Truckers Helper

[Road Warrier]

I have been wondering about this and thought I would ask here. I have no experience driving an 18 wheeler. My question is there anything out there called a truckers helper?

The description that I am thinking about is like riding along, helping unload and load trailers, and any other miscellaneous help that would be required as a helping hand.

 

[Cerberus]

If i'm getting the point of the question right here, have to say i think your thinking of lumpers. At alot of places you go, there are people that either you or your company will pay to unload the trailer. Never heard of anybody riding just to unload a trailer for you. Bottom line, if you have no desire to unload a trailer, then you have the option of hiring a lumper. Most of the time tho these places you go to have employees that will and do unload the truck. Its called a live unload.

 

[Road Warrier]

If i'm getting the point of the question right here, have to say i think your thinking of lumpers. At alot of places you go, there are people that either you or your company will pay to unload the trailer. Never heard of anybody riding just to unload a trailer for you. Bottom line, if you have no desire to unload a trailer, then you have the option of hiring a lumper. Most of the time tho these places you go to have employees that will and do unload the truck. Its called a live unload.

I also read about some drivers driving in teams. I guess that pretty much means both drive and no one just rides as a helper.

 

[Cerberus]

Like i said, never heard of somebody riding as just a helper. Team driving is two drivers, one usually sleeps while the other drives. Not bad if you totally trust the driving ability of your partner and you can sleep in a moving vehicle. Basically the truck will run 20 hrs a day and only stop for about 4. If thats how they still do it, not sure. Not even sure if there are any team drivers on here. Never really thought of it, they would be the ones to talk to to get the correct info about it.

 

[Duck]

Team driving sucks and is just a way that some fleets are trying to get more productivity out of each truck. The trucks get mileage added twice as fast so they're really only saving on other fixed costs like insurance, registration, permits, probably a bunch of other stuff. And they get to offer expedited service.

I've never been able to get any decent sleep in a moving truck though. I had a decent union LTL job and was forced to quit mainly because it sometimes required team runs with randomly selected co-drivers and after one guy with undiagnosed sleep apnea or narcolepsy or something flipped the rear wagon in the median, and another guy couldn't keep the damn truck off the rumble strips, I was never able to get ANY sleep in a truck. After a trip from Chicago to Los Angeles and back, with zero sleep, I figured out a way to run two log books to make it look to dispatch like I was using more hours than I really was, so I'd never have enough available hours to make a west coast run. The teamsters didn't let us use the 34 hr reset rule, so we were always running on recovered hours. I couldn't keep that log book scam going forever, so I eventually quit.

 

[Mike]

Only "helper" type job you are going to get is certain local delivery trucks (beverages, furniture, appliances, etc..)

In OTR driving, you are either a solo driver, or you are a team driver. The companies do not hire someone to ride along and help with the unloading.

 

[Road Warrier]

Team driving sucks and is just a way that some fleets are trying to get more productivity out of each truck. The trucks get mileage added twice as fast so they're really only saving on other fixed costs like insurance, registration, permits, probably a bunch of other stuff. And they get to offer expedited service.

I've never been able to get any decent sleep in a moving truck though. I had a decent union LTL job and was forced to quit mainly because it sometimes required team runs with randomly selected co-drivers and after one guy with undiagnosed sleep apnea or narcolepsy or something flipped the rear wagon in the median, and another guy couldn't keep the damn truck off the rumble strips, I was never able to get ANY sleep in a truck. After a trip from Chicago to Los Angeles and back, with zero sleep, I figured out a way to run two log books to make it look to dispatch like I was using more hours than I really was, so I'd never have enough available hours to make a west coast run. The teamsters didn't let us use the 34 hr reset rule, so we were always running on recovered hours. I couldn't keep that log book scam going forever, so I eventually quit.

I can understand that. I was riding along with a friend one time. This was in a vehicle. I know him dozed off for a second because the vehicle swerved off the road onto the shoulder.

 

[Rigjockey]

I have been wondering about this and thought I would ask here. I have no experience driving an 18 wheeler. My question is there anything out there called a truckers helper?

The description that I am thinking about is like riding along, helping unload and load trailers, and any other miscellaneous help that would be required as a helping hand.

Some places have driver helpers.That will not get you any seat time.You just simply help the driver unload and if the driver is a dog ****er you will do All the unloading.

 

[Cerberus]

Team driving sucks and is just a way that some fleets are trying to get more productivity out of each truck. The trucks get mileage added twice as fast so they're really only saving on other fixed costs like insurance, registration, permits, probably a bunch of other stuff. And they get to offer expedited service.

I've never been able to get any decent sleep in a moving truck though. I had a decent union LTL job and was forced to quit mainly because it sometimes required team runs with randomly selected co-drivers and after one guy with undiagnosed sleep apnea or narcolepsy or something flipped the rear wagon in the median, and another guy couldn't keep the damn truck off the rumble strips, I was never able to get ANY sleep in a truck. After a trip from Chicago to Los Angeles and back, with zero sleep, I figured out a way to run two log books to make it look to dispatch like I was using more hours than I really was, so I'd never have enough available hours to make a west coast run. The teamsters didn't let us use the 34 hr reset rule, so we were always running on recovered hours. I couldn't keep that log book scam going forever, so I eventually quit.

Well said Duck. With ya 100%, never could sleep in a moving vehicle myself. Figured if i was gonna die in a vehicle, at least i want to see it happen and not wake up in some gutter dead. Man i'd be so ****ed if i woke up dead because of somebody else.

Only "helper" type job you are going to get is certain local delivery trucks (beverages, furniture, appliances, etc..)

In OTR driving, you are either a solo driver, or you are a team driver. The companies do not hire someone to ride along and help with the unloading.

And thats why local delivery trucks are awesome. and that makes me awesome. lol. J/K with ya boss.

Some places have driver helpers.That will not get you any seat time.You just simply help the driver unload and if the driver is a dog ****er you will do All the unloading.

Really? Seriously? Never heard of this before. Do tell. Please share the wisdom on this.

 

[Racer X 69]

I figured out a way to run two log books to make it look to dispatch like I was using more hours than I really was, so I'd never have enough available hours to make a west coast run. . . . . . . . I couldn't keep that log book scam going forever, so I eventually quit.

And you would eventually hand the wrong logbook to the Revenue Ranger, and that would not play out well.

 

[Duck]

And you would eventually hand the wrong logbook to the Revenue Ranger, and that would not play out well.

Not really. The two log books were identical. And one of them never left my briefcase except when I was copying the day's log over, ... everything but the date. They never compared the logs to the pay records of where we'd actually been. They were two different departments. All the log department ever did was go over them doing the math checking the amount of time driven between point A and point B and stuff. So if I took a day or two off, I'd hand in logs for those days, from the previous month's cloned log, showing I'd burned up some hours on those days when I was actually sitting at home. The log book I actually ran with was 100% legit. I would simply throw the red copies of the off-duty days away. And I also ran 2 different recaps so I knew how many hours to tell a cop that I had, and how many hours Roadway thought I had.

Someone told me that log book falsifications are only illegal if you're doing it to conceal HOS violations. I'm not sure if that's true, but decided not to give a damn anyway because union LTL companies simply don't get audited very often.

I also used the dual log book to scam more time off. I couldn't schedule a day at home. Dispatch was forced, and if I needed to do something on a particular day, like a doctor's appointment or something, it would have to coincide with having "X" amount of tours of duty saved up. Dispatch would count so many tours of duty (approximately one day's worth of driving) and write in the log book that I took however many hours off (it was measured in hours. 32, 56, or 72).

By having two log books, and by getting different dispatchers to sign the log book and approve the time off, I always had a log book that looked like I had enough "tours of duty" for the time off I needed.

 

[Cerberus]

Sounds like you had a good system going there. Sad you had to figure out how to beat the system just to get time off.