Comments By RookieTrucker

I actually have started doing a few of the things you say. Off duty waiting in line for fuel. Off duty waiting in line at a customer (when I can, I'll explain that in a moment). And when I said it's a lot of wasted time, I didn't mean wasting my 70 necessarily. I mean wasting time. There are still only 14 hours you can work and you have to take a break. 7 hours from shipper to receiver is still 7 hours, whether it counts against your 70 or not. If I waste 2 hours today, it's 2 more hours of driving against my 14 tomorrow than I should have had, etc. I think you get the idea. And honestly, I've tried really milking my hours these past couple of weeks and I've run longer without needing a 34 than normal. This company seriously wants you to try to use all 14 of your hours every day. I've gotten in trouble for trying to shut down after working "only" 11 1/2 hours because "That's still plenty of time to take a load if they have one." They didn't. I wasted 2 1/2 hours of my personal time waiting around for that load that was sure to come in and never did.

I wish I could use all of your suggestions, and I've actually tried most of them before. But around here they stress "100% Legal, 100% Safe, 100% On time." (So the drivers are expected to be perfect, but everyone else can seemingly mess things up all over and it's OK. LOL.) Apparently they audit logs quite a bit. I get messages every week talking about the things they keep catching drivers doing wrong.

Fuel stops have to be on duty. (I go off duty while waiting.) Scaling loads has to be on duty. Pre trip has to be on duty. And they expect it to be 15-30 minutes. So you have to mix it up because they say they know you're not doing it right if it's always 15 minutes. Post trip has to be on duty and I think they want that to be 15 minutes. Any time at a customer has to be on duty unless you are free to leave. Which means that I can't do an arrival call and then go off duty and I can't go off duty before my loaded or empty calls. Otherwise I'm screwed if they audit me and I also void any claims for detention pay.

And trust me, I've been all over my e-logs looking for wiggle room. I know how to edit my logs. (Of course you can't edit on duty driving.) And knowing that you can change your status within 3 to 4 minutes has come in handy a few times. I also am well aware that our Qualcomms don't change you to driving status until you drive hit 20 mph, are in gear for 5 minutes, or drive 1.5 miles. According to my logs I always teleport from Costco to the TA down the street. I've also teleported from customers to nearby truck stops when I ran out my 14 before.

I haven't been audited yet, so I don't know how much trouble you get in if you get caught using all of the tricks. It might be worth the risk to save some of my hours, but I am not sure if it's worth the tradeoff yet.

Still, even if you're only talking 1 hour on duty not driving per load, if you're only taking 2 loads a week, that's 2 hours. When you're taking 9 loads per week, that's 7 hours more right there. See what I mean by the overhead on short loads?

@Woody - I live in Fort Wayne and I'm working out of the Gary terminal. Was dating a girl for a bit who lives in Fishers. I've taken a few loads in and out of Indy recently.

I've seen the average goals that the dispatchers are supposed to be shooting for and it's more like 2300 to 2500 miles per truck.

Interesting you should bring this up. A while back my DM called me up and said she had to start calling people up who were grossing less than $500 a week and discuss with them what they could be doing to make more miles and more money. (And keep in mind I highly doubt that planners have any mileage goals for drivers, since they don't know anything about the drivers.) Guess how many miles $500 works out to for drivers with 3 months to a year in with the company. 1500 to 1800 miles a week. Obviously less miles per week as your pay increases. What does that suggest the goal is at this company if they feel anyone getting that many miles is OK? How many miles are people complaining about getting?

One of the things that Brett's response and this current load got me thinking about is how many loads I've gotten with way too much time on them. I started thinking about all of the loads I've had in the past year that are over 1000 miles. And it occurs to me that either I've gotten them because I needed to take a 34 and there was enough time on them to do that, or I've almost always been able to take a full day off in the middle of the load. This current load? Picked it up today because I was already at the customer. Less than 300 miles. Delivers 7am in two days. I had enough hours to deliver it tonight. But it's a firm appointment and nothing I can do about that. How can I make miles when I have to take loads like this? I can't turn it down because I can't make the case that I can't pick it up or deliver it on time.

Twice in December I took loads going past my house. Both times I was able to take a whole day off at home and still deliver on time. One load was only 700 miles. Before that one I took a load from Laredo to Northern Ohio. I think it paid either 1600 or 1800 miles. I picked it up, was feeling sick and shut down early. The next day I had a fever so I took the whole day off there. (Too soon to complete a 34 with the new rules.) Then I busted butt and stopped off at home because I was going right through there. I took another full day off at home and delivered the load the next morning, on time.

According to my DM, as a solo driver, I'm not supposed to be planned on loads that long. She says the only reason I'm getting those is because they don't have any other loads at the time and they are grabbing loads that they weren't planning on having picked up yet, so they have lots of time on them. And like I said, I can't turn them down. Not sure what to do about this.

This past week I've actually been feeling upbeat and good about driving. I've taken a lot of Costco loads because we got so far behind when the storm came through. Those are pretty easy and I've taken plenty of those so I've got that system down and even been to a few of these stores before, so I don't have to spend as much time trip planning. I've had some of the same problems, some of which I described in an earlier post, but they aren't the really infuriating ones. I've felt like I've been staying busy until this current load. But then I look at my numbers. For the past pay week I've taken 9 loads, only gotten paid 1900 miles, and I'm still close to needing a 34. I would need one if this load didn't have so much time on it. I've been driving hard and only on the clock when I absolutely need to be. I've got the system down at Costco pretty well now. But you figure all of these loads are between 100 and 300 miles and then I have to wait in line at the DC to get in, drop a trailer, drive around a huge facility looking for my trailer, scale the load there, adjust the tandems, then wait in line to leave, drive across the street to a very busy TA, scale the load again so it's official, wait a while in the fuel line, try to sneak in and get my scale ticket before I hold anyone else up and tick them off, then fuel and fight my way out of there, then drop and hook and shut down at a Costco. That ends up being a lot of time on duty not driving and not much time on duty driving.

I want to clear something up because I'm sure I've given the wrong impression. I'm not saying everyone at Swift is unhappy or that no one is getting miles. There are plenty of drivers who are happy here. But here are the categories I'm seeing:

Dedicated accounts - Swift is a big company and has accounts with a lot of large companies. Walmart, Costco, Sears, KMart, GM, etc. We have a lot of drivers on dedicated accounts. We even have terminals inside some of the Walmart DCs. These drivers are happy. I would be, too. I've been asked to help them 3 times and spent a week or so in their fleets each time. It's awesome. The runs have all been worked out to nice schedules. Everything is smooth and efficient; you don't deal with most of the problems I usually run into. The paperwork is minimal and they even have detailed maps and directions not just to the stores, but to the docks so you're facing the right way when you arrive. Unfortunately, my DM doesn't like them grabbing me to work those accounts because she says since I'm in their fleet I'm not helping her team's stats any. But they keep you busy and it's a nice routine. No complaints from these guys and you can even tell that their driver lounges just have a more upbeat atmosphere.

Swift has a lot of day cabs in the fleet. Which means a lot of people doing shuttle runs and local deliveries and such. The drivers I've talked to on those runs have told me they are making between $850 and $1000 a week every week. Once again, they don't have to deal with a lot of the hassles I do OTR and they are generally home nights and weekends. Who could complain about that?

Owner/Ops - Lots of these around. These guys are always bragging about how many miles they are getting. Usually it's around 4000 a week. Are they inflating those numbers? Probably. Do many of them admit to abusing line 5 to get those miles. Sure. That's a risk they are willing to take. But they always tell me Swift gives them as many miles as they are willing to take. And very often when I'm sitting around with a lot of other company drivers waiting on loads I see nothing but O/O trucks rolling in and out of the terminal. Anyway, this bunch seems pretty happy.

Mentors (Trainers) - Most of these are also O/Os. They are happy. But they get to run as a team most of the time with their students and what company isn't going to give miles and long distance loads to teams? Besides that, they are making extra money because they are training people. So they are pretty happy. And they are fun to talk to because of all the horror stories they have about former students.

Company OTR/Regional drivers - This is the group I'm in and the group that is consistently complaining about low miles. (There actually was one guy I talked to working out of Colorado who said he was averaging around 3000 miles a week.) This is where all the turnover is. This is where you are hardpressed to find someone with more than 2 years with the company. This is where you hardly find anyone who came over from another company. These are the drivers that you overhear in the drivers' lounge saying, "They need to get me a load. I'm tired of sitting around here." This is the group I'm talking about when I say I'm always hearing 1500 miles a week. And this is where you are stuck unless you want to lease a truck, train someone, or somehow get on an account. And I've never seen any postings for any of the dedicated stuff, so I don't know how people even get those positions. I don't know what percentage of the company it is, but this is a large group. And if you think about it, this group is all going to have the same complaints. And it seems to make sense to me that we're all getting about the same mileage. We have no control over the loads. We have no idea how to negotiate them because of the Plus One system. Our DMs seem to have almost no control over the loads we get, because that's how Swift has it set up. And the mileage is going to average out because all the planners see is a list of truck numbers.

Bottom line, is that this group seems to suffer from too many drivers and too few miles. And I don't think it's hard to argue that for some reason, Swift wants it this way. Why would they keep training and hiring new drivers constantly with so many people complaining about not getting miles? I can't count how many times I've sat at a terminal, along with a bunch of other drivers, being told that there is no freight (even during the last quarter, not just the first) and wondered why I'm watching 8-10 people out in the yard going through training and a dozen or so people going through orientation upstairs. Along with Brett, I have to say "Something doesn't add up here." But while Brett is thinking it because what I'm saying doesn't sound possible, I'm saying it because I'm seeing it happen and it doesn't seem to make sense by conventional wisdom.

I'm not being paranoid about saying the "Plus One" system is about not trusting drivers. They basically tell you that during the sales pitch. They tell you they used to tell the drivers the appointment windows but they were finding that a lot of drivers would wait until the last minute to deliver a load. And sometimes they would end up late because of it. Instead of telling you the window they try to come up with what would be the quickest you could deliver the load within the windows and then tell you those are the appointment times. It's kind of infuriating sometimes because they seem to assume you don't need to ever stop to use the restroom and they don't always factor in that you need fuel and very often they don't care about you running out your 14 while you sit on a dock. As long as you get the load delivered on time that's all they care about. There have been 3 times that I've turned down a load because it either delivered after my 14 would be up or I'd run out of hours on the dock only to get a nasty message from a planner saying, "What do you mean you don't have the hours? I'm showing you have plenty of time on your 11." (I swear some planners either are completely unaware of the 14 hour clock or think it restarts as soon as you pick up a load.) Anyway, I digress. The sales pitch for the Plus One system is that it will get you 1 extra load a week. (By forcing you to run as close to 14 hours a day as possible.) But when you really look at it, it only helps lazy drivers get more miles and helps Swift keep lazy drivers running. It actually just hurts motivated drivers. I want miles and more pay. I'm going to pick up and deliver a load as quickly as I can legally. If I didn't have to guess what the appointment windows were I could negotiate better schedules and keep running more easily. I know there have to be a lot of loads I've lost by guessing wrong on which way to negotiate. So, once again, I'm kind of handcuffed in what I can do. I've tried calling in to find out what the windows actually are, but unless I talk to my own DM, I usually get, "Those are the appointment times." Why? Because, not knowing me, they assume I'm asking because I want to deliver it later or something.

Here's my hunch, and I may be way off on this, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. I think you might benefit from switching to a different dispatcher. It sounds to me like yours just isn't very motivated to get you up into some higher numbers. It seems you've proven you are capable and willing to do more, and usually when a dispatcher finds a driver like that they are thrilled and do what ever it takes to keep that person moving. At this point I think it would be worth trying. Be professional and polite, but just let them know that not only can you not survive on 1700 miles a week, but that you don't see how you are making any money for the company at this rate either.

I've thought about that. Especially when she was brand new just coming from being a load planner and didn't know much. In the past year she's learned a lot about what she can do to help drivers. But I'm not sure if switching DMs is going to do much at this company. DMs (dispatchers) here don't actually do any dispatching. They are mostly just liaisons and driver handlers. The CSRs schedule the appointments and the load planners put together the plans and assign them to drivers. And you have no contact with those people. You never know who is sending you the loads or planning the appointments. And they don't know you, either. We have over 32 terminals and they pretty much all have their own planners for that region. So you're planned by different people depending on what region you are in. I was in Texas one week having a run of really crappy loads (short t-calls, shuttle runs, trailer repositions, etc.) and I jokingly asked my DM if planners didn't like drivers from outside their region. She told me they have no idea where you running out of. When they have a load they need taken they just get a list of truck numbers that are nearby. They don't know the drivers at all.

The fact that my DM was a load planner before actually has helped a bit, but it just doesn't seem like there is much she can do. She's occasionally gone out and found loads for me when I was sitting or needed to get home, but she's not supposed to assign loads and says she gets her wrists slapped for that. In fact, lately, instead of assigning me a load she usually says she'll get in touch with the planner about a load. But rarely does she have anything to do with assigning the loads and she certainly doesn't have anything to do with setting appointments.

Can you please give examples for what you mean by making things happen out there? I feel like I've been doing that. When things started going awry I try to suggest things I could do to speed up the process. When they are trying to find me a trailer solution I've suggested sometimes that I'm near a terminal and could swing by and look for one there. They never let me, but I try it. There have been a couple of times I've been able to locate trailers long before they got back to me with a solution, but I'm not usually able to do that because they won't let me go driving around if I'm not dispatched.

Today I had a delivery at Bush Brothers and was planned on another load picking up tomorrow from there. (24 hours later) I suggested that if the load were ready to pick up I could take care of it all at once without going back. The CSR got them to load the trailer and I dropped my load and grabbed the other one and was on my way. Unfortunately, it's a live load that doesn't deliver until Friday morning. Saved myself the hassle of going back to the same place tomorrow, but I'm still stuck with load that's going to get me 290 miles in 2 days. I can't do anything about that and there is no way they are going to move the appointment up for me. I've asked many times if I could get earlier delivery appointments and the answer has always been "No."

I have no control over the loads I get. I can't turn down loads unless I'm due home time or it's an hours of service issue. (I.E. don't have the hours to do it legally.) In order to turn down a load I have to tell them I can't take the load as it's planned and then tell when I actually can pickup and deliver the load. A few months ago I turned down a load and said I didn't have the hours for it. Within 5 minutes I got a terse message from the terminal manager himself saying that if I turn a load down because I can't do it I have to give times when I can.

Another thing that is frustrating is their "Plus One" system of planning loads. If there is a window for the appointment or the customer is first come, first served, they don't tell you that. (Except sometimes when it's just a drop.) They give you times for both appointments and you tell them if you can do it or when you think you can do it. But since you don't know the window, you don't know how to try to negotiate the times. Sometimes I could deliver a load on time if I could pick it up early. But when it says live load "early appt time: 0700, late appt time 0700" I assume that means it's a firm appointment. I'm finding out lately that it isn't always. I can't give a range of times I can pick up or deliver so I don't know if I should adjust the pickup or delivery time. Guess wrong and give times that are out of range and they take the load off you. It's hard to negotiate these things when they don't trust you enough to give you the info.

And that's another annoying thing about the system here. The "Plus One" system is based on not trusting drivers. (cont)

Wow. That sounds awesome man! Glad it's going well for you over there. Keep letting us know how things are going. Maybe we'll run into each other (not literally...) sometime out on the road.

After over a year, I'm still not a pro at shifting. I can float all the way through the gears going up, and float part of the way down, but I just can't get the hang of floating down in the lower gears without lurching the truck. I've also been having a heck of time getting used to the 10 speed in this truck. Every truck I had before this had a 9 speed. The top 4 gears seem exactly the same, but the bottom 6 are so close together that when I'm downshifting I have a hard time finding the right one sometimes. And at that low speed the speedometer is no help in telling you what gear you should be in.

At our company you really don't want to try going off duty or sleeper berth while at a customer. They are always harping on being 100% legal and it sounds like they do audits a lot because they are always sending out messages about them. If you go off duty here, not only will you get busted on audits, which I think affects your company risk analysis score, but it also voids any chance you have for trying to get detention pay. ("You were off duty. We're not paying you to not work.")