I'm Pretty Sure Frieght Is Slow But..

Ok so my last load was 1800 miles and I was to relay it here in the south Chicago area because it didn't deliver till the 11th and "were not going to sit on it that long" so the load I get a load today for 35 miles... in the low bridge capitol. Not sure what I should do at this point. I'm a team driver so the thought of risking my license for $4.55 before taxes is abit ludicrous. I realize this load has to be delivered at some point but I'm not really seeing the risk vs rewards balanced in the right direction. How would others handle this?

Me personally? I would do it. Money is money and doing the cap runs will show the company that you can be trusted to run whatever in return will come back to you in another good run.

I get ask all the time to do those under 50 runs and as a result I spend no time sitting staring at a parking lot and not making money.

But that's just me.

*cap = Crap

I'm probably making it out to be more than it is but it kinda burns my a!$ a bit after two 700 mile runs ... again I'm in a team truck.

Sometimes you get good loads, sometimes not so good. Do them all without complaint and your fleet manager will love you. Happy fleet managers tend to make happy drivers.

Also check to see if your company pays extra on those. At Werner, we get an extra $20 for loads that are less than 100 miles. I once had 3 trailer relocation runs less than a mile away. Did them all in about half an hour. Got 0 mileage pay, but made $60 in that half hour.

I never had to do city work in Chicago with crst thank god lol I hate that place... I had to do trailer shuffles in L.A and other cities just not Chicago... Freight is slow for a lot of people with crst.. Just hang in there will pick up soon... I've done a 34 once in the last month and that was q rolling reset....

Sometimes you get good loads, sometimes not so good. Do them all without complaint and your fleet manager will love you. Happy fleet managers tend to make happy drivers.

Also check to see if your company pays extra on those. At Werner, we get an extra $20 for loads that are less than 100 miles. I once had 3 trailer relocation runs less than a mile away. Did them all in about half an hour. Got 0 mileage pay, but made $60 in that half hour.

Crst don't do that... Trailer shuffle is 30 bucks to the truck... 15 for each driver... The short runs that more then 40 miles and less then 100 stop you from getting detention pay...

You usually get a minimum pay for short hauls. I got $50 at Swift to take an empty trailer to a drop yard 3 miles away.

Don't get too greedy. Jeez, you just got done with "two 700 mile runs". No driver is limited to long mile trips only. Do the short ones when requested. The one person you don't want to P.O. is your DM.

Yeah, you absolutely have to take the bad with the good or there won't be much good in the future. You said it yourself - all loads have to be delivered. And yet some loads are just junk and no one would want them. But that's part of the game. As long as you're getting a good mix of loads and your total miles are where they should be then you're good to go. If they start pushing you a little too much with two or three short runs in a week or something then point out to them that you've done your fair share of the lousy stuff and it's time they throw you some miles again.

There's always some give and take between drivers and dispatch. Dispatch is fully aware of which loads drivers like and dislike and they'll give you a good balance most of the time. Sometimes, especially at the larger companies, dispatch (or load planners) may lose track for a moment and pile too many short runs on one driver in a short amount of time. Just point that out to them when it happens and say, "Listen, I'm cool with a short run sometimes but you guys are killing me here. I'm not gonna have a paycheck if you don't send me some miles. My turn for a good run!"

The best way to get great miles and fair treatment is to make all of your appointments on time, run hard, take the bad with the good, and be easy to get along with. Dispatchers spend most of their day putting out fires - wrecks, late deliveries, drivers quitting, drivers refusing loads, etc. If you can rise above all of that and be the type of driver your dispatcher knows he can count on you're going to be well taken care of. That doesn't mean dispatch won't need a reminder once in awhile that it's time to give you some better freight, but most of the time you'll have no problem getting the miles you're looking for.

So to follow up on this. It was more an error on weekend dispatchs side I was also dispatched after my big 35mile load to shuffle the trailer after empty to a trailer repair shop for free... Now all that aside my biggest gripe is that short runs are for me the worst case senrio. That 35mile run was horrible. The product wieght was around 42.5k and the tandems were all the way forward, no scale ticket was with the load, and in a semi tight drop yard. So my guess is whomever dropped it slide them all the way forward to make for easier maneuvering. But on my 35 mile journey is a scale house... So did what every responsible driver does.... Blindly slide the tandems to nearly the back and run through the scale house (no ticket) But to top it off and made me smile this sucker was parked backwards when I picked it up. It even had some bobtail trucks parked about two and half tractor lenghts in front of it so I got to parallel park the tractor under the trailer... I'm grinning ear to ear now because A. I didn't leave a trailer like that and B. I got myself out of that whole mess just fine.