I'm pretty surprised by the results actually. I assumed most of the complaints would come from pay, considering that's what most of the complaints you normally hear about companies. This tracks pretty close to how I actually feel about the issues.
I’m going to take a wild guess here going off of both charts and say drivers feel that recruiters are lying to them about home time. I felt mine was pretty straightforward.
I’m going to take a wild guess here going off of both charts and say drivers feel that recruiters are lying to them about home time. I felt mine was pretty straightforward.
Mine as well. I earn one day off for every 6 days on the road, and have to stay out a minimum of 21 days because that’s the fleet I joined. While being OTR with Crete, I have never been late getting home. No misunderstanding, etc.
OTR driving normally means you'll be hauling freight to various customers throughout your company's hauling region. It often entails being gone from home for two to three weeks at a time.
Mine totally lied or at the very least didn’t understand the job I was applying for ...
when I ended up talking the account manager and he said “ who told you that you would be home multiple times per week?” The recruiter did and he asked if I that in an email- I said no. Was told I don’t think you understood what she said - I simply sent him his job posting and said “you are advertising multiple time home a week” read your job posting. They switched me to a different account.
The job posting still hasn’t changed 🤣
I’m going to take a wild guess here going off of both charts and say drivers feel that recruiters are lying to them about home time. I felt mine was pretty straightforward.
I very rarely comment on my own articles, but his one about home time was a particular bone of contention between me and my fleet manager.
I was recruited into GTI out of truck driving school. The recruiter told us home time was "five and two." In orientation, it was always "five and two." Any normal person would take that to mean five days of work, two days off. Right? Wheels down at the end of driving on Friday, wheels up again first thing Monday morning.
Personally, because my home was a longish drive up into the mountains from my home terminal , I opted for a "12 and two" home time schedule. Drive Monday through the next week Friday, off for the weekend. Basically off only every other weekend. My dispatcher was great, she understood, and let me do it that way. More time on the road, less time off on home time. Good for the company.
For some reason, my fleet manager got a bug up his butt about my schedule. He called me in to explain that the "five and two" everybody was telling me was really "five-and-a-half and one-and-a-half." IOW, the company didn't grant home time. They let us go home, but it had to be a 34-hour reset. I couldn't get it through his thick head that a 34-hour reset is not home time. Also, he just couldn't understand that making me take a 34-hour reset EVERY weekend, rather than a weekend of home time every other week, meant less time driving, less time hauling freight, and less time the truck was being productive.
This was the same fleet manager who I had a run-in with one time when I was down in the San Bernardino area. It was a Friday afternoon, I had just dropped a load, and they wanted me to run over to the Chino area "real quick" to get loaded. I had to be there in 30 minutes. They figured it was only 30 miles, freeway driving, piece of cake. I told the dispatcher it is impossible to go 30 miles in 30 minutes in the LA basin on Friday afternoon. She got the fleet manager on the phone. He insisted I take the load. Rand McNally says I can do it. I told him I'll get there when I can. He said to get there in 30 minutes. I said, "Look, what did you do when you were driving and you were given an impossible time frame to get somewhere?" He said, "I have never set foot in the cab of a truck." This was the fleet manager! I might or might not have said something that probably I shouldn't have. 😊
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
^^^^^^^^^ Way to GO, Dave W. !!
Sure wish you WOULD comment more, tbh!!
~ Anne ~
We all have different things that are important to us, to me I was happy with my recruiters, felt they were honest. In my first two years I took home time 5 times, 22 days total, and they screwed me once which cost me money for a non refundable motel room. I almost quit I was so mad but I pushed through and was glad I did. Twenty percent of the time missing hometime was not impressive. However, communication is a BIGGIE for me. If I send you a Qualcomm message, FFS, reply to me. I got quite frustrated, especially with night and weekend people not responding or taking several hours. My regular dispatcher was awesome, never had an issue. The biggest thing was having to sit overnight after driving past my delivery address because they wouldn't send me a Ryder T# for Target loads. I loved the Target loads but hated our company policy on drop #s, they wanted me to send a message when I was 30 miles out but history proved I had a 50/50 chance they'd never reply on nights and weekends. Not having an APU with idle limited to below 35° and over 75° also irritated me, try sleeping when its 74°s and no idle/no AC. They didnt want an inverter in the truck so no microwave either. (Although I put both in my truck) Basically no concern for driver comfort.
So basically
1. Lack of communication from dispatch.
2. No concern for driver comfort.
3. Lack of facilities (showers, laundry and a decent place to sit when getting service) at terminals.
4. Hometime being missed when they had a months notice.
5. Having to basically force them to pay breakdown, layover and detention pay. I gave up trying for the most part, getting $2.50-$10.00 in detention for 4-12 hours of sitting wasn't worth the aggravation. If you say it's part of my pay package I shouldn't have to fight you to get it.
6. Pay. You know when your company is cheap AF, if you have one of the highest turnover rates in the industry and the majority of that is due to low cpm then pay better. Although I personally did quite well with my last company I can't say that for many of their drivers. Drivers shouldn't have to be trainers to pay their bills.
7. Respect from dispatchers etc. Although I never had an issue, some people complain about being talked to like a dog, cussed etc.
2 months ago I switched companies, they pay me .18cpm more than my previous company (which I did not have any serious problems with them, if my pay had been better I'd probably still be with them, they had a recruiter call me a couple weeks ago offering me a .17cpm pay increase to come back, which I politely declined) plus I have an inverter, 3 foot tall fridge and APU in the truck. It's a smaller company so no real facilities at the one terminal yard but that's ok. All of the mechanical repairs and services are done off site at either their preferred mechanic shop down the road from the yard or on the road wherever we may be. Their trucks are in good repair, late model and well equipped. So far, 2 months in I am quite happy with my move.
Most of us have just a few items that are important to us, most of those items are fairly reasonable although you have the occasional driver with unrealistic and unreasonable expectations. Where else can you make $40,000-$120,000ish per year, live in their truck if you wish all with little to no higher learning, no degree needed but welcome if you have it, be able to do this regardless of race, age or sex all for great money and an easy job physically? If the companies with high turnover rates would look at these lists, there's only a few items they'd have to follow through with and they could reduce the turnover rate and driver shortages drastically. JMHO of course but seriously, how hard can it be to read the exact same issues on basically every single study of the problem then implement positive changes to address the issues? You can't please everyone but you can make serious headway towards pleasing the majority of people.
A facility where trucking companies operate out of, or their "home base" if you will. A lot of major companies have multiple terminals around the country which usually consist of the main office building, a drop lot for trailers, and sometimes a repair shop and wash facilities.
Drivers are often paid by the mile and it's given in cents per mile, or cpm.
On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.
Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.
I wish Don H. would chime in here.....
(if wishes were diamonds, haha!)
~ Anne ~
ps: Errol V. >> anything? YOU've worn all hats. . . . ?!?
New! Check out our help videos for a better understanding of our forum features
In trying to understand the dynamics of the driver-shortage, driver-recruitment, driver-retention paradigm a survey conducted by the Conversion Interactive Agency and Professional Driver Agency went right to the source -- they took a survey of commercial drivers.
Survey seeks answers to what drivers want from carriers