So what do you do when your company keeps turning down your max speed, but expects you to be able to do the same loads in the same time? My truck has been turned down from 67 mph to 65, and will probably be down to 63 (pedal)/61 (cruise) when I launch out next. Yeah, the MPG's will improve, but it will take longer to deliver the loads -- but not according to dispatch. We're "supposed" to take VC breaks every three hours. To keep up my mileage, I'm now doing those breaks every 5 hours if I can hold out that long.

Some of my employer's trucks have APU's, most of them don't, including mine. If I get sent down south (I'm a Wisconsin girl -- I like it cool), I have to keep the truck running 24/7 (if I'm in the truck) to keep the cab/sleeper comfortable enough to work and sleep in, which produces horrible MPG ratings. But I'm being judged on my MPG in direct competition with the privileged APU drivers who rarely, if ever, have to idle their trucks. So in reality, it can easily be that I am using LESS fuel to actually RUN the load than the APU driver, but then I get dinged for having to idle.

 

Detention pay. HA! Charade it is. You are not considered to be "detained" until you have sat for two hours beyond your appointment time (if there is one) or arrival at the customer if there isn't an appointment. You will then not collect a dime of detention pay until you have waited ANOTHER 30 minutes, which earns $5 (half hour detention) -- and even then, only if your DSR approves it.

I routinely sit for at least two to three hours before Lumpy, in all his many incarnations, even touches my cargo. It is not at all uncommon (though not exactly the rule) for me to sit for 6 hours waiting to be loaded or unloaded. I've collected "detention pay" less than five times in 8 months. But then, I'm a reefer driver, and they compensate me by paying an extra .02 CPM, so I have nothing to complain about. Uh huh. When I can, I take my ten at the customer while they're taking their sweet time unloading or loading me -- but it is rarely an efficient use of my time.

IMO, the biggest problem in this industry is customers who WASTE MY TIME. They can make me sit so long that I run-out my 14 hours, when I had plenty of time left when I arrived early/on-time, and then act like I'm a waste of parking space. A pox upon all their houses.

 

Kay!!! Where have you been all these years!! I think I am already in love!
XOXOXO
Belpre

 

In the tall grass, I imagine. lol

 

So what happened when your machine broke down? Did you stand around for a couple hours unpaid with your thumb up your a$$ while they fixed it? Did the foreman say "Hey GMAN, no work this morning so I need you to chill in the breakroom for 4 hours until the material comes in." Did you sleep in your car in the parking lot instead of going home and did you take showers at the YMCA? What about safety meetings? Did you attend those for donuts and stale coffee?

What's funny is that the average 16 year old wouldn't hang around a McDonalds 7 days a week and get paid per burger and think it was a good deal spending endless hours at the place while business was slow.

BTW, what's up with that creepy avatar you've got, anyway?

 

[quote="GMAN"]Once again, thank you for reinforcing my point. Minimum wage was the basis for your pay. If the widget welder standing next to you keels over and the production line is shut down, you are still being paid minimum wage, welding widgets or not. You may not be earning your best rate but you're still earning.

Now comes managements call. Do they pay to keep you onsite and ready to go? It's the only way they can expect you to stay. How much is that going to cost short term? They can't kick you off the clock but expect you to hang around. How much would it cost in the long term, especially if this kind of thing happens a lot? Would you be tempted to look elsewhere if they did?

I don't have the luxury of choice and I don't know if it's going to take 15 minutes or 15 hours to resolve the problem. Regardless, I am expected to "stay on the line" and be ready to roll just as soon as the Qualcomm beeps and we restart the line.

Where is the incentive for management to step it up and get me rolling? When my piece rate stalls, there is no fall back position. The pay clock stops. The cost of the truck doesn't change (unless I happen to be idling to stay comfortably unpaid.) The rest of my "team" is still on the clock. Why not pay me, too, moving or not? You'd see some real urgency on everyones part to get that truck moving.

The point of this thread is retention and attrition. How can any company expect to keep it's best people if we don't know from one day to the next if or how we're going to get paid? The only two things we know for certain are . .

1. If I screw up it's going to effect my pay.
2. If somebody else screws up it's going to effect my pay and not theirs.

The slant of this thread was leaning toward "unpredictable and unreliable drivers in search of greener pastures." I say balogna. Even those you don't like, the unwise, unkept, unwashed, vagabonds and job hoppers know when they're getting screwed. They reach their breaking point and, rather than shoot the place up, move along.

I love what I do. But I'm becoming a little annoyed myself with getting screwed without my permission. Give me predictable work, predictable pay, realistic incentives and I'll stay.

Open your mind . . just a little. The fact that this rotten system has been in place as long as it has does not mean it has to stay that way. Companies do what they do because the law says they can get away with it. It works for them. Who the heck can blame them?

The rules can be changed and can be changed equitably. To be fair to everyone, the law needs to change. The last day of the Driver subsidised trucking company will be the last day of artificially low freight rates.

I'm all for productivity pay. When it works, it works for everyone . . except when I'm the producer and I don't get to participate.

 

Actually, I think it would be a good idea to pay teachers on their productivity. Teachers complain about being underpaid, but when you consider all their off time, most bring in a pretty good salary. Part of the problem in our educational system is that students have been passed to a higher grade even though they didn't do their work or learn what they needed to go to the next level. Many colleges have had to institute remedial classes just to get these high school graduates to the level they need to be to do the college work. That is a failure of the public school system. The NEA (teachers union) has been a major contributor to this failure. It is very difficult to get rid of an incompetent teacher in some areas.


We had a good maintenance man on site. He kept the machines running pretty well. If they broke down, then the operator could go into the break room until it was repaired. Anytime it took longer to repair the operator could usually be assigned something else to do while it was repaired.



It grows on you with time.

 

Over a 10 hour period of constant running a 2 mph reduction in speed would only make a 20 mile difference, provided that you could maintain a constant maximum speed for all of those 10 hours. It isn't going to happen. You cannot keep a constant speed for that long. It will make little if any difference in your paycheck.

Unless you are sitting for a day or two in extreme weather (i.e.- hot or cold climate) you should not need to idle more than 30 percent of the time to be comfortable. Some carriers will offer bonuses for those who keep idle time down.

I agree that some shippers don't value our time. Unless the shipper is forced to pay for excess waiting times, some will continue to waste our time. For every hour we needlessly sit, we are losing money. Unfortunately, some carriers are unwilling to challenge shippers on the excess waiting time. Until they do, expect to continue to have to wait. This waiting is one reason many carriers have primarily gone to drop and hook.

 

But we are talking about a 6 MPH difference (67 cruise vs 61). And while it is true that I would not maintain full speed (actually I generally run at 63 anyway), turning down the max speed on the truck means that I will almost always be going slower than I would have driven otherwise. Since I'm starting out hills at a slower speed, I will climb that hill at a slower speed, and it is likely that I might need to downshift where I otherwise wouldn't have had to do so. Power that was once available to me is no longer available.

Over a 10 hour period, yes -- we're talking about 20 miles in your example. Let's cut that in half just 'cause. Now we're talking about 10 miles in 10 hours. In a 70 hour driving week, that's 70 miles that I could not drive. It may not affect deliveries (although it very well might), but it absolutely WILL mean that I have to work longer in order to perform the same amount of work. But it could just as easily mean some 200 or so miles that I could not drive, because I WILL drive my truck at 65 when pressed, and when safe and legal. But now I can't. Even if the speed limit is 70, I'm stuck at 61, 63 if I go to the pedal.

The fact of the matter is that I am a "runner." I want to keep my truck moving, and I have little use for truck stops. If I'm out for a duty cycle, I want my truck to be rolling and productive every minute possible. I don't make unnecessary stops and strive to be as efficient as possible. But those 10 miles in one day might be the difference between my getting to a customer or not. And since this is hypothetical and you will say that I should have planned my day better, I will hypothetically say that my day was driven as perfectly as possible and I made no mistakes whatsoever.

Regarding personal comfort and idle time:

I live in northern Wisconsin, and I'm used to cool weather and moderate humidity. It is physically impossible for me to acclimate to 85 degrees (or more) and 60% humidity (or more) in the course of a day or three. I will go where my dispatch sends me, but I will NOT try to sleep in a sweat box. For another person to arbitrarily state that I only need to idle my truck a certain percentage of time is ludicrous at best, insulting at worst. I idle as necessary to maintain a comfortable living and working environment -- no more, no less.

 

I don't govern my trucks. If I want to run at 75 or 85 mph I could do it. I don't because of fuel costs. A truck burns much more fuel at 75 than at 65. I agree that running at a slower top speed can cause you to gear down more than if you could start your pull at a higher speed. More carriers are slowing down their trucks to save money on fuel costs. A carrier who has 1,000 trucks who can increase their fuel costs by as little as 1/4 mpg can save a lot of money over the course of a year.

I understand that you are accustomed to a cooler climate. I don't think any carrier wants their drivers to be uncomfortable. It is in their best interest to see that their drivers are comfortable so that they can get their rest. I have never told my drivers to not idle more than a certain amount of time. There should still be few times where a driver should need to idle (on average) more than about 30%. I think it is best to look at idling on a monthly or quarterly basis. There may be times when idle time is less than 20%. On the other hand, idle time could exceed 30% during warmer or cooler times of year. However, on average drivers should not need to idle more than 30%. I base this on my personal experience. I don't idle my truck unless I need to do so for my personal comfort. I would expect the same thing from my drivers. I don't expect them to turn the truck off if they are going to be uncomfortable.

Their are some drivers who will idle their trucks continually, whether they are in the truck or not. I have seen them idle trucks for hours while they are in the truck stop.

By the way, when I started driving most trucks didn't have air conditioning. If we wanted to be cooler we rolled down the window. Some had fans above the windshield or on the dash. At that time, most companies recommended we keep trucks idling almost all the time. :wink: