Layover Pay Detention Pay Stop Off Pay Loading, Unloading, And Pallet Jack Pay

What exactly do these terms mean for truckers?

How are they different? Thanks

What exactly do these terms mean for truckers?

TROUBLE. The pays you mentioned are crude attempts to compensate drivers over and above the obsolete cents per mile scheme. Washington state passed a law that said anyone paid other than by salary or hourly (such as PER MILE) must get a PAID break every 4 hours. Most trucking companies switched to hourly pay when this happened. No one went broke. Drivers just got paid fairly for our time. Funny thing, once companies had to start paying drivers for their time it suddenly had value to them. Meetings dropped down nothing. Training became limited to relevant topics and also scaled down.

I know that's not what you were asking so here are some common pays some drivers get (varies by the gig):

Breakdown pay - NOT for local drivers. If your truck breaks down or maybe the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree and your truck gets towed to the nearest dealership. It can often take a week or more for repairs. The dealership will usually have several trucks ahead of yours in line. It may take them a day or two to examine your truck, another day or two to order parts and then a while to have an available tech make the needed repairs. You'll get paid a nominal sum, usually around $50/day while your truck is in the shop. You don't get this the first day of the breakdown or the first day when your truck is back on the road.

Stop pay - Usually OTR and regional drivers are a one and done deal - ie you pick up a load at one spot and drop it off at another. If you work for say, a company that hauls food, you may have to stop at several locations and each location only gets part of your load. Each stop can take a while. You may have to wait in line to get to the gate, show the guard your bills of lading then wait for a door assignment. After you slide your tandems and back your trailer up to the assigned door you have to drop your bills off somewhere and wait for the warehouse workers to take their items. You may need to pay lumpers. Once the unloading is done and the lumpers are paid you have to wait in line for your signed bills of lading. Once you have your proof of delivery you can pull away from the door and slide your tandems forward. The whole process can take several hours and you've typically driven less than a mile. Some companies pay you for ever stop where you load or unload, usually in the $50-75 ballpark.

Detention (Despatch/Demurrage) - Sometimes when you make a delivery it has to be unloaded (as opposed to a drop and hook). Unfortunately, there are usually some trucks ahead of you so you may have to wait a while. Detention/despatch/demurrage pays you an hourly rate after a certain amount of time and usually with a cap. It's usually spelled out fairly clearly (ie $20/hr. after the first 2 hours for up to 8 hours). Now, whether the driver actually get paid isn't so black and white. Unfortunately, freight is a commodity - the job usually goes to the lowest bidder and shippers don't want to upset the customer. What typically happens is the driver will claim say 6 hours detention. Someone from the trucking company will call the customer and say something like, "Our driver had to wait 8 hours to unload, that wasn't part of the deal and isn't fair to our driver." The customer will say something like, "It wasn't my fault. I had six dock workers call in sick. I'm not paying any extra fees". So the driver gets nothing.

Driver load/driver unload - Sometimes the driver has to deliver to a, "dark terminal" - no one else is there. The lights are off and everyone has gone home. The driver has to load or unload the trailer by themselves. This is usually more of a local or regional type of deal where the driver goes to the same places on their route every time. The driver will have keys and/or security codes to get inside the facility and do the loading or unloading. It can also be a customer service situation where the driver delivers to customers who may not have a warehouse or employees who can unload the truck.

Layover pay - Usually happens when you're unloading but can happen while loading. You've turned the miles and arrived at the receiver at the scheduled time. When you attempt to check in and get unloaded they tell you they can't unload you today. You'll have to come back tomorrow or on Monday or some other time. You'll have to sit, idle for a day or two (you can't take a new load while their stuff is still in your trailer). Detention pay is for waiting for the next available slot, Layover means the receiver (or shipper) is changing the day of the delivery (or pickup) appointment.

Boy....there's some statements in the previous reply that have me shaking my head.

I personally prefer to get paid by the unit, it's called piecework. The more efficient and effective you are, the more money you generate. It's a system of pay that rewards safe productivity.

Breakdown, layover, unloading/loading, detention are ancillary items that are not included in milage pay.

Most carriers have their own policies regarding them, how much, when and how they are calculated and paid. In general though:

Breakdown is for truck/trailer and or equipment issues. Usually hourly pay

Layover is generally construed as a daily pay after a given number of hours on breakdown, and or detention pay

Unloading/loading is generally hourly pay for labor associated with Unloading/loading freight.

Additional stop pay is for multiple stop loads, generally a set amount per Additional stop. (Some carriers offer additional trailer moves pay as well)

Detention pay is generally hourly and many carriers do have a grace period where it starts 2 or so hours after your arrival call. It's generally for when your detained at shippers/recievers.

In all cases, I'd recommend you get your companies policy for ancillary pay in writing and become familiar with it.

I use it extensively, particularly layover pay as I frequently am substantially early to both shippers and recievers if the loads have too much time on them.

I use discretion on applying for it though and look at the big picture. For instance if my DM has given me a load with lots of time but it was to facilitate me getting home on time or somethinglike that, it's not worth pursuing. But if I'm doing him a favor and taking care of a bad load, it is.

I've found keeping a good attitude and not being combative in mindset with your company will pay dividends well and lead to being happy in your career.

Thank you for the info!

Reading some of the descriptions of accessorial pay, I feel like I would never be able to make money as an OTR driver, unless I had 3,000 miles/week, minimum. Oh, wait, I only ran 8,800 miles last month because of a major truck problem with diesel leaking into engine oil (has since been fixed), and I still averaged $1,500/week gross. Piece rate, as Davy describes, is probably the most equitable form of driver compensation, but CPM with accurately and fairly paid accessorial pay is still a decent way to make a living. There is money to be made in trucking, even with the current state of the economy. Just stay away from leasing or trying to own a truck.

So, to kind of answer your question, Pelican, I averaged $1,500/week with only 8,800 miles because I received $200/day in breakdown pay for first full day my truck was down until the last full day. I received $200/day when I had at least 12 hours out of a day where I available to drive but waiting on a load or waiting to deliver a load. I received $20/hour in detention pay, which for me as a reefer driver is typically an hour or two of detention at each live load/unload location. I also got paid extra stop pay, which for me is $50 for the first stop and $35 for each additional stop. I am at $.47/mile with +$.15/mile for loads going to zip codes my company designates as "east coast." They are quite generous in giving the east coast bonus because all miles on east coast loads receive the +$.15/mile bonus. I also receive $175 added for any loads going to any of the 5 boroughs of NYC, plus Long Island. I don't share the name of my company for personal reasons, and in this instance, I don't want to seem as though I am trying to sell working for my company. I am providing personal experience as to how pay works in real situations and that even when a driver who is paid CPM seems to be doing a lot of sitting, paychecks are still decent. I don't know where I am in comparison to other drivers with my company. I do know that I am routinely in the top 10% when it comes to miles driven/30 days.

Boy....there's some statements in the previous reply that have me shaking my head.

Seriously.

Pelican, the descriptions given for ancillary/accessory pay are good and accurate. When I see accessory pay advertised I don’t see trouble—I see a company properly compensating their drivers for their work and for normal trucking issues that cause a driver to face to wait around sometimes.

I’m local, paid by the load with a weekly minimum guarantee, and I also get detention pay and breakdown pay. My detention pay starts accruing hourly after the first hour at a shipper or receiver and I get hourly pay anytime I have to do anything not directly related to a load (broke down, shuttling a truck or trailer to the yard for repair or waiting for a repair, training, conducting road tests for new drivers, etc). Turtle can step in here if he’s reading this but Walmart drivers are among the highest paid in the industry and a massive chunk of their regular salary is accessory pay.

So accessory pay is NOT a red flag but just a normal part of the industry simply because there are normal every day things that happen that interfere with our ability to keep the wheels turning and our companies compensate us for those things. If anything I would argue that seeing accessory pay is a good thing because it can make a significant addition to your paycheck.

In general when looking for companies to work for, mileage pay is not a good indicator in itself just because overall pay can widely vary between even companies that all have the same mileage rate depending on how many miles you’re running and how much accessory pay you’re receiving. So when looking at pay with new companies my question is always, how much am I going to be making YEARLY. A company (or drivers from that company) can generally give you a good idea what average pay is and what some of the higher earners are making when looking at yearly pay and it helps wade through the mess of hearing a bunch of random people on the internet tell you they made “x” amount last week. Weekly and even monthly pay changes all the time

20% of my daily pay when I ran Walmart Dedicated was Accessorial pay. Stop pay, dispatch pay and trailer move pay often paid me $100 extra per day.

I personally don’t get caught up in any of those terms. I don’t think I get any of those in my pay either. I turn in my time sheet every week and get paid very well per load. That’s all I worry about.

Turtle can step in here if he’s reading this but Walmart drivers are among the highest paid in the industry and a massive chunk of their regular salary is accessory pay.

I took this screenshot of a single week in my latest paycheck. As you can see, accessory or "activity" pay as we call it does indeed add up to a substantial chunk. $814 and change, to be exact. In this example, roughly 35% of my weekly check is made up of activity pay.

There are definitely days where my activities pay more than my mileage.

I personally don’t get caught up in any of those terms. I don’t think I get any of those in my pay either. I turn in my time sheet every week and get paid very well per load. That’s all I worry about.

For us OTR drivers, it's not so cut and dry, especially those of us hauling reefer.