Carriers Claim Financial Benefit Of Putting Up Drivers In Hotels
Topic 25295 | Page 1
A night in a hotel sounds good on the surface. But I like my truck, and I have lots of stuff in my truck that I also like. Fridge, microwave, guitar, grill, etc. Heck, even my mattress is better than most hotel mattresses. As an OTR driver, I prefer my house on wheels.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
How much does the sleepr cost? At 350-500 per week for a hotel, you could buy an awful lot of sleeper, seems to me, though I could be wrong.
I’ll stay with the sleeper cab option.
It would be nice to have a night in a hotel once a week or so... But I agree with turtle and the others I love my bed in my sleeper. I actually prefer my sleeper to the apartment I share with my room mate.
OD puts a lot of drivers up in hotels everynight especially during bad weather, pass by one of the hotels we use near certain terminals and you would swear you where passing a OD yard. I have often wondered how they save money doing that, seems like putting small sleepers on the truck would be more cost effective.
Personally I prefer the hotel, it is nice to have a private bathroom, plus it is near impossible to back a set into a parking spot.
Terminal:
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
We have a few sleeper cabs but they wont be purchasing anymore when those get retired. The biggest problem with hotels is there are no where near enough for all the drivers. Also, it will cut down on productivity. A driver will shut down earlier than they normally would to ensure they have a room. Another issue would be how many are truck friendly? We have an app we use for our hotels called CLC Lodging that we book our rooms on and we can set the criteria to filter the results. I filter it down to include truck parking. Looking at google maps sometimes their "truck parking " would only accommodate a bobtail. When I've had to use it I was even more stressed worrying about where I'd shut down, would they have any vacancies? Most drivers have 3 places they plan on stopping for the night. If you're in a hotel are you going to reserve 3 different rooms then cancel the 2 you dont use?all that does is screw over other drivers that could've stayed there. The 2 times I've stayed out with this company, and the 2 doing food service I ended up just stopping at a casino with a hotel as they almost always have parking.
Bobtail:
"Bobtailing" means you are driving a tractor without a trailer attached.
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
If this is a regular experience with a company, it seems to me this would be handled by a dispatcher , or someone there tasked with hotel booking for the drivers. That would be a bigger headache for a driver than trying to find truck parking at a truck stop, service plaza, rest area, etc. I can’t imagine doing this in addition to driving, HOS , safety, appointment times...
Dispatcher:
Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager
The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.DAC:
Drive-A-Check Report
A truck drivers DAC report will contain detailed information about their job history of the last 10 years as a CDL driver (as required by the DOT).
It may also contain your criminal history, drug test results, DOT infractions and accident history. The program is strictly voluntary from a company standpoint, but most of the medium-to-large carriers will participate.
Most trucking companies use DAC reports as part of their hiring and background check process. It is extremely important that drivers verify that the information contained in it is correct, and have it fixed if it's not.
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
If this is a regular experience with a company, it seems to me this would be handled by a dispatcher , or someone there tasked with hotel booking for the drivers. That would be a bigger headache for a driver than trying to find truck parking at a truck stop, service plaza, rest area, etc. I can’t imagine doing this in addition to driving, HOS , safety, appointment times...
I do it all the time. It's really not that big of a deal. The catch is, I run the same areas regularly and I know all the hotels that are clean and have good parking. If I'm going to be in an unfamiliar area I just call one of my buddies that's been doing this a whole lot longer than me.
If I were OTR , i would not want to drive around in a day cab and look for hotels all over the country every night. It doesn't seem feasible at all. It would definitely make it harder to run out your clock on a consistent basis due to the lack of hotels with truck parking. Unless you're going to stay in a bunch of roach motels all the time.
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
Day Cab:
A tractor which does not have a sleeper berth attached to it. Normally used for local routes where drivers go home every night.
Dispatcher:
Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager
The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.DAC:
Drive-A-Check Report
A truck drivers DAC report will contain detailed information about their job history of the last 10 years as a CDL driver (as required by the DOT).
It may also contain your criminal history, drug test results, DOT infractions and accident history. The program is strictly voluntary from a company standpoint, but most of the medium-to-large carriers will participate.
Most trucking companies use DAC reports as part of their hiring and background check process. It is extremely important that drivers verify that the information contained in it is correct, and have it fixed if it's not.
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.
If this is a regular experience with a company, it seems to me this would be handled by a dispatcher , or someone there tasked with hotel booking for the drivers. That would be a bigger headache for a driver than trying to find truck parking at a truck stop, service plaza, rest area, etc. I can’t imagine doing this in addition to driving, HOS , safety, appointment times...
I do it all the time. It's really not that big of a deal. The catch is, I run the same areas regularly and I know all the hotels that are clean and have good parking. If I'm going to be in an unfamiliar area I just call one of my buddies that's been doing this a whole lot longer than me.
If I were OTR , i would not want to drive around in a day cab and look for hotels all over the country every night. It doesn't seem feasible at all. It would definitely make it harder to run out your clock on a consistent basis due to the lack of hotels with truck parking. Unless you're going to stay in a bunch of roach motels all the time.
I would think the LTL's would also have their regular hotels that they'd use since they run the same routes daily.
LTL:
Less Than Truckload
Refers to carriers that make a lot of smaller pickups and deliveries for multiple customers as opposed to hauling one big load of freight for one customer. This type of hauling is normally done by companies with terminals scattered throughout the country where freight is sorted before being moved on to its destination.
LTL carriers include:
- FedEx Freight
- Con-way
- YRC Freight
- UPS
- Old Dominion
- Estes
- Yellow-Roadway
- ABF Freight
- R+L Carrier
OTR:
Over The Road
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
Day Cab:
A tractor which does not have a sleeper berth attached to it. Normally used for local routes where drivers go home every night.
Dispatcher:
Dispatcher, Fleet Manager, Driver Manager
The primary person a driver communicates with at his/her company. A dispatcher can play many roles, depending on the company's structure. Dispatchers may assign freight, file requests for home time, relay messages between the driver and management, inform customer service of any delays, change appointment times, and report information to the load planners.DAC:
Drive-A-Check Report
A truck drivers DAC report will contain detailed information about their job history of the last 10 years as a CDL driver (as required by the DOT).
It may also contain your criminal history, drug test results, DOT infractions and accident history. The program is strictly voluntary from a company standpoint, but most of the medium-to-large carriers will participate.
Most trucking companies use DAC reports as part of their hiring and background check process. It is extremely important that drivers verify that the information contained in it is correct, and have it fixed if it's not.
HOS:
Hours Of Service
HOS refers to the logbook hours of service regulations.New Reply:
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A number of trucking companies lately are reaping the financial benefits of putting their drivers up in hotels overnight rather than having them spend the night in sleeper cabs.
Carriers claim financial benefit of putting up drivers in hotels
The premise behind today's news article intrigued me. The thought of a nightly hotel stay while on the road to shower and relax away from the truck and to take advantage of hotel amenities certainly sounds attractive, but I'm thinking that it would come with certain drawbacks based around being in a day cab all day long.
Personally, I enjoyed having the ability to pull into a rest area for a short break and make a cup of coffee or microwave a hotdog. I especially appreciated being able to take a quick nap during a long detention, or to make a cup of coffee, etc.
And, more than once I found myself having to park in some out-of-the way location where finding and driving to a hotel would have been out of the question.
What are ya'll's thoughts on this?
Day Cab:
A tractor which does not have a sleeper berth attached to it. Normally used for local routes where drivers go home every night.