Switching Trucking Companies

yes you missed where I was sitting still when the door was ripped off. As in not moving not in the truck. So no it was not my error unless being outside the truck is where it's my fault following the shippers rules of not being in the truck while being loaded.

So you're saying you were parked at the dock and you went inside. While you were inside the building someone backed in next to you and ripped your door off. Then Swift blamed you. Is that what you're saying?

there was not even anyone next to me. the trailer was so rusted the wind literaly yanked the hook out of the side of the trailer and slammed the door against the dock hard enough to break 4 of the hinges and they blammed me when i was not in the truck.

Like i said if it was my fault i would own up to it and accept it, but it was not on me i was not in the truck it happened when i was inside and they were loading it, i was at the end dock.

Here is another example I am at ExxonMobil right now for a live load, I accepted the load with the appointment time at 1000. Now once at the place they change the time to 1230 AFTER I arrive to not pay detention.

If that load was a 10:00 appointment time and not a first-come-first-serve load then the shipper should have that in writing somewhere. Try to verify with someone in shipping that they told your company you had a 10:00 firm appointment time and see what they say.

And besides, it's detention time. It's pennies in the grand scheme of things and you're laying in the bunk taking a nap. Are you really gonna get upset because you're not getting paid for taking a nap? Is it worth getting in a fight with the office personnel at your company and the customer's shipping department over? Your company will starve you out instead of giving you great miles in the future and that shipper will just take that much longer to get you loaded and moving.

Who's going to make more money......a driver getting a solid 3,000 miles per week but never getting paid for detention time, or the driver getting 1,500 miles a week but gets paid for all of his detention time? It's not even close.

You have to look at the big picture and focus on the long term plan. If your plan is to fight and scrape and claw for every last nickel you have coming even if it means aggravating everyone you deal with then you're never gonna get any miles and you'll never get any favors from anyone. The customers and your company are going to be annoyed with you and they're the ones with the power to let you sit as long as they like. They also have the power to keep you moving and keep money coming in. So you have to decide how you're going to handle this type of stuff.

Here is another example I am at ExxonMobil right now for a live load, I accepted the load with the appointment time at 1000. Now once at the place they change the time to 1230 AFTER I arrive to not pay detention.

If that load was a 10:00 appointment time and not a first-come-first-serve load then the shipper should have that in writing somewhere. Try to verify with someone in shipping that they told your company you had a 10:00 firm appointment time and see what they say.

And besides, it's detention time. It's pennies in the grand scheme of things and you're laying in the bunk taking a nap. Are you really gonna get upset because you're not getting paid for taking a nap? Is it worth getting in a fight with the office personnel at your company and the customer's shipping department over? Your company will starve you out instead of giving you great miles in the future and that shipper will just take that much longer to get you loaded and moving.

Who's going to make more money......a driver getting a solid 3,000 miles per week but never getting paid for detention time, or the driver getting 1,500 miles a week but gets paid for all of his detention time? It's not even close.

You have to look at the big picture and focus on the long term plan. If your plan is to fight and scrape and claw for every last nickel you have coming even if it means aggravating everyone you deal with then you're never gonna get any miles and you'll never get any favors from anyone. The customers and your company are going to be annoyed with you and they're the ones with the power to let you sit as long as they like. They also have the power to keep you moving and keep money coming in. So you have to decide how you're going to handle this type of stuff.

its not about the money because you are right the money is crap. Its the fact that they are doing things to cheat drivers out of money even the little pennies... Things like putting back an appointment time 2.5 hours does more to wreck my clock for the day then i care about the detention. Granted its nice to get a little something for them killing my clock for the day.

The biggest thing is the bogus preventable, that cuts my mileage pay by a fair amount as well as the change in driver status precludes me from getting the miles i got before it. I would not give a damn about any dention time if i was still getting 3k a week. However the bogus preventable makes getting a 2500 mile week hard because of the limited runs allowed.

That is the main reason other then pay i am moving to crete.

there was not even anyone next to me. the trailer was so rusted the wind literally yanked the hook out of the side of the trailer and slammed the door against the dock hard enough to break 4 of the hinges and they blamed me when i was not in the truck.

Well that must have been some kind of incredible wind. And that entire trailer must have been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for a long time if the chain mechanism and all four hinges were rusted so bad that it all just came apart with one gust of wind. Especially considering the hinges are either a very thick aluminum or zinc-plated steel so they won't rust. I don't know what kind of trailer that is but I can't recall ever seeing trailer door hinges rust.

If nobody was next to you then you should have taken a picture of the incident without moving anything and have the customer verify that you didn't move the trailer and nobody hit it. You should also have been able to show that the hinges were completely corroded through and that no damage was evident on the door indicating that you hit it against something when pulling out. Whoever did the repairs to the trailer would have been able to verify this also. I mean, there's a huge difference in the aftermath of an incident where you hit someone and tear a perfectly good door loose versus an incident where everything literally rusts to bits and crumbles apart.

Eckoh said:

Hell they have already fired 5 drivers for what has been reported from drivecam, and its things from when it WAS NOT supposed to be recording.

ErrolV asked

Eckoh, where did you get this information? Did it all happen to you or someone you know? I drive for Swift and haven't heard anything like this.

Echoh added (to Brett):

I'm not bashing a company on hearsay is stating what has transpired.

So.... Not hearsay, I ask again, where did you get this information?

Eckoh, you say here:

there was not even anyone next to me. the trailer was so rusted the wind literaly yanked the hook out of the side of the trailer and slammed the door against the dock hard enough to break 4 of the hinges and they blammed me when i was not in the truck.

But on another trucking forum, you said:

It was a pre loaded trailer with a rotted door i was told i had to take and deliver and the rotted door fell apart at a shipper hitting the truck next to me. I told them about the door they told me to go deliver and have it fixed after.

So which is it? You're telling two different stories online, maybe you told Swift yet another story. I am not surprised they gave you a preventable, it was your fault regardless because if you pulled the trailer you are responsible for its condition. If it was that rusty and rotten it should have been easily seen on a pretrip. You should count yourself fortunate it didn't come off on the highway, seriously injuring or killing someone. Everyone makes mistakes, it's okay. As far as mistakes go, this one was teeny. It sounds like it didn't even go on your driving record, so don't worry about it. Learn from it, laugh at it, and move on.

Also, about the driver ranking. Having one preventable does not prevent you from reaching silver or gold, only platinum. So you have to wait until the preventable falls off after one year to be eligible for platinum. However just to qualify for silver as a solo you have to run at least 96,000 miles over the last 52 weeks. You said you've worked for Swift for eight months. If you ran 3000 miles every week for the last 8 months I suppose it's possible you'd have reached that, but you yourself said your miles have been suffering recently. And, if you are including your time with a trainer in those eight months whatever miles you ran then do not count as ranked miles. Regardless, you definitely wouldn't have been able to achieve platinum by now as that requires 108,000 miles in 52 weeks. So there's no way your preventable dropped your payrate, because there is no way you were already at a platinum level. Maybe I misunderstand the way the ranking system works, if you could clarify what you mean here it'd be great (because I'm still at bronze with zero preventables and 100% on time, no service failures).

Swift has done things that frustrate me a bit at times, but they've also gone out of their way to accommodate me at others. I try to remember that nothing is going to go smoothly and perfectly all the time (especially in this industry). Like Brett said, it sounds like you might have stepped on the wrong toes with management and are now on THE LIST. I hope Crete is a better fit for you, in the future try to roll with the punches and not get upset about things that are over and done with. If you need to vent, PM me! My fiance and I vent to each other all the time, and frankly it helps a lot in keeping your cool and makes you rethink sending that angry Qualcomm message to your DM.

Eckoh, move on. Read what these fellas are saying, chew up the meat and spit out the bones, and try to learn from your experiences. When I said you made a good choice w/ Crete, I wasn't condoning your story - I don't know what happened and don't really care, it's none of my business. But you should know by now that this forum will not tolerate unsubstantiated claims, especially claims that involve accusations against another party. I am still interested in hearing about your experiences with Crete.

That appointment time you get on the qualcomm is a window for your dm to work with.... that's why it's so easy for them to change it... like Brett said its detention pay and not really worth it unless they held you up for 6 or more hours....

there was not even anyone next to me. the trailer was so rusted the wind literally yanked the hook out of the side of the trailer and slammed the door against the dock hard enough to break 4 of the hinges and they blamed me when i was not in the truck.

Well that must have been some kind of incredible wind. And that entire trailer must have been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for a long time if the chain mechanism and all four hinges were rusted so bad that it all just came apart with one gust of wind. Especially considering the hinges are either a very thick aluminum or zinc-plated steel so they won't rust. I don't know what kind of trailer that is but I can't recall ever seeing trailer door hinges rust.

If nobody was next to you then you should have taken a picture of the incident without moving anything and have the customer verify that you didn't move the trailer and nobody hit it. You should also have been able to show that the hinges were completely corroded through and that no damage was evident on the door indicating that you hit it against something when pulling out. Whoever did the repairs to the trailer would have been able to verify this also. I mean, there's a huge difference in the aftermath of an incident where you hit someone and tear a perfectly good door loose versus an incident where everything literally rusts to bits and crumbles apart.

i did do all that... the hinges were not rusted but when the door swung open the dock acted like a lever breaking 4 of the 5 hinges... Still it was obvious that was not my fault and was told as such thoughout the process yet they will not remove it since they put it as a preventable. even took pictures of the rusted chain and hook to latch the chain hooked too. Hell the SAME thing has happened to the trailer i have right now and they ghetto fixed it by bolting a footman loop to the outside of the trailer to hook the chain to it.

Its not an uncommon thing for the trailers to be so rusted they fall apart. I had one trailer i had to stop every 30 miles and put the tail lights back into the trailer because the holes for the lights were gone and when i told swift about it they simply did not care.