2008
WEEK ELEVEN
Monday, March 10th through Sunday, March 16th


Monday starts out at 7am with me sitting in a rest area outside of La Crosse, WI and just a few miles away from the first of my two scheduled stops. The problem is that I’m not scheduled to deliver until the tomorrow. I picked up the phone and put in a call to the customer to get directions, verify the delivery time (per the instructions on the BOL) and to take a shot at unloading early.

After getting directions I let the customer know that I was less than a ˝ hr away and was available to unload if that was agreeable to him. He was surprised that I was already in town and said he could be at the shop within the hour. This is very good news to me, I really wasn’t looking forward to spending an entire day in a rest area.

I arrived at my first stop and didn’t have to wait too long for the owner of this small insulation company to arrive. He brought his wife with him and backed up a small moving type van to the back of my truck. Looks like this could take a while. I did consider helping them out, but it was all of 15° and I wasn’t quite that motivated. They were only getting about 20% of the load, so it didn’t take all that long anyway.

Once that drop was taken care of I had one more stop to make. This was also scheduled to deliver the next day and was only 3hrs away. Time to put in a call to them to confirm tomorrow’s appointment and cross my fingers. If I can get the rest of my load off today it would save me a day of sitting around.

Unfortunately I didn’t have as much luck with my second stop. I was informed that no one was in the shop to unload me today, but I was able to move up my delivery time from noon to 9am, better than nothing I guess. A quick trip up the road and I found a place to park at a small truckstop in Wausau, WI. It’s a good thing I was able to get there early, there was only parking for about 20 trucks and it filled up early. There was also a Texas Roadhouse next door so I knew I would be having a decent meal tonight.

Tuesday morning rolled around and I headed over to the customer just a few miles down the road. They where waiting for me when I arrived and didn’t waist anytime unloading me. My MT call was sent in and I was sent a two load offer.

Load 1 was a D/H PU and DEL going to Michigan (550mi). Generally I would jump on a load like this because I can roll off the miles as fast as I wanted to and deliver anytime I wanted. But there were two things that I didn’t care for on this run. First of all, I would be hitting Chicago too close to rush hour for my liking and Second, I would find myself empty and looking for a load in Michigan. I have always been able to get a load out of there, but the last couple of times I have had to wait a few hours to get a load offer and both times I had to PU a load out of packaging company that was a live load. The worst part about this company is that they seem to always be running behind schedule. Last time it took me almost 5hrs to get loaded and wiped out my 14hr clock for the day. I was also anxious to get out of the frigid weather that had descended on the area.

Load 2 was a D/H PU with a live delivery in St. Louis (552mi) at 9am the following morning. I’m not crazy about the live unload, but since I wasn’t able to fit in a 34hr reset this week due to the poor timing of P/Us and deliveries I find myself with limited hours and I’m not really in a position to work long days anyway. So an unloading delay won’t really affect me too much. This, combined with the fact that freight is usually much easier to come by in the St Louis area made load two a better choice.

The rest of the day went by with nothing spectacular to report. My D/H PU was a quick in and out and the rest of the day was spent driving toward St. Louis. The most annoying thing was that I had to stop about 140 miles short of my destination because I only had 8hrs available today. I really hate it when I can’t fit in a 34hr reset. It is very aggravating when I have to shut down so early when I’m wide awake and ready to roll.

Wednesday finds me driving my last couple of hour to make my delivery. The warehouse guy was standing outside when I pulled up and told me what dock to bump. I had hopes of a quick unload, but this was not to be. Almost 3hrs later I put in my MT call and was sent a single load offer within a couple of minutes. It was a D/H PU at the Budweiser plant just down the road that was to deliver to Pine Bluff, AR (387mi) anytime after 6am the following morning. Not the longest run in the world, but since I had already gone 140 miles today, it made for a respectable 500+mile day. The rest of the day was relatively painless and I decided to stop short of my destination in West Memphis so I could fit in a shower. I had the hours to make it to the customer (or at least close by) but not knowing what the parking situation would be like in that part of the country I decided it would be better to shut down for the night and get an early start the following morning.

I would never think about shutting down early if I had managed a 34hr reset, but now that my days are limited there is no point in pushing. It makes for more relaxed days, but it does affect my ability to get the miles I want.

I’m able to get going by 4am Thursday morning and make it to the customer by 7am. There are two trucks ahead of me but am able to get unloaded by 8am. Not bad at all for a local beer distributor.

My MT call is greeted by a nice 3 load offer. It’s been awhile since I’ve had so many choices. A sign of better days ahead perhaps. One load was going to the Atlanta area and the other two were destine for Texas. I ended up taking the shortest of the loads offered because it was a D/H PU and Delivery so I could run it out as fast as I wanted without any wasted time on a live unload (as a matter of fact I had time to deliver the load tonight). The only thing that concerned me was the Texas part. Freight has been scary slow down there lately, but I hoped that by dropping my trailer tonight I would be on the top of the list for a load the following morning.

I am able to make it to the consignee with no drive time left for the day. I do a quick drop and grab an empty trailer and headed over to the local truckstop for the night. Time to put in my MT call and see what pops up. I had already put in a 10hr day and had no time left so I was just hoping for a load offer that I could PU in the morning. I was surprised to get another 3 load offer, looks like things are picking up as far as our Texas freight goes, at least for now.

The first load was a sweet run, 2400+miles with deadhead thrown in. It was scheduled to be delivered 5 days down the road, but was a D/H delivery and could be delivered early. My kind of dream run. The big scary part of this one is that it was going to Washington state and I don’t know if I’m ready to take a chance of waiting around for a load up there again. It turns out to be a moot point however. It is a live load scheduled for 11pm tonight and I can’t go anywhere until tomorrow morning. The other two loads where in the 1000 mile range and I selected one going to La Grange, GA (1017mi) because it was a D/H delivery for anytime Sunday. That means I can have it there by Saturday and would be in a strong freight area with some time left in my day to get another load. Or I could shut down along the way a work in a 34hr reset, but that is pointless and this time because I have come around on my logbook and am gaining solid hours for the next few days.

Friday is a simple day consisting of a live load and driving. However, I am very annoyed by the fact that I had only gained 10hr for today. Because of this I am unable to make it to New Orleans for the night (would have been a fine spot to force in a 34reset). Again, if I had been able to get my reset in earlier this week I wouldn’t be forced into these silly short driving days. Oh well, I shut down at a crappy little truckstop in the middle of nowhere.

Saturday is an early start at 4am and I finish off the end of my trip to LaGrange, GA. As I’m pulling into the Wal-Mart DC I tried to use the CB to get the attention of the other Crete driver leaving to find out if he got the last empty trailer, but got no answere. This was meant more of as a little joke, but a definite concern. I can’t help thinking about that last 15min break I took and wonder if it just cost me that last MT trailer. It’s not unheard of to wait until the next morning to get a trailer out of a Wal-Mart, especially when I’m a day early with my delivery to begin with.

I do my drop and head out to the back lot to get an MT. Sure enough; I had watched the last one go out the gate. Grrrr! After a couple a trips around the lot I did find what appeared to be an MT trailer at one of the docks. It had a green light and sounded hollow when pounding on the side. I hunted down a yard dog, had him check on the status of it and was rewarded with an MT trailer. I just had to wait for 30mins for them to get around to pulling it out for me. Nothing happens with urgency in those places; at least I have my MT and am ready for my load offer.

It’s around noon and I still have 3hrs of drive time left for the day. Once again I am offered 3 loads (just like the old days, I could get used to this). Load one was a Deptford, NJ (1000mi) load with a 3am live unload. I think I’ll pass (didn’t have the hours to do it anyway). This actually wasn’t a bad load and I have been to this customer before. They are in a relatively unpopulated area, the live unloads go well and they are done early enough to get out of town with the next load before traffic gets out of hand. But it’s still the northeast and I have seen very little of it as of late, once or twice in the last 6 months or so and I’d like to keep it that way.

The other two load offers went to Texas. I ended up taking one that went to Houston because it was a drop and hook on both ends. I wasn’t fond of the idea that I was going to find myself in Houston looking for a load, but at least I’ll be there early Monday morning instead of during a weekend. Should be able to get a load without too much trouble. I hope for the best and head off toward Atlanta to PU a loaded trailer from Anheuser-Busch north of town.

Things did get a little interesting when I hit Atlanta. The weather was not good and according to the national weather service there was a tornado warning in effect as I drove into town. Apparently one had done some minor damage downtown the day before and now they were reporting that radar had spotted on forming above the 285 loop in the southwest part of town. Oh, that’s just wonderful, guess where I’m at. This is a little too close for comfort. As I got up to the north end of town the skies really started to get dark and the hail started coming down. For anyone that has grown up in tornado country, you know what that can mean. I just concentrated on not running over 4wheelers in the down pour and tried to get out of there as fast as possible. Not the easiest thing to do when you have 6 lanes of traffic come to a complete stop because the cars under the overpass decide that it’s a great place to stop so their cars don’t get hit by hail.

It was slow going for the next 40 minutes or so but traffic did finally start moving again and with the exception of a 3mi back up due to a recent accident involving a big truck and two cars. We were much more fortunate in the north bound lanes than the south side. They were backed up for 10-15 miles. I guess I’ll be shutting down early after picking up my loaded trailer. There is no point in trying to get back to the Marietta terminal with that backup to deal with.

Saturday comes to a close at 4pm. The weather has made driving anywhere in the Atlanta area pointless at this time.

Sunday is another painfully short day due to logbook constrains. I run out of hours by 1pm. I now have to shut down until Midnight and then drive the final 5hrs to make my delivery. That makes so much more sense than driving during the day when I’m wide awake. After all, it would be insane to drive more than 5hrs during the day, right. We wouldn’t want to go over that 70hrs would we? How I despise idiotic government regulations.

I have been fighting my logbook for the last week and hate it. At this pace I can only manage to get about 3300 miles/week. Not horrible by any means but I hate the restraint.

The worst thing is that my hours are starting to level out to the 7-10hr per day range. This works great for many drivers, but it drives me crazy. It also tends to limit the runs I can accept and I find that I end up with more and more short runs. I keep looking for that run that has enough time to work in a reset. I can usually count on something like that around a weekend, but as of now I haven’t gotten one.

I need my reset!


WEEK ELEVEN RESULTS
Monday, March 10th through Sunday, March 16th
Miles include deadhead

Onalaska, WI to Wausau, WI............................................146m i
Neenah, WI to St Louis, MO..............................................55 2mi
St Louis, MO to Pine Bluff, AR............................................387m i
Crossett, AR to Temple, TX...............................................4 80mi
New Braunfels, TX to La Grange, GA..................................1017mi
Cartersville, TX to Slidell, LA.............................................616 mi


Total Paid Miles............................................. ...................3198 miles
Actual Miles………………………3355

3198mi x .42 = $1343.16 plus $30 drop

 

2008
WEEK TWELVE
Monday, March 17th through Sunday, March 23rd


This week starts our extremely early. How early? Well 12:01am to be exact. Thanks to ridiculous government regulations I ran my 70hr clock out of hours around noon on Sunday. Even though I could driven during the day and would have been to my consignee by 5pm. But instead I was forced to stop and sit in a truck stop for the rest of the day. It’s early and there is no way of getting any sleep because I’m wide awake, so I spend the rest of the day trying to amuse myself. By 10pm I feel tired enough to lay down for a quick 2hr nap. As soon as the clock hits midnight I get back 11hrs and I’m off to make my delivery which has to be there no later than 6am. I get there a little after 5am.

The live unload goes by fairly quickly and I am now in what has become the dreaded land of no freight known as Houston Texas. Although I am optimistic about getting a load offer because I delivered in the area just last week and was offered 3 different loads. I didn’t even get the expected “No freight, check back in 3 hrs”. As it turns out good luck was still with me and I received a two load offer within minutes.

The first load was a short hop into LA(under 300mi) and I would have taken it because I had already run 350mi today and it was a drop/hook on both ends and would have had me sittin good for a morning load, but my 14hrs were going to be up (since I had to start at midnight) before the load was scheduled to be ready.

I ended up taking the second load offer to Kansas City (800mi). Good miles but it was a live load and unload with scheduled appointments and I had to wait almost 3hrs for my loading appointment just down the road. That meant that I wasn’t going to get many more miles for the day, but since the delivery was scheduled for early Wednesday morning I had the time to spare.

Tuesday was another annoying short day due to hour restrictions and I once again I had to shut down shortly after noon. This was again followed by a lot of sitting around and a short nap before starting my day just after midnight so that I can make my 7am delivery Wednesday morning. A 34reset would sure make my life easier, and more productive. Too much sitting around with this game of waiting until midnight to get my hours back.

The live unload takes forever, but then I’m in no hurry once again. I only have 7˝ hrs available for the day and most of them have been driven off anyway.

My empty call is greeted with a two load offer (the multiple offers seem to becoming more common again). Offer one was going to KY (600mi) and the other was going to MI (757mi).The KY load had enough time associated with it that I could have put in a reset, but I was gaining some good hours over the next three days, so I took the MI load even though I had some concerns about the freight availability in that part of the country once I was empty.

This load turns out to be very interesting. Not because of what it is, but because of where the warehouse is located. My first clue was when I read the directions and came across the final line “turn into cave entrance 8300 and go to pier 209”. This made no sense to me at the time, but that is often the case with directions until you arrive at or near a destination. The directions became very clear as I came to final turn:

;

I had no idea that this place existed. Apparently it’s called Subtropolis and it is located on the east end of Kansas City. It is a spent underground limestone quarry and had been converted into an underground warehouse and storage facility. From the expressions on some of the other drivers faces they were also first time visitors to this facility. Very interesting to say the least.

; ;

I’m loaded by noon, but once again out of hours for the day so I ran over to our terminal which is about a mile away and shut down for the rest of the day. I would rather keep driving, but at least I can get some laundry done without having to pay the ridiculous prices the truckstops charge for their laundry facilities. I end the day with a good meal at the local casino.

Thursday is an uneventful day, for me at least. The driver of this tanker pulling doubles probably had a different opinion of the days event. I sure hope he faired better than his truck did.

;

Friday is a 3am start so that I can make my 8am delivery on-time just outside of Detroit. It’s another live unload and take just under an hour to complete and I put in my MT call and hope that I don’t have to wait around for a load. My last two times up here I was forced to wait 6+hrs for a load.

That will not be the case today, I am sent a single load offer within 15mins that was a D/H PU 150 miles away in OH that delivered to VA (646mi total) anytime the following day and was a D/H delivery. Can’t ask for anything better than that. I’m surprised that they are going to deadhead me that far, but I’m not going to complain and head off to get my load.

When I arrived at the customer at 9am Saturday morning I am somewhat confused. I pulled up to a gate that opened automatically. I assumed someone watching a moniter had let me in, but when I pulled into their property I found all doors locked and no one in the shipping office. After about ˝ an hour of wondering around the place I decided I was the only one there and I went ahead and dropped the trailer in what seemed to be the appropriate spot and made the appropriate notations on the BOL. I have occasionally done drops like this before, but never without some kind of heads up in the load assignment. I was a little leery about getting myself in hot water with dispatch, but the trailer was scheduled to deliver today and that’s when I got it there. I sent off a detailed message to the weekend dispatch (no, I didn’t expect an answer and they didn’t disappoint) to CMA.

The next trick was to find and MT. There were two next to my dropped trailer, but they looked like abandoned crack houses. I’ve never seen so much garbage in the back of an unloaded trailer in my life. That combined with the fact that they appeared to be two of the oldest trailers in our fleet with the old torn up wood paneling sides. A number of our customers won’t even load these kind of trailers so I set my sight on a few trailers that were still docked in the warehouse doors. After pounding on a few and pulling a couple away from the doors (they all had green lights) I found and acceptable empty and put in my MT call and waited to see what I would be offered. Why do I go into such detail about this particular Drop and Hook? Well, to set the stage for a future crisis that I will have to deal with before this week is over. Anyway, it’s a weekend and I’m hoping for a load that I can shut down with so I can finally get my reset and stop fighting these damn hours.

It takes a little longer than normal, but within 30mins or so I receive a three load offer. It’s getting more like the old days all the time. Looks like freight is picking up a little bit, I haven’t seen the “No freight, check back in X hours” for a couple of weeks now. I zero in on a load that is a D/H PU in Suffolk and has live unload Monday evening in Owensboro, KY (806mi) at the ridiculous hour of 5:30pm. This late delivery means I won’t be getting a load till Tuesday morning, but we have a couple of customers in that town and I know I could get a good load. This load also means that I can run out my last few hours for the day on Saturday and find a comfortable place to shut down for my reset. I could then drive all day Monday to make my PM delivery and be ready to roll and finally start getting some decent miles. I’ve had to turn down too many good runs over the last couple of weeks due to the lack of available hours.

My PU 70 miles away goes without incident and I pull out the map and try to decide where I’m going to stop for my reset. I decide on a truck stop about 3hrs away on I-81 in Virginia because I know they have a Days Inn next to them and I am ready to treat myself to a hotel room for the weekend. OK, I’ll admit a Days Inn isn’t exactly a treat, but it gets me out of the truck.

Everything goes swimmingly well and on the way I stop to scale out at a truck stop that is less than a mile away from where I dropped my trailer at the apparently deserted warehouse earlier this morning (so close, this will make sense shortly). Three hours later I arrive at my pre-determined destination and spy the Days Inn just up the hill. I pull out the computer and do a quick check on Priceline to see if I can catch a good deal and I do find an acceptable quote but decide to hold off on securing a room until after I’ve had a chance to stretch the legs a bit.

It is at this time that I decide I will grab my lock to secure the trailer door. The Enforcer locks we use are rather heavy duty and are more than a simple paddle lock that can be snipped off.




I routinely do this at the first place I stop after I PU a trailer. Why I wait until I stop instead of when I PU a trailer I can’t really say, it’s just a bad habit I’ve gotten into. Many times I PU a trailer and deliver it on the same day without stopping and don’t want to waste time with the lock in those circumstances and it’s a habit that has carried over to most of my loads. My thought is, “no one can steal anything if I’m driving down the road”. Well this bad habit is about to bite me in the a**! As usual, I popped open the side door and reached in to pull out the lock and a horrible sinking feeling hits the pit of my stomach when I realize it’s not there.

It only takes a few seconds of recollection to realize that I left my lock on the trailer that I dropped this morning. At all times, the very first thing I do when I get to a receiver is to pull the lock off the door. After all, these things cost us $120 and it’s not like someone at a warehouse can just pull out a set of bolt cutters. I can’t imagine this is the first time a driver has left a lock on a trailer, but out side of a torch or a good quality grinder, I don’t know how someone would go about getting one of these locks off. I could only image a locksmith being called and a hefty payroll deduction.

I can’t believe I did this, but with the confusion of no one being around when I made the drop, my search for an empty and my attempt to get a resolution from the absent weekend dispatch, well, I just screwed up big time.

The worst part of the whole thing was the number of times I had the opportunity to catch the mistake. If I would have attempted to lock my next trailer when I picked it up or if I would have thought about it when I scaled out. That really got me going because I was less than a mile away at that time.

Well, here I am 200 miles away and ˝ an hour of drive time left on my clock, there is nothing I can do at this time. If I only had a hour I could have made it to Roanoke. They have an airport; therefore they have weekend rental cars. I know there is no chance of getting a rental out here in the middle of nowhere and I can’t drive the truck back until tomorrow. Not that that’s any kind of option. I’m not about to put 400 miles on the truck at Crete’s expense because of my bonehead move. Although I have the funny feeling that it would have been my expense anyway.

My only feasible option is to wake up when my 10 break is up, drive into Roanoke (this will result in the neighborhood of 45 out of route miles, could be worse) pray for a parking spot at the Pilot or TA Easter Sunday morning (anyone who has ever been there knows what a crap shoot that can be), call a cab and PU a rental car at the airport and take a little day trip back to Richmond. And that’s just what I did. So much for my reset. Son of ^%#@!

When all was said and done I found myself back in Roanoke by 4pm. Since my reset was shot I decided to take off and put some miles behind me. I drove until I was tired and shut down a few hours from my destination.

Another week down.

What the last few weeks has shown me is something that I really already knew. Not being able to get in my reset is costing me miles. Not that an average of 3200 paid miles a week is anything to complain about, but I can do more and want to do more. It has resulted in a definite increase in the number of shorter haul, therefore more loads which inturn causes me to burn more of my 70hr clock on line 4 doing P/Us and deliveries and it also increases the number of unpaid miles due to all the extra running around between loads (and chasing down misplaced locks).

I have had to consistently turn down loads with good miles because I don’t have the hours to complete them in a timely manner. I am also getting myself into situations where I have to shut down in the middle of the day after running for periods of 4-7 hours. Running like this has definitely given me a lot of unwanted downtime and makes me put more effort into load planning than I care to deal with. Not that I’m incapable of it, I just get very frustrated when I am so limited in what I can do on any given day.




WEEK TWELVE RESULTS
Monday, March 17th through Sunday, March 23rd
Miles include deadhead

Slidell, LA to Houston, TX (final leg)................................323mi
La Port, TX to N. Kansas City, MO...................................800mi
Kansas City, MO to Brownstown, MI................................757mi
Cuyahoga Heights, OH to Prince George, VA....................646mi
Suffolk, VA to Mt Sterling,KY (first leg)............................674mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. ................3200 miles
Actual Miles………………………3325

3200mi x .42 = $1344.00

 

I did a drop at the Prairie Du Chein cabelas a couple of years ago and got to watch a yard jockey cut off an enforcer lock a Crete driver had left on the trailer. He had a grinder and it took him all of 30 seconds to finish the job. I think I have used my enforcer lock a total of five times in nearly three years.

 

After my little experience I'm considering going back to the good old fashioned paddle lock myself.

I figured a grinder would slice through one of our Enforcer locks in short order, but was afraid of what it would cost me if they went with the locksmith route.

Amusing side note, I picked up a preloaded trailer out of Mobile today and there was a loaded Crete trailer next to mine with an Enforcer lock left on it.

 

yeah, 50ft of air line, a cut-off tool and a 3in disc- and any lock is history in 10minutes flat.

 

2008
WEEK THIRTEEN
Monday, March 24th through Sunday, March 30th


They tell me the number 13 is an unlucky number and with this being the 13th week of the year, well it seems to be an unlucky week for me.

The stage was actually being set for me in the middle of last week. Ever since the wife and I left Phoenix for our new home in NC her ex employer has wanted her to return to her old job. After our last visit to Phoenix she was informed that a longtime employee was about to retire and she was offered the position with a substantial pay raise that we just couldn’t turn down. As much as we love NC it looks like we are headed back to Phoenix. The details were finalized over the weekend and I now find myself in a position of being far from home and in need of returning ASAP to take care of arrangement. Part of the deal with the wife’s new/old job is that she needs to be there in two weeks.

I had already put in for hometime, but wasn’t due to be back until next week. After making my Monday morning delivery I called my terminal manager and dispatch to explain the situation. It was Monday and I was hoping to be home by Wednesday if possible. I didn’t expect to be able to make that time schedule, but hoped for the best.

There were no loads available going to NC from KY (as expected), but they did get me a load going to AL that delivered the next day. At least it’s in the right direction. Once I had that load delivered I sent in my MT call and a note that I needed to get home. Again, there were no loads going home and I was offered a load to Dallas, Chicago or the option of waiting until the morning to see if they could find me a load going east then. I can’t believe it, they actually told me they only have loads going west. There must be a thick coat of Ice in hell this morning.

The Chicago load was actually promising because I was practically guaranteed a load to NC (or at least something I could TCall) from there but because of my hours I would not be able to get back to NC without shutting down along the way and costing me a day or two. With that in mind I took the TX load knowing there was a limited chance of getting a load home, but at least I would be close enough to the house to rent a car if it came down to that.

Sure enough, after making my TX delivery early Thursday morning I was informed there were no loads going to NC, but they had one going to Memphis. This didn’t get me home, but we have a drop yard there and I could leave the truck there and rent a car if need be. I was still in a position were I could be home by this weekend.

I made my delivery in Memphis on Friday and after my MT call was offered two loads, one to Florida and one to Columbus, OH. Still not home, but I could work with these. The FL load would get me within 400 miles of home but didn’t deliver until Monday morning. I could probably Tcall this in out Deland, FL terminal, but a car rental in that area was questionable, so I took the OH load. We also have a lot of loads going from OH to NC.

It was to deliver 05:00 Sunday morning. As it worked out, I had the load in our Columbus yard by Saturday morning and was allowed to Tcall the load there. They also preplanned me on a load going to Lumberton, NC just up the road from my home. The problem with that load was that it didn’t PU until 11pm Sunday night and delivered the following Tuesday. Crete did get me to the house on short notice, but this load was going to get me home too late.

I sent a message off to dispatch thanking them for their effort, but informed them that the load didn’t work for my time schedule and asked them to pull me off the preplan. I let them know that I was going to park the truck at the Columbus terminal and rent a car to get home. That is all the explanation they required, I was simply asked when I thought I would be back. I set my PTA, rented a car and started by 600mi drive back to the house.

I was happy with the effort that Crete made to get me home on such short notice, especially with the limited freight base these days. If I had not been on such a tight schedule I would have been very pleased, but as it worked out I was content with getting close enough to drive a rental back. My terminal manager did say if it was an emergency they would have made whatever arrangements were necessary to get me home immediately, but I told him this wasn’t exactly an emergency, but more of an urgency issue. All in all, I was pleased with the way it turned out.

I was home by Saturday night and spent the next week packing, painting, fixing, finalizing and saying goodbye to very good friends.


WEEK THIRTEEN RESULTS
Monday, March 24th through Sunday, March 30th
Miles include deadhead


Mt Sterling, KY to Owensboro, KY(last leg)…....................132mi
Owensboro, KY to Theodore, AL.....................................592mi
Theodore, AL to Coppell, TX..........................................612mi
Hawkins, TX to Memphis, TN..........................................502mi
Memphis, TN to Columbus, OH.......................................600mi

Total Paid Miles............................................. ................2441 Miles (Short week, Mon-Sat Morning)
Actual Miles………………………2695 Miles

2441mi x .42 = $1025.22


I did a fair amount of Bobtailing for personal use this week. Also three of the loads that I picked up were in the same city as the previous delivery. When this happens we are not paid for the in town miles when the driving is done within city limits. Example, the Owensboro load, after delivery I drove 8 miles to the nearest truckstop. My PU was the next morning on the other side of town, now 16 miles away. Trucks had to use the truck route which made it 28 miles to the PU and another 28 miles return. The result was over 60 unpaid miles. This doesn’t happen when a load is picked up in another town, but when staying local it can result in excessive unpaid mileage as was the case with this week.

With that said I am beginning to question Crete “practical miles” of late. I will know for sure if I get a load in the future that has an identical PU and Del as a load in the past. Until then I will just remain suspicious.

One of the great positives about Crete is that you are paid for almost all miles you run, unlike many companies that pay based on the HHG “short” miles. This is because Crete pays “practical miles”. I do believe (no solid proof, just an opinion), that there are options to practical mileage programs. One being a true practical mileage chart that routes over predominantly interstates and another option that routes over less desirable, yet drivable 2 lanes roads. This results in slightly shorter mileage pay, but still superior to the HHG miles.

It “appears” to me that someone may have changed the settings in an effort to save on payroll. Why do I think this?

Because I am still being routed over interstates and major route when I receive my Suggested routing, but if I follow them precisely I am finding large discrepancies (compared to the past that is) between Paid and Actual miles. If, on the other hand I take any and all available two lane roads to cut corners I am finding that the miles are almost dead on. This used to result in being paid more miles than I actually ran as I have shown in the past on my weekly final results.

I would like to know if other Crete drivers are having similar experiences, or maybe it has just been an off week or two.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid.

 

2008
1st QUARTER RESULTS
January 1st through March 31st




Here is a summary of my first three months of 2008 with Crete.

This is a chart of miles run. Each trip is posted on the date that the load was delivered. There were a couple of instances where I delivered two loads in one day. On these trip I listed the miles for the second trip on the next day to avoid distorting the length of haul numbers.




And here is a quick breakdown of the above numbers.

 

I had 37306 paid miles for the same time frame with 3 more days at home than you. I'd say pretty comparable. I'm sitting right at 6000 for April so far.

 

"It “appears” to me that someone may have changed the settings . . "

Absolutely true at Swift. Interstate routing and 2 lane miles and I don't mean the usual HHG shortage . . that is rarely as bad as people make it out to be.

What I have found is that, for many trips which involve a substantial interstate dogleg, Swift is paying on the 2 lane diagonal and in some cases that involves restricted routes. I just do my homework, point out the flaw in the routing and get paid for the miles I drive.

For you newer guys that are follwing this thread, I'd like to point out how valuable a laptop and routing software can be in a situation like this. It takes about 15 seconds to lay out a route and compare it and the mileage to the Qualcomm. I usually get discrepencies resolved before I begin to roll.

By the way, this is an excellent thread!

 

I agree thanks for taking the time to give us this info