Dock to driver

Dayton Freight has a big terminal in Indy, so there might be some decent opportunities there whereas some of the smaller terminals (like mine) take quite a while to run people through the process, and it's only 1 guy at a time. So it could take years at my place. But Indy is 5 times bigger. Old Dominion is a much larger company, so there may be more opportunities, but regardless of where you go they'll have you pay your dues on the dock for quite some time to make sure you're a good worker in general before training you as a driver.

I could look into our exact qualifications, but I think you need 6 months on the dock at Dayton before the process begins. Then they'll have you put in a ton of hours as a yard spotter so you'll get really good at backing before you ever hit the street.

Dayton pays city drivers OT after 40, and Saia is after 45. Old Dominion isn't until 60, but you're right about them paying more. So 50-hour week pays the same at Dayton and OD. I'm not sure how they pay dock workers, but LTL dock work in general pays extremely well compared to running a forklift in a warehouse.

You can apply for Dayton at https://www.hrapply.com/daytonfreight/setup.app I think you need to go to the OD terminal to apply there. Not sure about Saia. Good luck!

 

a former co-student i went to trucking school with, went to ODFL, worked the docks for a while, been with them now for over 30 years.

 

try getting the yard dog job, backing in all day, great practice for ya, down the road, you`ll do great.

 

Saia is ot after 45. Depending on your region, the pay is different. We have one document worker here in Lexington that is doing it.
The legnth of time for the dock to driverify program depends on your experience and the school. For Instance saia has a school terminal at Cincinnati and it's a 5 week program. They than do fill in routes until your TM believes you can handle it.

 

If your end game is driver, I would look into how much the drivers make and plan accordingly. Because you should only be on the dock a year or until you are 21.

 

They also treat us disturbingly well.

Our dock workers work basically all hours except around 11am to 5pm. Evening loads outbound trailers and overnight/morning works the inbound freight. Indy is a little more intense in the wee hours because it is a breakbulk, or hub-type of terminal, sorting freight all night to move all throughout the system.

Dayton has the same deal, including non-CDL and Class B trucks, but it isn't required to go that route. Some go straight to Class A.

 

1 out of 3 companies will have some form of dock to driver program. Some companies are desperate enough to "press" their dock crew to get a CDL.

If you get hired on as dock for one of these companies, it is NOT a bad deal to work the dock for a few months.

I recently got roped into dock as a 12 year driver. I have very limited experience to fall back on to get my trailer loaded in time. Needless to say, my nickname is Vlad... cause I impale freight