Miles, Miles...miles?

Speaking of regional not being what I was told... I was told that regional pays 34 cpm. And I was told it's more than normal to make up for the short loads. So, OK, 34 cpm is base for a driver with 3 years in and I only have 1, so that's better, right? Depends. I make 32 cpm...if I'm running out West. East I make 34 cpm. So, that's not any better than I would make on a lot of my loads. But then it gets worse. I just verified this against my pay stubs for the past 2 weeks. On regional you get paid 34 cpm no matter how long the trip is. OTR if the trip is less than 300 miles I make 38 cpm. It keeps going up to 50 cpm for 1-25 mile loads. (Unless they are deadhead or trailer moves, in which case I get 32.) All of my loads lately have been between 150 and 300 miles. So I'm not getting more on regional because the loads are shorter. I'm getting paid a lot less.

This is just getting weird today. I've got this load that I could have delivered last night, but I have to sit on it and deliver it at O-dark-30 tomorrow morning. They are still really backed up on Costco loads, so they keep sending me loads that pick up and deliver tomorrow. I keep turning the loads down because the delivery times are after my 14 will be up. Also, the loads won't be ready to pick up in time for me to deliver them early. Costco stores don't care if you get there early. If they had a load that I could get picked up and deliver it early before my clock runs out, I'd take it. But I go round and round with planners about this all the time. They don't take into consideration that you have to start your clock before you deliver your early load. They are apparently getting ****ed at me for turning these loads down. I've gotten messages telling me to update my PTA. My PTA is fine. I'll be available after I deliver this load I'm on. But they don't seem to get that I don't have 14 hours at that point. My DL has called me to find out what the problem with taking these loads is. And apparently the planners are raising a fuss because I just got a message from my Terminal Manager saying he agrees with me about my 14 and doesn't want anyone running illegally. (That message looks like it was sent so there would be a record of it and the planners could see it.) Come on. I keep explaining that I can't take these loads legally and everyone up to my Terminal Manager has to get involved?

Oh yeah, my terminal manager sent me another message saying he saw the message I sent to my fleet manager and he wants me to call him Monday so we can sit down with my DM "and look at things to make you (me) more money." Wish me luck with that.

Ok, more details are coming to light.

First of all, you're running regional and home weekends. You're not running OTR. So that's going to cut into your miles some for sure. I thought you were running OTR. But you still should be able to get 2500-3000 miles per week no problem.

Secondly, you're turning down loads. You're barely getting any miles and yet you're always running out of hours and you're turning down loads? What exactly do you think the company can do for you? Either you're out of hours, you want to go home, or you're turning down loads for one reason or another.

And for the record, the way they're describing weekends at home is correct. This is trucking, not an office job. It doesn't work the same. Getting home weekends generally means you'll get home sometime between Friday at dinner and Saturday at lunch. You'll be home for 36-48 hours and you'll go back out again. It's isn't like an office job where you're done on Friday at dinner until Monday morning. In trucking you get home when you get there and you leave when it's time. That's how it goes. Sometimes you'll be home 48+ hours, sometimes you'll be home 36 hours. It will vary every week and you just have to roll with it.

In my opinion your problems have nothing to do with Swift at all. They are almost entirely a matter of poor time & logbook management, and to a lesser extent a misunderstanding about how weekend home time works. It's also the slowest time of the year right now so freight will likely be a bit slower also.

And this idea about having to be on duty at the customers is complete garbage. If you're sitting at a customer waiting to load or unload you are not on duty. You should be sleeper berth or off duty. That's how it works.

Time management is one of the trickiest things to learn these days with that stupid 14 hour rule and electronic logs. But it can be done. Do you know the split sleeper berth rule? Does Swift allow you to use that? Often times that can be just the thing you need but I have heard of companies that don't want their drivers using it because too many people are confused about it.

But I'll say this - the problems you're having right now would be the same at any company you work for. Maybe you can find someone that is running regional and getting good miles and find out how they're logging things. Because that's your biggest problem right now. And in the name of all that is holy try not to turn down loads if you can help it.

This is a "do whatever you have to do to get the job done" type of industry. Old School said it well - you have to learn to make things happen for yourself. Right now you're not making anything happen. You're not scheduling your time well, you're not logging properly, you're turning down loads, and you're complaining about the home time schedule. You keep saying you'd like more miles but I haven't heard anything that you've actually done to make that happen. You called the company - that was a start. But in the end all that seemed to get accomplished was that you gave them a hard time because they get to go home on Friday and you don't. Complaining that you're not getting enough miles but then turning down loads because you want to be home on an office-worker schedule isn't going to make you any allies.

I think you can do great with Swift and this stuff can get worked out. But you're definitely going to have to learn better time management and you're going to have to show them you're ready, willing, and able to handle more miles.

Rookie Trucker,

You talk about not being able to take loads because you will be out of hours.

That is one thing your ETA/PTA is for. Here it is a MACRO 7 on our Qualcomm. We send in a new one if we can't make the one they sent us.

When I get a load that I know I can't make, I don't turn it down. Actually I can't. Where I work, and I am sure at Swift also, we are forced dispatched. I told my DM the other day on a load they sent me, I was working on it, but I couldn't do it. He went off. Told me I was forced dispatched, I couldn't turn down loads.

I told him, I didn't mean I couldn't do it at all, I can't do it in the time frame they sent. I told him I would work on the time table and send him a reply. If it was workable, then they would assign me the load, if not, they would give it to another driver.

For the last 3 trips I have had to do that. They were packing me the loads. Not real long distance, just not enough time between them.

After working on the hours and sending in a NEW ETA/PTA they sent back a new time on the loads. I took them and delivered.

No one was upset or mad. Well except for one receiver that didn't get the message from his department that the delivery time had been changed. LOL

Keep working on it. And take a closer look at your hours. Those ETA/PTA's are as much for your use as your DM's and Load Planners. Just because there is a time on a load, doesn't mean the time is set in stone. In actuality, they have what they call a "window". Where the times can be moved around. Usually. Not all loads have that. Some, but usually few, are set in stone. But those loads are usually given to the more experienced drivers. To make sure the load gets where it needs to be at the right time.

I haven't been out here very long, but I did see one load like that. I can't say what the load was, not allowed. But it did have a set time frame. The drivers had plenty of time to get there, but it was set. It was a team load. They actually arrived almost a full day early. But they had to wait on the delivery time. It couldn't be changed.

Keep it safe out here, the life you save might be your own. Joe S.

My company is the same way, "Forced Dispatch." However, I will refuse a load or contact my DM , if I know I will run out of my 14 or 70 on a particular load. Usually, they will tell me it is a preloaded trailer.

Dave

This thread is getting old!! Listen to the advise and move on.

These folks have the best advise on the web. Listen to it, take it, and apply it.

It sounds to me like you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Maybe it would be worth it to eat the money you owe them and move on to another company that will treat you like you think you deserve.

If I have learned 1 thing from this site and all the people I have talked to, You make your own way in this industry. To quote Brett and every one else "all companies are the same, Same freight, Same roads, Same rules, Same goals.

YOU have to make it work for YOU by learning the ropes, ie; regs, HOS , how to get along in an industry that is performance driven!

Not trying to be harsh but this is being overworked here.

Best of luck in your future

Bart

Brett, you are misunderstanding or misconstruing a lot of the things I've said.

First of all, I mentioned before that I just started running regional 2 weeks ago. The mileages and everything I've mentioned before are based on over a year of running OTR all over the continental US and being out usually from 3 to 5 weeks. There is a page on the driver's website that tracks your dispatched miles and it floated around 1700 miles for the entire year. On OTR. I also keep track of the mileages in my own log. I also realize that this time of year is slow. My average was lower this time last year. But I also am aware that the last quarter of the year is supposed to be the busiest for freight. And my average dropped to around 1500-1600 miles a week for that time. Apparently you missed the part of the conversation where my DM said they try to get drivers UP TO an average of 1900 miles a week and when she told me that 2500 miles a week was completely unrealistic for a company driver. It doesn't seem to me that it would be unrealistic if drivers here are easily getting 2500 to 3000 miles.

My complaint about the home time on regional was not that I'm trying to get more time off. That's not why I switched to regional. I switched because my DM keeps suggesting it and they have different planners so I thought maybe a change would make a difference. My complaint was that she said "work monday through friday" and "home more." That set an expectation in my mind. But you're right. I should automatically know that in trucking when they say Monday through Friday it means Monday through Saturday. It was stupid of me to think Friday meant Friday.

OK, fine. I'm totally screwing up my logging. But I just pulled this from one of the training documents that Swift has on the driver's Swift University site:

"Example #2: You pull into the dock and give them the paperwork for the load. They tell you to sit in the truck and wait for the light to turn green. When it does you can then pull away. While waiting, you are ON DUTY. The reason for this is because you are not free to pursue your own interests and cannot leave the property."

That's how Swift reads the regulations and that is what Swift expects. It also quotes the FMCSR where it states you have to be on duty while taking care of your paperwork and where it states if you are doing work on behalf of the company you are required to be on duty. And as a side note, if the customer does say that you can leave the property, Swift tells you to get name and number of who released you and try to get it in writing. When they send out the messages talking about what people are getting in trouble for, going off duty at customers is always on the list. Maybe Swift's lawyers are misreading this part of the reg. But I highly doubt that if I get audited and they see me going off duty while at customers that it's going to do me any good to say, "Other drivers do this all the time" or "the guy's at Trucking Truth said you're full of crap." I don't set the rules. The Feds and Swift do. If Swift is misreading the rules, and I'm following them so I don't end up getting fired, are you really saying that's me screwing up? I soaked up a lot of information on this site about tips and tricks to logging and started at Swift all set to use them and get ahead of the other drivers and then over time found out that Swift is strict about not letting you do them. What's going to happen if I start doing all of these things, Swift fires me, and when I go looking for a job at another trucking company they find out that I got fired for "falsifying logs." But fine. I want to make more money, so I'll start going off duty as often as possible and hope I don't get audited.

Yeah, I decline a lot of loads. But I don't think you understand what I mean by that. I said before that if we can't take a load due to hours of service we have to so "No, I cannot accept this plan" and then give them an eta for when you can pick it up and deliver it. (Which sounds like exactly the same thing as Blue Angel said.) If the times you give are within the window, they will send the load plan back to you with those new times. If not, they take the load off of you. If I say I can take a load and can't get it there on time, I risk a service failure. Too many service failures will get you fired. I said I turned down those two loads because I do not have enough time on my 14 to deliver them. In other words, I would have to run illegally to take these loads as they are planned. There was not enough time between the pickup and delivery times to deliver them early, within my 14. This is the only reason I turn down loads. So are you telling me that if they send me a load and I have to run 2 hours over my 14 to deliver it then I am wrong? I thought we were supposed to try to protect our CDLs. And, oh yeah, my Terminal Manager backed me up on declining those loads so I don't have to run illegally. So I guess he doesn't want me to get miles either.

(Cont)

My company is the same way, "Forced Dispatch." However, I will refuse a load or contact my DM , if I know I will run out of my 14 or 70 on a particular load. Usually, they will tell me it is a preloaded trailer.

Dave

You should work your trips so you have some time left on your clocks. But in the real world it doesn't always work.

I ran my 70 down to zero last night because I didn't have any closer stops.

Now in truth, I actually ran my 70 out by 13 minutes. Yes, I was in an HOS violation. But by reworking my clock for the day, I found those 13 minutes I needed.

No. I didn't do anything illegal. I went back over the day and saw places where I should have logged off duty but didn't.

I changed a few things and I was legal again.

If you stick around long enough, and you do the extra that needs done to make it in this job, there will be times you are flat against your 14 and your 70. Maybe both.

Keep it safe out here, the life you save might be your own. Joe S

Yeah, I mentioned the home time to the planners. I misunderstood how it works, based on what my DM told me. So the reason I mentioned it was so they could plan me something close enough that I could still get home within my hours available. Had I been able to deliver that load on time it would have left me in Michigan with no hours to get back on. And my DM (who used to be a planner) has told me several times that planners don't look at home time requests, so if you don't say anything about it, they will just keep running you. The really ironic thing about your take on my conversation with my DM is that I have to confess that I'm not very original. That argument that I used about her not working on her days off is one that I got from an experienced driver on this site over a year ago. And when he used it with his dispatcher to get more home time everyone applauded his cleverness. When I say it, I'm a crybaby.

@Bart I am not against taking advice. I have gotten a lot of great information from this site that I have been able to use. But none of the other advice has been against the company rules or been illegal. These things might be great at other companies, but what I'm trying to impress on people is that they don't work here. And if those tips that will get me all the miles won't work here, then it stands to reason that you can't get the miles here.

The advice is mostly falling into 3 categories:

1) Go off duty whenever you can. This company is very strict in how they interpret the FMCSR rules on on-duty not driving. This company has made it very clear that doing most of these things will get you in trouble on a company audit (because that's how they interpret the regs). And that, in turn will at best put you into the "problem driver" category at the company, or at worst, get you fired. But I will take all of this advice from now on. So, Tip #1: Ignore the company rules. Hope you don't get audited.

2) Never decline loads. So, from now on, if I have to drive a few hours over my 14 or when my 11 or 70 run out to take a load, I will do it. Tip #2: Run illegally whenever a load requires it.

3) If you want to get home time, it means you don't want to make money. Only whiners go home. Tip #3: Never go home, never stop working.

Yeah, I"m kidding about the tips. But it does sound like that's what I'm being told. But I guess I will take tip #1 and hope I don't get fired for it and not able to get a job somewhere else, because it sounds like breaking the on-duty rules at this company is the only way I'm going to be able to make money.