Swift Speeding The Trucks Up!!

Here's a question I think we all know the answer to already. Why do you think Swift announced that they're raising the governed speed of the trucks in the middle of November?

If you know anything about the difficulty of recruiting and retaining drivers, and you're willing to do even a tiny bit of objective mathematics while facing the realities of moving freight hundreds of miles per day over mountains and through cities, the answer is simple and obvious:

Recruiting and driver retention.

As we've seen from the responses here, everyone is plenty capable of convincing themselves that their lives are now better because they can go 3 mph faster. The reality is it will help the largest OTR carrier in the country recruit and retain more drivers, and what do you know, just in time for the Christmas rush when recruits are down because of the oncoming winter but freight is at its heaviest!

Amazing coincidence I'm sure.

Raising the speed 3 mph is the equivalent of giving someone a new title but not a raise. It makes you feel better, but the reality is your paycheck is still going to be exactly the same as it was. Not one of you was turning one mile less per week at 62 mph then you will be at 65 mph.

No one is managing their time so perfectly and cruising along at max speed so consistently that you were missing appointment times or freight opportunities by minutes.

By the way:

Although walking speeds can vary greatly depending on many factors such as height, weight, age, terrain, surface, load, culture, effort, and fitness, the average human walking speed is about 3.1 miles per hour

Congratulations. You're now excited that you're going walking speed faster than Interstate speeds. Very exciting.

Yeah, sometimes being the founder of a site called TruckingTruth means you have to poop on people's delusional thinking. So yeah, sometimes I'm a party pooper.

Have you guys seen that show "Adam Ruins Everything" - cuz yeah, I'm like that guy right now.

Here's a question I think we all know the answer to already. Why do you think Swift announced that they're raising the governed speed of the trucks in the middle of November?

If you know anything about the difficulty of recruiting and retaining drivers, and you're willing to do even a tiny bit of objective mathematics while facing the realities of moving freight hundreds of miles per day over mountains and through cities, the answer is simple and obvious:

Recruiting and driver retention.

As we've seen from the responses here, everyone is plenty capable of convincing themselves that their lives are now better because they can go 3 mph faster. The reality is it will help the largest OTR carrier in the country recruit and retain more drivers, and what do you know, just in time for the Christmas rush when recruits are down because of the oncoming winter but freight is at its heaviest!

Amazing coincidence I'm sure.

Raising the speed 3 mph is the equivalent of giving someone a new title but not a raise. It makes you feel better, but the reality is your paycheck is still going to be exactly the same as it was. Not one of you was turning one mile less per week at 62 mph then you will be at 65 mph.

No one is managing their time so perfectly and cruising along at max speed so consistently that you were missing appointment times or freight opportunities by minutes.

By the way:

Although walking speeds can vary greatly depending on many factors such as height, weight, age, terrain, surface, load, culture, effort, and fitness, the average human walking speed is about 3.1 miles per hour

Congratulations. You're now excited that you're going walking speed faster than Interstate speeds. Very exciting.

Yeah, sometimes being the founder of a site called TruckingTruth means you have to poop on people's delusional thinking. So yeah, sometimes I'm a party pooper.

Have you guys seen that show "Adam Ruins Everything" - cuz yeah, I'm like that guy right now.

If I was advocating leaving a company to go to another one simply because the trucks are 3 mph faster then I could understand calling my thinking "delusional". But that's not the case whatsoever.

If I was advocating leaving a company to go to another one simply because the trucks are 3 mph faster

Oh I'm not saying you're going to do that. I'm saying a lot of people are going to do that, though. Believe me, I've seen tons of people choose what company they're going to work for or quit their current company for the dumbest reasons you can ever imagine. In fact, I wrote an article a while back in hopes that people would stop choosing what company to work for based on which recruiter was nicer to them:

The Biggest Mistake New Drivers Make When Speaking With Recruiters

It happens a lot.

That's why made this announcement though. Driver retention and recruiting. It has nothing to do with productivity. In fact, it's going to cost them more in fuel mileage but they figure they'll make up at least some of that in recruiting costs.

My post had nothing to do with attempting to sway anyone on what company to choose or to switch to. That's why being called delusional is pretty dang frustrating.

My post had nothing to do with attempting to sway anyone on what company to choose or to switch to. That's why being called delusional is pretty dang frustrating.

I never said you were trying to sway anyone. And I don't mind a bit when people promote their own companies on here anyhow. In fact I like it. People do it all the time here and I'm glad they do.

The mathematics part is the delusional part. Going 3 mph faster will have absolutely no effect on your paychecks whatsoever. None. You're not being paid by how many miles you can turn in a given amount of time. You're being paid by the total number of miles you're turning overall, and overall you're still going to turn exactly the same number of miles per week as you did before. You're not going to turn 5% more miles than you were because you were never running that truck with perfect efficiency while maximizing every minute of your available logbook hours at all times.

Let me ask you this - roughly how many miles per week have you been averaging? If it's anything less than about 3,400 then there's no chance the increase in speed could possibly make a difference because you're already leaving way too many available hours on the table. The trick to making more money is to use your time more efficiently and get your appointment times moved ahead.

You should either be bumping up against your 70 continuously or blowing through your 70 and doing resets once a week. You should also be turning 3,400 miles or so per week consistently. Even then, do you know how flawlessly every single load and every single variable in your days would have to align for you to see a 5% increase in pay because of a 5% increase in speed? The odds are a trillion to one.

Listen, I'm not trying to aggravate anyone, though I know it seems that way. The problem here is simple. If you're happy about a 3 mph increase in speed you're going to be equally unhappy when they inevitably put it back down to 62 mph where it was. That would be a shame because decreasing 3 mph isn't going to hurt anymore than increasing 3 mph is going to help. It's a negligible difference. It means nothing in the end.

Only just finished reading the first page, but if you do the math (I used Google), it comes out to 2.066667%. Not 5%. 2.066667 out of 100 is not very much.

It's actually 4.83% but I rounded up to 5%

I wish they would have spent the $8 to 11 million a year this is going to cost them on inverters and microwaves or better seats for the trucks.

I wish they would have spent the $8 to 11 million a year this is going to cost them on inverters and microwaves or better seats for the trucks.

Dig a little deeper in regards to your point...

What do you think it costs them when they don't have enough qualified drivers to move freight? They know what their ROI is going to be with the additional drivers they can attract and hire. It raises their "stick" rate and lowers the churn. It's a percentages play.

When did Swift nix the driver facing cameras? i know that was because of driver retention. Or was it because too many people got caught eating Oreos, lol