How Many Miles?

Ok Patrick, I will make this real easy for you.

Take a 30 day time period, break it down to 4 weeks (for ease of explanation which by the way works out to be 28 days). That gives you four 7 day periods to work with. Take 2 days off per week, that gives you 22 days of work. Divide 10,000 miles by 22, that gives you 454.54.... miles per day. A very reasonable expectation.

Even if you get stuck at shipper/receiver for hours at a time (which does happen), and you have to do more miles in a day than 454, we are talking average miles per day on the days you are out working/driving while not on home time. So you have to drive 600 today, 400 tomorrow because you were picking up/delivering. That averages out to be 500/day over the course of those 2 days (used that to make it easy for you). And oh by the way, JB Hunt trucks are governed to 62 MPH.

I always tried to work out my work day to average about 10 hours of work/day so that I did not have to do a 34 while on the road and managed that quite well and still averaged about 2500 miles/week with no problem. That 10 hours included required pre-trip/post-trip inspections as well as fueling thrown in.

So to expect a driver to do a minimum of 400 miles/day is a very reasonable expectation.

Ernie

Ernie concludes:

So to expect a driver to do a minimum of 400 miles/day is a very reasonable expectation.

Yes, that's easy to work out. But the thing about "400 miles per day or you're fired" has me confused. I believe we got somewhere close to half Patrick's story. I think we don't get to read the part that cause this phone call. But can you see any trucking company demanding an average 400 OTR miles a day or you can get another job?

I thought it was 700 miles a day? I don't think I ever did that, unless, maybe once, where I stopped at maybe 1 a.m., and started at 11 a.m. and finished at 11 p.m. (include a short break) that might be 10 hours driving (out of that) I might get 720 miles. If I did something like that ALL the time, I would be VERY tired.

I think drivers who are getting over 700 miles everyday are saying their Qualcomm doesn't work, and are using a couple of paper logbooks.

Don't get me wrong, it's possible, but with "drive time," in the cities; accidents, on the highways; wait time, at shippers and receivers; it will NOT happen on a regular basis (average 700 miles per day), unless you have dedicated accounts, and know, "secret routes."

Dave

Another great website out there is called Truckers Report that has forums dedicated to Good companies, Bad, companies, or just forums for individual companies. There are over 20 pages of post about Navajo Express and i am not seeing anybody talking about this required mileage. Heres a new hire driver...

Just started at Navajo Express and didn't really see anything recent on them so thought I would share. Starting pay is .30-.32 per mile unless you have 5 years experience. New as of June 1, 2015 pay for all new hires without five years experience will be mandatory guarenteed pay per day program. First 90 days you get $110 a day 3-9 months $115 then 9-12 months $120 per day. This is regardless miles run, no matter what if you are available to work you get paid the rate nothing more nothing less. After year you start at .35 per mile. That's how they are trying to sell it as a pos. doesn't really work for me in my calculations but for others might be great. Orientation is 2 days, basic stuff, a lot of things that shouldn't have taken a lot of time took too much time, or HOS , FMCSA regs eft...

The company does provide transportation to terminal from home for orientation on form of bus ticket or reimbursing you for fuel. Also get put up in a hotel, nothing fancy just a room, but it's free and trans to and from terminal every day. Don't think you are going to leave orientation on second day and hit the road, they won't issue your truck until next day so you can get at least 10 hr break. I have to fly to Denver from TN to get my tractor as there are only day cans and coffin sleepers at this terminal. Orientation is a video conference with Denver office. Could probably condenced it into one day but some aren't as knowledgable as others and it goes at the pace of the slowest learner.

That's all i can think of now if any questions ask I will try and answer. I will try and update as I go. Just a FYI seems like there is currently a huge change in management, as a lot of upper level managers I was introduced to had only been here a couple weeks or a month or so. Will be interesting to talk to other drivers and see what changes are taking place and their opinion(taken with a bag of salt obviously).

Thanks or the research, Brian. However, I hope Patrick has not left the building.