Tanker Toughts

Not sure if my post posted at all so lets try again...

Through the first month, and a half here my thoughts about bynum. This company is kind of weird. Upper management doesn't like to introduce themselves. Not sure if its a southern thing or not. The dispatchers don't seem to care at all about HOS. So far for the first month and a half of the year I've driven 14,900ish miles. The dispatchers seem to be making good on their promise that If I give them 3 weeks they'll give me 3 days. Some time in April insurance should kick in which is a good thing. I think after really thinking long and hard about it...I'm going to look at getting my hazmat endorsement. The problem Minnesota expects you to make an appointment. So I'm going to wait until I get residency setup in Georgia.

just my very early thoughts on bynum.

take care everyone

Not, not introducing themselves is not "a Southern thing".

Is your assumption a yankee thing?

Upper management doesn't like to introduce themselves. 

I try to avoid management. I'm not there to make friends and the less we know each other, the better it is. However if you want to meet them, walk up and introduce yourself. For the most part, people hate small talk and COVID makes some people weird.

The dispatchers don't seem to care at all about HOS. 

It's not their job to. That's your job. If you don't have the hours to get to where you need to be, let them know that. Keeping track of my hours is a PITA and my schedule is pretty set. I can imagine trying to keep track of multiple drivers running at different hours and treating their clocks differently. 1 guy might burn his 70 hours in 5 days, while another runs on recaps. I've never heard of a dispatcher telling someone that's out of hours to run.

So far for the first month and a half of the year I've driven 14,900ish miles.

They have the work and it seems like your able to do it.... I'm not sure what the problem here is. Take advantage and make your money.

The dispatchers seem to be making good on their promise that If I give them 3 weeks they'll give me 3 days. 

You're running, making money and getting the home time you expected. Sounds like a good company to me.

Ben, why would you expect "upper management" to be introducing themselves? As drivers, our most important relationship is with our dispatchers. I'll confess to knowing a few upper management people, but very seldom is there need for any interaction with them. It strikes me odd that you bring that up.

I'm assuming you must have worked for some fairly small operations to even mention that as a concern. Most trucking jobs have little to no interaction between upper management and drivers.

Banks says:

The dispatchers don't seem to care at all about HOS

It's not their job to. That's your job.

HOS is both the driver's and the company's job. The company has a Compliance Office that double checks driver logs. Why? The FMCSA can audit driver logs and fine both the driver (smallish fine) and the company (largish fine) for violations.

Proof? Banks finishes with

I've never heard of a dispatcher telling someone that's out of hours to run.

Because dispatchers know your hours. That ELD on the truck passes your hours up to the office, so all the people concerned know your time.

Banks says:

The dispatchers don't seem to care at all about HOS

It's not their job to. That's your job.

HOS is both the driver's and the company's job. The company has a Compliance Office that double checks driver logs. Why? The FMCSA can audit driver logs and fine both the driver (smallish fine) and the company (largish fine) for violations.

Proof? Banks finishes with

I've never heard of a dispatcher telling someone that's out of hours to run.

Because dispatchers know your hours. That ELD on the truck passes your hours up to the office, so all the people concerned know your time.

That's not the case at FedEx. Dispatchers do not keep track of drivers hours, drivers do. If I can't get to where I need to be in time, it's my responsibility to let them know that and they may or may not look into it. If I go over my hours there will be disciplinary actions against me, not my dispatcher.

That's not the case at FedEx. Dispatchers do not keep track of drivers hours, drivers do. If I can't get to where I need to be in time, it's my responsibility to let them know that and they may or may not look into it. If I go over my hours there will be disciplinary actions against me, not my dispatcher.

Same, dispatch can look it up but it is upto us to tell them how much we have left.

Clocked in one day at 9am. Got drafted 30min later to do a run with a via.

Got to the via, swapped trailers and continued to my destination. While enroute, my truck broke down. Finally got to my destination at 2200 hours.

Trailers weren't ready. Finally at 2230 the dispatch at this center hands me my paperwork. The paperwork indicated that the run was about 4.5 hours long. So I was expected to arrive 18 hours after I had started my day.

I told the center dispatch I couldn't do it. There was no way I would have time. They could have cared less. They shrugged their shoulders and it was "deal with it".

So I called our Central Dispatch and told them what was going on. At first Central said, "Well go as far as you can and then call if you think you won't make it."

What??

I said, "Look, I CAN'T WORK 18 HOURS!!" Why send me on my run WHEN WE BOTH KNOW I WON'T MAKE IT??!!"

They finally relented and put me in a hotel for the night.

That's some crazy stuff you LTL guys are talking about. My dispatcher always sees my hours. He will occasionally call and ask me something like this, "I see you have been bumping up against your 70 each day this week. Can you manage to get this load going to Vermont there by Wednesday?"

He's always aware of how I'm managing my time.

Clocked in one day at 9am. Got drafted 30min later to do a run with a via.

Got to the via, swapped trailers and continued to my destination. While enroute, my truck broke down. Finally got to my destination at 2200 hours.

Trailers weren't ready. Finally at 2230 the dispatch at this center hands me my paperwork. The paperwork indicated that the run was about 4.5 hours long. So I was expected to arrive 18 hours after I had started my day.

I told the center dispatch I couldn't do it. There was no way I would have time. They could have cared less. They shrugged their shoulders and it was "deal with it".

So I called our Central Dispatch and told them what was going on. At first Central said, "Well go as far as you can and then call if you think you won't make it."

What??

I said, "Look, I CAN'T WORK 18 HOURS!!" Why send me on my run WHEN WE BOTH KNOW I WON'T MAKE IT??!!"

They finally relented and put me in a hotel for the night.

That's surprising. That's never been my experience with central dispatch. I've dealt with that with dispatchers in buildings when I say I can't do something, but then I just step outside and call Central and they make the necessary changes.