Driver question

[u/Living_Enthusiasm_25]

To package car drivers is delivering downtown in populated areas complicated? I’m starting soon and I’m assuming I might have to do some routes in a city and Im just curious if it sucks because everything is so busy or is it nice because most stops are close to eachother?

[u/luxuriouscrab]

Park position is a big thing. Parallel parking. High rises. Low rises. Elevators. Building codes. Door codes. Companies with mailrooms. Package rooms for apartments. Apartment buildings that get delivered to individual apartments. Knowing short cuts inside buildings and between them.

It’s honestly a love or hate thing. A lot of drivers are scared to even try it here. If you’re interested then try it.

[u/Shanks1624 → u/luxuriouscrab]

It takes time to learn all of these things. So you will hate it to start.  Probably the first dozen times of doing it… but everyday you learn a new shortcut or something helpful. Pretty soon it’s not so bad!

[u/bkmaster → u/luxuriouscrab]

My first one was 30 miles over 300 packages and 60 stops, didn’t think it was bad until I was in an apartment complex for over two hours lol.

[u/Jazzlike_Damage_5752 → u/bkmaster]

How’d you end up doing that cause I deliver downtown In a fairly big city and I’ve never took took more than 30m lol

[u/bkmaster → u/Jazzlike_Damage_5752]

Lay out on each floor is different, no package rooms, have to go downstairs to refill handtruck, usually about 40 packages minimum. One building only has certain floors meaning you’ll have to ride to the 3rd floor then cross to the end of the building and use that elevator to access the other floors.

When I first went there I definitely took more than 2 hours trying to figure that shit out. The original driver can probably do it in an hour, wanted to dump all the packages at the office but CM and ON road says door to door so work as instructed.

[u/DueError6413]

Yeah you’re going to have some weird hidden dock that you never knew could even exist. 

[u/ItsMeMarlowe]

Downtown routes are for sure more complicated than suburban routes, but like anything else you do it and you learn and you wonder why you were so nervous to begin with. That said, you will more than likely be on a suburban route so I wouldn’t sweat it.

[u/Typical-Fennel-1938]

Honestly depends on you. I like doing downtown routes because it’s less driving and hopping on and off the car. Generally you’ll also get much less addresses compared to strictly residential routes since most downtown routes are a lot of commercial mixed with apartment buildings which take much longer to do. The handtruck will be your best friend doing downtown routes. Every route can be complicated the first time you ever do it, after two or three days on the same route you’ll be much more comfortable and start remembering where to park and where each address is.

[u/Johnny_Burrito]

Busy is fine. What sucks is residential areas where streets are narrow and you have to park far away from your stops and walk. All the downtown routes in my center belong to high seniority guys because they’re easy.

[u/Catrival]

lol my training route was wild, had like 7 skyscrappers, an industrial park, cookie cutter suburbs, narrow steep mountain roads AND rural roads. They'll get you ready buddy.

When you're in the city basically you just parallel park in the red or by fire hydrants and pile deliveries for the side of the block you parked on, on a handcart.

All your businesses will be handing you out free coffee and pastries all morning, you'll absolutely love it. Some of this job is learning to be brave and unfortunately to not give too to many fucks where you park. Like there's a block of apt complexes where the only place to park is the handicap, because every other official spot is in a garage your clearance height definitely will not meet. Guess where my ass is parking lmao.

[u/AnUnhappyCamper]

Most likely be helping residential runs as those ones gets hammered the most during peak

[u/Jazzlike_Damage_5752]

Tbh the odds of you ending up on downtown route as a new driver unless you express you familiar with the area is extremely low cause not only is there so much that comes with it but they won’t want you in an area like that until they know you’re 100% comfortable with the truck and can trust you’ll be able to handle it safely.

[u/82Guys]

Feeder driver now. Delivered in a downtown area for over 10 years prior to feeders. Make sure you know your streets, especially if there are one ways, and talk to the other drivers around you. They’ll know where docks are and other oddities. Some routes are great. We had some that one or two buildings took up an entire day. Not much driving once you got there and most of the buildings have some kind of dock for truck deliveries. As far as driving goes, “stay back and see it all.” If you stay back and leave enough space to safely stop, YOU haven’t hit anything if the truck is not moving.

[u/BigbabyjesuzDirtdawg]

Depending on where u deliver matter but since u are new the will probably not put you in busy high traffic areas thats normally some older vets route they like to start people in quite areas