Trucking in Hawaii - my experience

At the end of August I packed up and moved to the Big Island of Hawaii for a job I was offered. I went with a pretty open mind while knowing it was going to be very different than anything I was used to. I’m back on the mainland now due to a variety of circumstances ranging from feeling claustrophobic driving the same roads over and over on an island to the terms of employment we agreed to not being upheld on the employers side.

Trucking is still regulated by the PUC in Hawaii. Rates are supposed to be regulated but it’s my understanding they don’t audit carriers like they should so Hawaii does have its share of carriers with discount pricing, if you will. Companies are required to submit an inventory of equipment every year to the PUC. And like it was on the mainland before deregulation, a hearing is required before you’re granted authority and you have to have a sponsor on your side saying that additional trucks are needed.

Most of the time I pulled the aluminum end dump that is pictured. I hauled macadamia nuts to a sheller, macadamia nut shells from a big farm to another nut company who burned the shells for power, and two days a week I hauled cinder rock to a landscape company. I also hauled cattle in both a regular cattle trailer and in double deck containers that were loaded with calves for export to the mainland. I would work 10-14 hours a day, covering anywhere from 250-450 miles depending on what I was doing.

With everything coming in by boat there are many guys that make a living strictly hauling containers every day. We didn’t do much of that, and if we did it was for a direct customer and not Matson or Young Brothers.

There’s stuff I’m forgetting right now so if you have questions about living expenses and such just ask.

 

I enjoyed it as much as I could. It felt like I had less free time being home every night than I did trucking M-F with weekends off before I moved there.

Rent seemed to be anywhere from $900 for a small studio on up to a couple grand for a house. Food is expensive because it all comes from the mainland other than fish and the fruit grown on the island. A half gallon of milk was usually in the $6 range. I was sick once and a bottle of Tropicana OJ was almost $8. Gas seemed to hover around $4.10 a gallon.

The wages don’t really compensate for the high cost of living. I was making $20 an hour with overtime over 40 and that’s towards the upper end of driver pay. Some guys are only getting $13-15 and hour pulling cans out of the port. I’m not sure how they do it because I didn’t have any housing costs with my employer.

 

iPhone. Lol

 

McD’s was roughly the same price as here but they did have different stuff at breakfast like Spam, eggs, and rice in addition to the normal menu. I went to Burger King a couple times and they were higher than here, $10-12 a meal depending on what you get.

One thing I loved was that most gas stations offered a hot lunch special that was usually fresh and well prepared. And you can get fish and rice from the hot case at many places. I would usually spend about $8 at lunch and then eat dinner at the house when I got home.

 

It’s different. Personally I never experienced any of the racism towards white people that is talked about. I didn’t have any issues with the people there, it was a bunch of other stuff that basically piled up together.

And it’s basically a free for all when it comes to the trucks because there isn’t really any dot. I was running around at 100k on 5 axles and when I’d try to get stuff fixed it was pushed off because I had to work. The mentality there is that as long as it’s clean and polished nothing else matters.