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View Full Version : Who Drives Truck?????



DansBlown73Nordic
02-20-2004, 05:17 PM
Im just curious what everybody thinks of these new log book rules?
I can see that it is going to be very easy to run out of hours now. :eek:
I can't wait till summer when were real busy.:mad:

HighRoller
02-20-2004, 08:34 PM
Well, here's my view of the rules. FIRST, why is everyone bitching? Did the old rules prevent them from running as many miles as they wanted? No. Laws and rules only apply to those who follow them, and the guys who cheated with the old rules will find a way to cheat with the new rules. SECOND, the ONLY way that truck drivers are ever going to be paid what they deserve is to demand to be paid for all of their time. Not just driving, but unloading, loading, sleeping, everything that invloves them being away from home. This rule goes a long way towards helping that process. When half of your driving hours are gobbled up by a produce shed's shoddy business practices, the produce will start being late and/or spoiled. As long as trucking companies stick to their guns and demand compliance to the new rules, the rates will rise. BTW, did you know that you can make a cross country trip 5 hours faster with the new rules than the old rules? The new rule favors team operations but if you run your max hours then use the 34 hour rule to get your hours back you could run good miles.

rrrr
02-20-2004, 09:33 PM
I don't do it as much as in the past, but I spent many years tearing out computer rooms and shipping the stuff back to my warehouse.
I figured out that with the hour rules, weigh stations, and fuel stops, a trucker could average somewhere between 50 and 55 MPH. That's freekin' slow. If you figure a guy is working for a damn good carrier, the .26-29 cents per mile works out to be less than $20/hour.
That's not much money for being away from home, having no opportunity to live a normal life, and eating crappy food to boot. I feel for those guys that are grossly overweight and don't have any other means of making a living. Truck driving is a hell I don't wish to visit.....

DansBlown73Nordic
02-21-2004, 01:16 AM
I do work for a company that pays for all hours worked. I get paid for my miles and by the hour for anything I do besides driving. For me its a pretty good deal, but im home every day. Thats where the problem starts with the new log rules. My trips are pretty much around 450 miles. If I get held up any amount of time through the day im screwed. This is going to force guys to really lie like hell.:mad:

HighRoller
02-21-2004, 01:50 AM
RRR, you make some valid points. The job will definitely eat you up as time goes by. But I wouldn't trade my five years on the road for a pile of Gold. I went into the business knowing I wasn't going to grow old behind the wheel, and I got a lot out of it. I saw 46 states, drove almost 700,000 miles and met thousands of great people. Unfortunately most of the drivers are in a truck because it is their last resort after financial or personal difficulties. Truck driving is the best entry level job you can get and the worst long term job you can have. And if you can be successful as a truck driver, you can do any job on the planet. You may laugh, but driving an OTR Semi-Truck is probably in the top 5% of the most demanding jobs in the world. Imagine working 300+ days a year, 15-18 hours a day away from your family and dealing with a different customer every day or two who doesn't care about you. Sometimes you go 3 or 4 days without more than 5 hours of sleep at a stretch if you're running hard. If you think pro sports have pressure, imagine running a 75 foot rig through downtown Chicago and blindside backing it into a darkened loading bay while 4 lanes of rush hour traffic wait for you!!! I always hear how people admire firemen and policemen for their dedication, and truck drivers should be included in that category. A lot of drivers are on the road delivering your dinner because they love the job, but they get treated like crap by ignorant people on the highway. I would encourage everyone to take a ride in a big truck because it will literally change your outlook on driving and give you a new level of respect for what these guys put up with. I'm not ashamed to say I've got diesel in my blood, and I'll never be ashamed of having spent time as a truck driver. I miss the road sometimes, and I don't know why. Maybe it was the cat naps at Kramer Junction. Maybe it was seeing the Empire state building and the Twin Towers while crossing the GWB. Maybe I miss the feeling of crossing the Mississippi twice in one week. Who knows? I plan to return to the seat someday to complete my million miles and keep a promise I made to myself. I can only imagine the look in my child's eyes when I tell them I've driven a million miles......

DansBlown73Nordic
02-21-2004, 03:59 AM
Highroller, I was in Manhatton last week. I was thinking what in the hell am I doing putting myself through this....:eek:

Wet Dream
02-21-2004, 06:19 AM
Originally posted by rrrr
If you figure a guy is working for a damn good carrier, the .26-29 cents per mile works out to be less than $20/hour.
I'll start by quoting RRRR. That $0.26-$0.29 had BETTER be starting wages for a new guy without any experience. I'll admit that the first 2 years for a driver are the hardest because nobody is willing to pay you. Then you're still screwed because if you don't get out of that starting company and begin looking for another one, you're going to be locked in. What I mean by that is that the longer you spend with a Co, the higher they pay you. If you have 5 years with a Co. and they pay you $0.36 cpm and decide to leave for another Co. they are only willing to pay you $0.31. :rolleyes: Its not so much experience, but rather time with the Co.
As for the new rules, I'm loving them. On occasion I still have to tear out pages from the comic book to gain a few hours here or there and make it look good, but now you can legally drive almost 700 miles a day. The thing that really hurts...waiting 10 hours to drive again. That can be a long wait. Thats where I usually "adjust" my hours. Luckily I am home almost everyday, usually out one night or two night, but take for instance last week. I left Sunday night, drove 200 mi and went to sleep. Got up and started driving and by the time I got home Thursday night, I finished 2900 miles in 4 days and I'm enjoying a 3 day weekend.
Now for the other side of me...I got into this stupid ****ing job just because I love to drive. Or so I thought back then. With an education and a CDL in hand the wife decides she wants to move back to PA. Well, as it turns out there aren't many jobs out here. So its in the truck I go and I'm still doing it. Thats the sacrafice I make for the family. Hell, it pays better than most professional careers around here.

Freak
02-21-2004, 06:20 AM
My buddiesÂ’ dad drives for United Van Lines and one summer as a teen we rode with him. He backed down narrow alley's in NY city that I thought, "there is no way we can get back there let alone back down there" It was amazing. He is never home and his health is going but I can say I did see his w2 and hauling furniture pays better than freight because his was 100+K.

HammerDown
02-21-2004, 07:46 AM
100K driving a truck is dam good money. But if your in that truck 24/7 trying to make it ...It blows.
Make that number in 40-60 hours home every day, thats another story.
Unless your one that likes your home on 18 wheels and your Bed behind your head (yuck), or as some drivers I know...Love getting away and staying away from the Wife and rug rats.
:rolleyes:

058
02-21-2004, 10:49 AM
I've been an owner/operator for 31 years and still love it but I am semi [no pun] retired and have been for the last 8 or 9 years. Since I get to truck on my terms thats what makes it fun. I still have a few customers I service on a part time basis and thats fine with me. I am fortunate not to have to rely totally on trucking for my income as I have 2 other businesses.

AzDon
02-21-2004, 12:48 PM
Did Highroller go out of business?....
I do 5,000 gallon liquid chemical loads from Parker, Az mostly to places in L.A. and return empty. Most of my trips are 525 to 550 miles and unloading generally takes an hour and a half.
The 600 mile trips were impossible to log in 10 hours at California's assumed average speed of 50 mph (log over 50 and be accused of speeding!) The new law gives us 11 driving hours on a shift, so I can now make all my trips pretty much legal. The problem I have with the new law is that 14 hours after you start, you are done. I'm left with only three hours for "other than driving" and half of that is burned up unloading. ANY delays count against the 14 hours, so I'm really not given the luxury of any naptime before the delivery, unless I'm willing to slide my start time forward ( Illegal, but better than being dangerous).
Highroller is right....Places where truckers pickup or deliver have got to cease the industry-wide conspiracy of using the truck driver as a slave-labor warehouse worker, and be held financially accountable for any delay time and any services that are required of the driver. Literally, it is a violation of a driver's civil rights when someone requires uncompensated (slave) labor from him and EVERY grocery warehouse in the country does this to hundreds of drivers every day. They claim it is a contractual requirement of the trucking company's assignment of the load and that is why a driver's company will require him to "do what the customer wants" under threat of termination, Even as they continue to pay him ONLY for the miles he drives. I don't see this problem ever being addressed by legislation because truck drivers are not considered an important constituency like grocery companies are, but I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see a federal "slavery" class-action suit against one of these warehouses. I'd be pickled-tink to see a boycott against places that do this, but I believe there would be enough bottom-feeders to replace the boycotters.
Trucking is a tough business, especially for owner/operators, that runs on rates that are pretty close to "cost". The only way I would ever buy another truck and get back in is if I could lease to a company that would pay my operation a reasonable salary in exchange for use or availability of my operation for the full number of hours that are legally allowed. Since I'd be getting paid for a number of hours of use, I'd handstack with a smile, wait around for unloading, or whatever else defined the job on a given day! If the industry had to start paying ALL drivers this way, the slavery would stop and the culprits would be billed!

AZKC
02-21-2004, 01:04 PM
Good info. I've been kickin it around for years because I 'd like to see the country, kids are all grown. Not much going on around here. Who knows maybe the time has come.

DEEZ NUTTS
02-21-2004, 01:44 PM
I have a friend who comes unglued when a truck changes lanes in front of him and slows him down. I have to remind him that guy is at work asshole! We are on the way to the lake or where ever. JUST CHILL!

HighRoller
02-21-2004, 03:58 PM
Yeah, and tell your buddy while it takes him another 5-10 seconds to get back up to speed, it takes the truck a minute or more! AZDon, I didn't go out of business, just decided I'd had enough. Even as an owner operator you're still the guy loest on the totem pole when it hits the fan. And don't even get me started about grocery wharehouses. It is illegal to charge somebody to unload YOUR freight, but trucking companies sit there and take it. Do you know how many millions of dollars in labor are saved by these companies? All it would take is half of the drivers telling the warehouses to unload it themselves and the practice would stop. Not to mention the insurance ramifications. My workers comp does not cover me in the trailer... Until drivers start standing up for themselves they will continue to be abused. Add up the hours you spend away from home and use it to divide your pay. You'll find you're working for minumum wage as a company driver.

AzDon
02-21-2004, 06:19 PM
You drive a long distance and arrive on time and are assigned a door at the grocery warehouse. You back up and take your paperwork in and the clerk hands you a stack of 52 pallet stickers and explains that they will accept your 52 pallets when they are properly stacked, 3 high, and lined up on the dock...go over there and pick out an electric pallet jack. But there are only 26 pallets on the truck and they are stacked 6 high, you protest. The clerk tells you that they won't refuse the load, but neither will they accept it unless you do as they require. When you phone your company or the broker that produced the load, you are told that your relationship is over if you don't deliver the load. You aren't being paid a dime to do anything but drive. Still, you submit to being used as a slave, hoping that this will be the last time...WRONG!
I got out of general freight because as a driver or O/O you never have any recourse in these situations.
I ran over and broke my foot with an electric pallet jack at Fry's in phoenix and complained that they had required me to use their machinery without training. They refused to take an incident report, said they'd deny that it happened and have me and my companies banned from ALL grocery warehouses for life if I pursued a claim. At the time, I would've gone broke if I stopped running, so I sucked it up and let the dealio go!
I don't believe the grocery companies will ever face an effective boycott because there will always be enough bottom-feeding newcomers to fill the seats. It would be interesting, though, to see a lawsuit filed by mileage-paid truckers who are forced to provide slave labor by their company's customer under threat of termination. A conservative Supreme Court would probably refuse to hear the case though because of the power and stature of the grocery companies.

boatnam2
02-21-2004, 06:29 PM
my mom 5 years ago calls me and tells me she is going to be a truck driver im like sure mom have another bud and call me in the morning.she lives in idaho so we talk once or twice a month.she was 58 years old at the time.i lived in lakewood then and i hear this big truck and im liek what the **** is a big rig doing on are street.it was mom just stopping by in her new big rig i couldnt believe my frigging eyes.i was like i guess your serious when you say something so i bouht her a little dog and they hit teh road for the next 2 years.she loved it but hated the time away from home.

RiverRatMike
02-21-2004, 08:59 PM
i drive truck

DansBlown73Nordic
02-22-2004, 12:53 AM
I wanted to drive truck ever since I was a little kid. I always thought it would be cool. I worked several jobs that never really amounted to much. Then I had the chance to go to school for my CDL. That was 10 years ago. I worked for a large company for two years. I was home weekends. That sucked but they had a change and wanted everyone to stay out for two weeks at a time. That was when I looked for a new job.
I found the job I have now. I leave at 3-4 am and get home around 4-5 pm. Its a very small company. I run to New Jersey, New York city and Philly. Not the easiest places to drive. So far in ten years I have had know accidents or tickets. I have had plenty of close calls.....:eek:
I have people ask me all the time about getting a CDL. The thing is I don't think most of them have a clue what its all about.

lynden
02-22-2004, 02:09 AM
Originally posted by Dans66Stevens
I have people ask me all the time about getting a CDL. The thing is I don't think most of them have a clue what its all about.
So what is it all about? I'm in Texas, and have thought long and hard about trucking. I've loved rigs since I could see straight, is it even worth getting into now?

DansBlown73Nordic
02-22-2004, 02:51 AM
Around here things are very bad. Not to many good jobs. Most of the big companys have gone out of business or just don't hire. So I decided to get my CDL. One thing I will say is you never ever have to worry about finding a job.
As far as driving for me its a pretty easy day most days. I have been to most places or someplace close by. That always helps when trying to find a place.
Im sure I could go to a different company and make more money. If I went back to the old company I couls make more but would only be home weekends....:mad:

AzDon
02-22-2004, 09:54 AM
Originally posted by lynden
So what is it all about? I'm in Texas, and have thought long and hard about trucking. I've loved rigs since I could see straight, is it even worth getting into now?
Trucking jobs usually produce an average yearly salary that most people would consider acceptable. The catch is that the salaries are based on 70 hour workweeks and living on the job. If you are going to work for others, you will live this lifestyle in the truck you are assigned, in all kinds of weather, and likely will be assigned a driving partner to share less than 70 square feet with you. Most OTR driver pay is strictly mileage, so all other required duties are uncompensated. If you have a problem with being a slave laborer, you aren't going to like this feature. Often this includes completely hand-loading your truck, so being fit is also a requirement. You also need to be generally healthy because you could have problems far from help and your normal providers. You will not be visiting the tourist side of town in most cases, and most of your contacts will treat you like a piece of meat. And then there is law enforcement and revenue agents...
Is it worth it?....
I've been at it for 30 years and I only intended to do trucking until I had a clear idea of what I might prefer to do instead "when I grew up". I still can't imagine what I'd rather do for a living!
Because many feel as I do about trucking there is enough of an oversupply of drivers and trucks to keep rates and wages depressed. Many community colleges are now offerring truck driver training courses because it's a high-turnover field that is always hiring at annual wages that look good. Many of the new jobs in the statistics are driving jobs.... they really aren't new, just being re-filled.

jerry billet
02-23-2004, 07:07 AM
Don't drive, but own a trucking company. All company drivers, paid hourly with full benifits. Do use O/O on occasion, have even used 058. Mostly during peak or if we need his flat bed experience.
Operate a wine whse in American Canyon, CA near Napa. Our drivers pick up and deliver Wine and related items. Mostly routes, mostly no touch. Know the job can be touph, but also know they are getting paid to drive around and listen to the radio all day up in the beautiful wine territory. Some loads are in/out of the piers.
As for driver pay, we pay from start to finish, and that includes time for checking oil, washing windows and truck inspection. they get paid for thier whole day, wether sitting at the customers door, at the pier or eating lunch. Yes we pay for thier lunch hour, too hard to regulate it. If they claim they did not get lunch, just tack it onto the end of the day, go home an hour ealier than they clock out. Probably ate thier lunch while waiting to get loaded. But also know that we dispatch them with a hard day and most times only have a few minutes to eat. They are happy to be home an hour earlier.
The difference, we have happy, hard working drivers. Most earn thier safety bonus, we pay overtime after 10, and on Weekends. Provide newer model trucks and all air ride equipment.
I have sympathy for the drivers. Allways let them merge in front of me, sometimes pissing off the driver behind me when I put on the brakes or leave a large window in anticipation of a driver wanting my lane.
We are also hiring at this time. Bought 2 trucks last week. Looking for locals at this time. We expect to be running betweenn the bay area and LA later this year.
I'm going to actualy get my CDL also. Want to be able to drive the rig for the race boat.
Jerry

spectratoad
02-23-2004, 08:27 AM
Originally posted by rrrr
I figured out that with the hour rules, weigh stations, and fuel stops, a trucker could average somewhere between 50 and 55 MPH. That's freekin' slow. If you figure a guy is working for a damn good carrier, the .26-29 cents per mile works out to be less than $20/hour.
That's not much money for being away from home, having no opportunity to live a normal life, and eating crappy food to boot. I feel for those guys that are grossly overweight and don't have any other means of making a living. Truck driving is a hell I don't wish to visit.....
Let me forward this to some of my friends over in Iraq. :D :D I am sure there will be tons of sympathy.
I have alot of respect though for people that work in whatever profession they choose. Yes I always let trucks in, flash my lights for them to get back over and whatever else I can do to help make their drive less hectic.
Also, when I was younger, thought about driving a truck. Thought it would be neat to see the country and get paid for it but instead joined the military, see the world and get paid for it. After 15 years I still have minimal pay compared to civilian counterparts.
Here is my point, you pick your profession. If you are smart you research it or get whatever info you can about it. I knew going into the military I would get low pay, mediocre food and at times questionable places to call "home" and yes lots of time away from home.
So I tell this to all my friends who are in the military(low pay, bad food, away from home), teachers( ???low pay, deal with low budgets, Idiot parents, bad kids.) nurses(wierd hours, unions, decent pay, etc...)
Get your pay upped somehow or find a job that pays better.
;) Let the flaming begin:D