What's a day in the life of a Team driver?

It depends on the team. My first partner showered maybe twice a week, and we swapped drivers quickly to get moving again. The second partner showered almost every day, and ticked me off sometimes, because the time you take to shower/eat/do laundry potentially cuts into your miles. Teams need to get there in a hurry. (safely) It's also hard to get into a solid driving schedule w someone who is running their 14 hrs out due to stops. Better to try to keep to a 12 driving schedule, in my opinion, to let your sleep cycle adjust. Its hard enough to sleep in a moving truck.

 

team driving is extremely difficult. You'll need to learn to adjust to sleeping in a moving vehicle, working odd hours and sharing a tiny space with another grown man. showers at the truck stop are 13 dollars a round. as a trainee you'll make about 50 bucks a day. you tell me; can you take a shower everyday?

 

Showers are FREE for fueling customers.

 

You have to really be compatible to team.Drivers put in ads on the companies billboard they are looking for a co driver and more times then not it does'nt work out.If I ever do decide to go back OTR my boyfriend and I are teaming.I know we'll get along,we've been together 8 months now and we have'nt had one fight or even a dissagreement because he knows im always right and what I say goes,lol.

 

That's gross. Teaming can be good in the sense that you have a second person there for moral support. One problem I'd have is being able to play the stereo while the co-driver would be sleeping. I have to have music while driving.

 

one ear bud/headphone?
only reason i see to teaming is to get the miles in. if you arent running at least 5800 miles per week, i dont see how its worth the aggravation of sharing postage stamp sized living space with another grown person. only way to do that consistently is to do like one said...stick fairly close to a 12 hour swap. shower should be at a truck stop where you are fueling...and with buying fuel as a team...you get a shower free for each using the one points card. every day might be a bit much to expect, but at least every other day should be very feasible.

ive talked to some teams in a few different companies, and read posts here and elsewhere, that say they average 4500-5500 miles per week. i would not work for that company as a team driver for very long. a solo driver should expect well over 2500 miles per week, and short of that should be looking for a company that can give that to him (2500 for me as an otr driver is an insult...the next week better be making up for it). you give up a heck of a lot of freedom as a team driver. the truck does make a few cents per mile more (cut in half for each driver). but as my experience has been an average of 28-2900 miles per week, a team would HAVE to offer double that consistently. just my opinion. because the life of a team driver as i understand it is:

work 12....rest 12...repeat ad infinitum. stop when you reach a shipper or a receiver, and to fuel and eat. as a solo, you have time to see things, DO things. its not as much freedom as an rv for sure, but its a heck of a lot more freedom than a team driver.

 

Patty-LOL thats the problem...You get 2 alpha males in a truck 24 hrs a day, you start arguing over little things, pretty soon you arent talking and you hate life. You need to know a lot about your partner and discuss everything before you go out. On the positive side, teams pay better w decent miles and better equipment.

 

Oh you want to know what the life of a team driver is like....well gather round the fire and let me tell me ya. I've did teaming and there are pro and cons. My company requires teams for the first 6 months. If you get paired with a compatible person it's not bad, but when you get paired with somebody that's not compatible and hard to work with. I've teamed up with 2 people and currently on my 2nd person. The 1st teammate was awesome he was a year younger than me and we both went to the same CDL mill, company gave us hell because we lived 5 hours apart. The only reason we teamed up was because we knew each other for school so that was a good deal. Everything wasn't Roses, we had our ups and downs, but we knew each others likes and dislikes and this helped us work good as a TEAM.

Once our company found out that we were runners they were always throwing runs out the whazoo at us. California to New York, Texas to Connecticut, Connecticut to Florida, Florida To California, Illinois to Texas, Indiana to Florida, Florida to Missouri, Missouri to Illinois to Texas...We ran sometimes we ran so much we couldn't squeeze shower time into our schedule some weeks. We manage to have down time to go sight seeing sometime.

Unfortunately that teammate quit the company, said he wasn't get paid enough (pay was low, but miles were excellent) after he quit I was on my own, had a few months left to team, thought they were going to send me solo (they did for a month 1/2) and boom get a message on the good ole qualcomm your getting a new teammate, I was not happy but I made the most of it.

Teammate number #2 is 25 years older than me so that was and still is a challenge. He was super super super new to trucking (having said he drove for a year in the 80's) and said that experience was bad for him. He is one of those guys that have experience truckers in his family but he know everything about trucking and he just graduated from a CDL mill. Teammate #2 tried to argue with me about letting the truck idling and his argument was that the company got so many trucks that they don't care about one truck idling. Typical newbie stuff. Idk how he could be so green and try to tell me that I can guess the weight without cat scaling, telling me that a truck GPS don't get stuff wrong and had the nerve to tell me, "what you know I only been driving for 7 months" but he the guy getting lost 5 times in one night. I hate my health took a down turn and I have been off the truck since October, but this med stuff was the best thing to happen to me...unfortunately my Disney fantasy has ended as I will have to put up with it again in a few weeks.

So with teams it just depends on who they pair you up with. If you can get somebody that's a runner and your a runner you'll do well, but if you get somebody who is so new that can tell you the rules of the road then it won't work because you'll get a major mileage deduction. I just listed a scenario for you, every person is different.

One good thing about teaming is that you got somebody to watch your back and help you back in tight situations.

 

oh the tales of teaming....where do i begin??? hubby and i ran team for 21 1/2 yrs...til august of last year...then quit and went local...i have posted many times on running team....

its NOT for everyone. you are stuck with a person in a box smaller than most ppls walk in closet..

we ran 7000 miles a week and then some most wks...so hot meals were not an option...(only on a restart)

it is very hard to sleep in a moving truck...so many things wake u up...traffic jam, weigh station, fuel, rough roads..pick ups/del.....we hauled produce and made multiple picks..IMPOSSIBLE to sleep while that is happening...

most companies expect a lot out of a team..they expect that truck to roll 24/7, they think that teams dont get tired..HA, yeah right...

i know that companies like to pair you up...but it HAS to be the right person to make it work...yeah you can make good money...but you dont have any spare time for anything...its a hard way of life....