Hello Everyone,
First, thank you for all that you do. I won’t get into the details but I respect your work and say that you don’t get nearly the recognition, respect, consideration, or income, that you deserve.
I have a lot of questions and am hoping the r/trucker community can help me out! Please note: I don’t know \*a thing\* about the trucking industry or your jobs, other than I try to be polite as possible to you on the highway.
I will likely be moving to an entirely different state in a few months (from around Endicott, NY area to somewhere in South Carolina). Now if you read here on reddit, and in general online, you’ll learn that BY FAR people have a LOT of problems with moving companies. For this move I am going to make I have some things in a few storage units mostly in uniform heavy duty plastic 30 gallon tote containers, and some generalized stuff like patio furniture, outdoor stuff, etc. I won’t have a lot of household contents like a couch or bed or anything like that. And, I won’t have anything very delicate like dishes or TVs or anything.
My questions:
Can I just straight hire an Owner/Operator?
I can get the trailer loaded and then just get on the highway and drive my car following the truck to my new destination in SC? It would just be a one day trip with the drive time being around 10 hours, depending on exactly what city in SC I choose.
I would be willing to pay them cash…1/2 upfront and the rest when we get there (plus a tip).
Is this possible/legal/common?
How would I go about finding an O/O?
How much would an O/O be expected to be paid for a trip like that?
Am I being stupid for trying to do it this way?
Again, I don’t want to go through the normal moving companies (besides, most of the ones I did call want to pack up your stuff or they don’t want to transport it).
If this sounds weird, I’m not doing anything illegal or shady or anything. I’m getting divorced and out of a bad domestic situation with my POS husband who has recently become abusive after I learned of his drug habit. I have most of my things that are important to me in rented storage units. I just need to load my stuff on a truck and get out of here when the time is right, and I’ve been secretly preparing for the past few months. A big truck will probably be much more room than I need, but I don’t care…I don’t want to have to worry about playing Tetris with getting my stuff loaded and would rather have the extra room so I don’t have to worry about things. Some of the totes that I have are heavy but I don’t think there will be any like…weight limit concerns or anything. If I have maybe 50 totes, there might be 20 that are really heavy but I can still move them around myself (and I’m pretty tiny/small framed).
Thank you all for any help and info you can provide, and be safe!
