When's the last time you got home? Being stuck on the road for weeks at a time is one of the main reasons truck drivers quit, but most go to other long-haul carriers where things may or may not be any better. Maybe you've wondered, why not go home for good and run local? Sure.

Drivers at Pulido Trucking out of Alsip, Ill., a Chicago suburb, run regular routes and usually put in 10 hours a day. Hourly pay is based on truck size, and it's as much or more than an OTR driver makes, said Arny Pulido, the owner. Drivers do have to contend with Chicagoland's often awful congestion that's further squeezed by never-ending construction, and see a lot of loading docks, but they can have real family lives.

Pulido, who turns 40 this October and grew up in this area, says he got into trucking by chance, going from a management trainee at a Ford dealership to a driver for an air-freight carrier to starting as a one-truck owner-operator to running his own small fleet. He has 25 medium-duty Hino low-cab-forward trucks out of a warehouse he leases from his main customer, BAX Global, to which he's been contracted since 1987.

Most of his trucks are painted in BAX's bright-green livery. These scurry to and from O'Hare Field and Midway Airport, and to hundreds of shippers and receivers in the vast metropolitan area. Some trucks are plain white because Pulido has diversified into other hauling: aircraft parts, trade show displays, and fine art like paintings, most of it within 65 miles of home base.

As the boss, Pulido's days are long, but he doesn't complain. "I come in at 6:30 or 7 in the morning and before I know it, it's 7 at night and time to go home," he said during my visit at the end of July. "It's busy all the time, but I like it. You have to enjoy what you do or you won't be happy."

It's a family business. Wife Sandi, whom he's known since they were 12, handles many administrative matters. She now works mostly from home because, after 21 years of marriage, she recently gave birth to their first child (a boy, Arnulfo Carlin Pulido III; Arny is a Junior). Her sister, Sara Torres, does lots of day-to-day paperwork.

"My biggest headaches are with employees," Pulido said. He has 26 full-time drivers plus inside help and appreciates what everyone does. But sometimes "their problems become my problems," and these get in the way of getting things done. He tries to keep everyone happy by maintaining an informal atmosphere and pitching in with chores when needed. He still drives when "overflow" business comes up, and that's what happened on this day.

"GEMS just called," said Torres as she popped in the office. "They've got 14 skids to pick up. That's too many for the regular truck, so we'll have to send the semi. And they want to clear their dock, so they want to know if we can do it as soon as possible."

GEMS is General Electric Medical Systems, a regular shipper. Pulido decided that he'd take the run, so we continued our conversation in a Hino cab. This is actually a model SG truck converted to a tractor by the local dealer. Hino does not import tractors because virtually all of its sales are of Class 4 through 7 straight trucks. Pulido's are Class 4 FAs and Class 6 FEs.

Guys accustomed to big American conventionals might scoff at Japanese cabovers, but not Pulido. Hino is a comfortable and reliable truck, he said. By contrast, a group of Ford Cargo low-cabovers (which are no longer made) were so trouble-prone and service backing so lacking that he almost went out of business.

Each of his Hinos averages 80,000 miles a year in considerable stop-and-go traffic. Drivers stay comfortable because cabs are roomy and air-conditioned, they can listen to their stereo radio/cassette players, and loaf along with Allison automatic transmissions.

The SG has an Allison MT, the old-series 4-speed (Allison's new 2000 5-speed-overdrive is now available). The tractor will cruise at 60 mph at about 1,900 rpm and 65 at about 2,200 - acceptable for the high-revving 6-cylinder, turbocharged and intercooled diesel that makes up to 250 hp. On this jaunt, it kept up with traffic very well and with no work on my part.

Hino is to trucks what Toyota is to cars - absolutely reliable and remarkably long-lived, say customers I've talked with over the years. In fact, Toyota recently acquired a controlling share in Hino. With Toyota's financial help, Hino is designing a conventional-cab truck for North America and plans to start building them here in less than two years.

But Pulido and his drivers are happy with the cabovers, thank you. "They complain if they have to drive a conventional," he said as we headed about 35 miles north, west and north again via three tollways (294/Tri-State, 88/East-West and 355/South) to the GEMS plant in Glendale Heights. "The cabover is just so easy to drive in all the traffic."

With no nose, there's extra room to ma.neuver while backing into docks, which is often in this business. In a typical day, a driver makes a dozen or more deliveries and pickups. Pulido backed the leased 48-by-102 Stoughton trailer into the GEMS dock, proving the boss hasn't forgotten how to drive. The trailer has a roll-up door, so there's no pausing to open and close swing doors.

The pickup was done in about a half-hour, and we headed east on North Avenue into Addison to make a drop at a metal fabrication plant. I drove that stretch and backed the trailer into a narrow dock with only one pull-up (or was it two?). Then I drove us back to Alsip, generally retracing our route on those three tollways.

Pulido's trucks have I-Pass electronic transponders that allow no-cash passage through toll booths. Existing booths have I-Pass receivers, and you still have to stop at the window and get a go-ahead wave from the attendant; new bypass lanes at one Tri-State toll location let us barrel through at 55 mph.

I-Pass offers no discount from the standard four-axle $1.60 toll, he said, but the system cuts a little time. And gone are the hassles of advancing cash to drivers, of their turning in wads of receipt slips, and keeping the dollars and cents straight.

Turning sharp corners with the 48-foot trailer can get tricky in town, but it's about 10 times easier in a low-cabover than a long-nose conventional. You can swing into an opposing lane, then sharply cut the wheels to move back to the right and the trailer follows along - though you have to be sure its nose doesn't smack a waiting motorist in the face. All of the Hino's windows are large and the back one helped me check the trailer's wheels during hard right turns.

A Hino is good on the highway, too. The tractor's short wheelbase resulted in some choppiness, but the air-ride seat absorbed most of it. Three of Pulido's trucks have short sleeper boxes for occasional long hauls with "hotshot" freight. If it's more than 500 miles away, he sends two drivers.

"We've been to California, New Jersey, Texas, Florida, Arizona, New York - all over," he said. "Those are really easy - you go to a dock, unload, get a signature and you're done." One signature per long run, but there are a lot more when you're running local. Would the average long-haul driver like it? Probably not, Pulido thinks.

"We get tons of applications from drivers who are over-the-road and now want to go local," he related. "I tell them, 'Go with my driver for one day and see what we do.' They come back and say, 'I don't want to do that - too many stops and too much paperwork!' Over-the-road, there's no aggravation."

As you know, OTR's got aggravation aplenty, but of a different sort, and Pulido observed that OTR drivers seem to prefer those woes to what they see in the city. Few who have worked for him have stayed long; exceptions are ex-household goods movers who appreciate not having to tote heavy furniture.

So, if you ever get the itch to stay home, think about it, or spend a day with one of Arny's army of drivers.