Trip Routing.

This question is about how a route is picked and how a driver is paid for routes.

In reading different articles, I understand that the miles a driver gets paid may not be the same as what a GPS says the mileage is for a route.

I live in West Virginia, and for any truckers that have ever traveled through my state will know. The shortest (in miles) route many times is not the best route a trucker should take. I have met many new drivers stopping asking for directions. I find out that they are either going by their companies directions or, sad to say, they are trying to us a car GPS. Which is a big NO NO. And they have found out that they are traveling on roads where 18 wheeler's should not be.

My question:

If a driver is given a route by their company, and they know the area or an area they will be traveling in, and they know that there are much better ways to go, are companies open to a drivers suggestion for re-routing?

Keep it safe out there, Joe S.

98% of the route you're given will be obvious - just interstates connecting the shipper to the consignee. The other 2% which gets you from the interstate to the shipper or consignee is such an insignificantly small distance that your company won't care how you get there, as long as you get there safely and legally.

If you wanted to do a major change of routing - like running a completely different set of interstates to avoid certain mountains or routing around major cities you'll certainly want to inform your company of where you're going and why. But you'll almost never have any problems in this regard. If your route is significantly longer than the route they want you to take you would certainly need a great reason for it. For generally speaking, you're the captain of your own ship and if they trust you have a genuinely good reason to change the routing they'll normally defer to you to make that choice.

Usually this is not a problem which changing the routing due to safety reasons but just know that trip still pays what it pays. SO if your new way is 200 miles longer then those are the miles you just gave away for free. I know sometimes it can't be helped but its the way it is. On a rare occasion the company will change the routing in the computer so you get paid the extra miles but not always.