely you're making much more per hour than the $1,000 per week JB would have paid you for 70-90 hours?

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im wasn't upset but more surprised that i wasn't qualed. after all werner wanted to hire me straight out of school. like i said above im not really looking to make a move right now, $1000 a week would be nice though, im only making a little over $800. if i am ever to go otr a dedicated regional run would be the way i would go. the only thing that really concerns me about otr driving is the snow.

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Snow isn't much different than rain. Ice is what should worry you. When that happens just park it.
Shuffler has a handle on recruiting. That's what he does. But he's a tad bit wrong in what the recruiter was thinking. That's because the recruiter wasn't thinking. He was simply following guidelines JBH told him to go by.
As far as making $1000 a week. JBH makes it sound good but it's mostly BS. You wouldn't make anymore with them than you are now and probably less.

Answer:
Stuffs Sed

I moved to JBH for a bit and only a little bit. They promised me $850.00 weekly. + drop pay $25.00 .and $8.00 each after 1st drop.
Most I made in 3 months was $807.00 (1 Week) before tax´s and that was because they owed me $ 50.00 for hotel.. Average pay during that time was aprox. $ 525.00 with 30+ yrs experience.. and begging for more miles.
I quit um and am back to ex employer where i can make that much in 2 days . Kinda got tired of JBH trimming my hair also. for drug tests .. especialy since I have no record of drugs civil nor on driving record.
I found nothing special or no reason to stay with JBH .. And only alot of reasons to call myself a dipchit for even trying it... Good Luck...
Answer:

I challenge your statement as well I guess it depends of what type of local driving your talking about. I have done construction and LTL in the Fresno, CA area. Local was easy to me I usually got up at 5am worked until 6-7 pm, Mon-Fri, and I was home every night. I got to have lil lunch. I know my first day LTL with Oak Harbor was like this. Them: "You know how to drive?" Me: "Yea" Them: "You know how to read a map?" Me: "Yea" Them: "Then start delivering". They showed me what they needed signed and I started delivering. I usually filled up at the same spot everyday and I knew the streets where I was going most of the time, it became a routine after a week. OTR was much more challenging for me and still is, and there is not as much as a routine for me anyways, everyday is different by a lot.
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The only diference is time and distance between deliveries.


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The only other difference is Time, Distance, Terrain, Weather, Schedule, Paperwork, Traffic, Communication, Scales, Routine, Time at home, Living in a truck vs. Living at home, Load types, Pay, Regular route vs. Irregular route, being properly trained vs. being improperly trained, logs vs. no logs.
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Maybe Rabelman and Stuffs will learn something from that......
.http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sect...onusWeek.php#tabs

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I wasn't in that discussion but since you brought it up the answer is NO, Didn't learn a thing from it.
I will say running local as I'm doing now is alot more grueling than OTR. It requires things are done in a certain time frame where as OTR is just mindless steering wheel holding until you get where your going. After a couple years on the road there's almost nothing new to see, few new roads to drive and the same old mundane stuff day in and day out. There's nothing hard about it. If there was you wouldn't see the hundreds of flat lazy sloppy fools that are out there using it as an escape from life. Many of the people who drive trucks wouldn't migrate to a job that is hard. They look for the easy way out. That's why you don't see them running local. Local you have to actually work and are required to keep a schedule that's by far tighter than OTR.
That sums it up very well.
The biggest difference in the mind set of OTR drivers and local drivers is where they call home and where they choose to spend the majority of their life.

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your absolutely right about local drivers having to work their A$$ off and be on time and on schedule, when i lost my last job and they offered to send me to a vocational school i thought to myself truck driving should be easy money. i thought it was all about backing up to a dock and waiting to be unloaded. its hard for me believe that 500 miles of highway driving is tougher than manuevering around in downtown during lunch hour.