How Often Are You Really "late?"

I've been solo for about a month now. I feel like almost all of my loads are late, unfortunately. I feel like I just have terrible luck. Whether it's because I blow a tire, or pickup a broken trailer that I feel I need to get fixed (this has happened at least 3 times!) or get held up at a shipper/receiver, and today my fuel stop authorization was not working and took me almost an hour to get emergency fuel from dispatch. I feel like I must be having the worst luck in the industry right now.

My trucker friends and my mentor all say they never have been late and never will be late. Especially my mentor. Said being late is unacceptable. And I just feel so frustrated that at least half of my loads have been late. And I feel like some of them, yes, have been due to poor planning on my part. But I feel like a lot of them were honestly out of my hands!

So I was just wondering how often you are really late, under what kind of circumstances, and what happens when you're late? How negatively does it reflect on me? And how do you deal with being late? I feel like it's taking a toll on my headspace and confidence, as I feel like no matter what I do I am late a lot of the time...

I’ve been late less than five times in five years.

How often were you late while out with a trainer? Are all your loads live load/unload? What percentage are drop/hook? How often do you discuss your appointment times with your dispatcher or manager?

When I started (with Schneider) I was able to give my eta and I always gave myself extra time. In fact, they trained me to plan my time by; miles divided by 50mph = ETA. That resulted in a very generous ETA. Over time, I’ve been able to tighten that up by considering things like interstate vs. backroads.

Have you talked with a trainer at your company to see if they have any ideas?

James there are seperate issues with being late. First being the companies fault, secound being yours.

There is nothing you can do about the company planning loads poorly or their equipment breaking down. That is squarely on them, not your fault. Don’t worry about it.

You look at the load, plan it out and if you see an issue tell them about it over your company device. That way there is a paper trail to prove you did your part correctly. If you are late because you messed up then own up to it, figure out what went wrong and fix it.

I ran alot of loads that were blown by the company for about a year. They knew I would salvage it the best I could. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Was never my fault so I dealt with it and moved on.

The only way it counts against you is when it is your fault.

In a year and a half I've been late one time that was on me...by 9 minutes. They still unloaded me. I get several loads a month that are assigned to me either already late or unable to deliver on time because there's not enough time when I get it. No biggie. Don't let it wear on you. Are you late based on the ETA you gave or your appointment time?

Late based on my appt time. Never late with the trainer. He said he's never been late. Told me to always set my ETA at the end of the delivery window. So if it delivers between 09-16 12:00 and 09-17 14:00 to set ETA to 09-17 14:00 and still get it there asap. So if I think I'm going to be late I should say that in my ETA when accepting or should I counter offer before accepting it or just send my late macro after accepting?

Most of these I'm late because of unforeseen circumstances at the time of taking it, but one was late because there wasn't enough time to get it there on the delivery window. Which I should've counter offered in the first place I guess.

James,

You're pretty new so right now learning about the industry. On time delivery is just about the most important thing in trucking besides driving safely, imo.

You're going to, to put it bluntly, learn what is acceptable and what isn't. For example, I don't mess with tires unless they're off the rim or showing metal cords. If I got a trailer that has flat tires, as long as the air inflators can get them inflated, I'll go with it. Il let the company know after I dropped off the trailer so they can fix it.

Also, if you're driving for a mega carrier, they will sometimes give you the earliest time you can drop a load off, but they have a window of 2 or 3 days to do it. I used to call them if I was going to be late, but they kept on telling me it was ok cause I was within the window load after load that I finally stopped calling them.

Things should get easier the longer you do it, but it's definently something you should work on.