n012944 Shadow the Cats owner Zugman as usual you have zero clue how or what the logistics in this nation actually are run. So instead of just being able to ignore when the shipper or receiver has held the truck for 8 hours and burned the clock of the driver that day now those driver's are being forced by the HOS regulations regardless of if they slept through their delivery or shipping delays to stop and rest another 10 hours. Yep, that is the way hours of service work. Should a pilot not count the hours sitting on a taxiway waiting for a storm to pass if they can get a couple winks of sleep while doing so? Should train crews not count the time waiting in the siding for a meet? Of course they should. And truck drivers should not be any different. The truck industry has too long taken the public safety for granted, and it is time to stop. Shadow the Cats owner You can't keep crap moving when the truck is sitting 18 hours a freaking day. Hire more drivers. Shadow the Cats owner But what would I know about HOS regulations considering I have 250 driver's I have to keep in compliance with. Scary. Shadow the Cats owner If you think inflation is bad right now just wait until the democratic proposal of a 8 cent per mile tax rate driven goes through. That means for an average OTR truck a tax increase of between 10 to 15 grand a year. Guess who will be paying that. Good. Maybe less of the general fund will have to get transferred over to cover the highway fund. And shippers can find other ways to ship if the taxpayers stop subsidizing truckers ROW.
Shadow the Cats owner Zugman as usual you have zero clue how or what the logistics in this nation actually are run. So instead of just being able to ignore when the shipper or receiver has held the truck for 8 hours and burned the clock of the driver that day now those driver's are being forced by the HOS regulations regardless of if they slept through their delivery or shipping delays to stop and rest another 10 hours.
Zugman as usual you have zero clue how or what the logistics in this nation actually are run. So instead of just being able to ignore when the shipper or receiver has held the truck for 8 hours and burned the clock of the driver that day now those driver's are being forced by the HOS regulations regardless of if they slept through their delivery or shipping delays to stop and rest another 10 hours.
Yep, that is the way hours of service work. Should a pilot not count the hours sitting on a taxiway waiting for a storm to pass if they can get a couple winks of sleep while doing so? Should train crews not count the time waiting in the siding for a meet? Of course they should. And truck drivers should not be any different. The truck industry has too long taken the public safety for granted, and it is time to stop.
Shadow the Cats owner You can't keep crap moving when the truck is sitting 18 hours a freaking day.
You can't keep crap moving when the truck is sitting 18 hours a freaking day.
Hire more drivers.
Shadow the Cats owner But what would I know about HOS regulations considering I have 250 driver's I have to keep in compliance with.
But what would I know about HOS regulations considering I have 250 driver's I have to keep in compliance with.
Scary.
Shadow the Cats owner If you think inflation is bad right now just wait until the democratic proposal of a 8 cent per mile tax rate driven goes through. That means for an average OTR truck a tax increase of between 10 to 15 grand a year. Guess who will be paying that.
If you think inflation is bad right now just wait until the democratic proposal of a 8 cent per mile tax rate driven goes through. That means for an average OTR truck a tax increase of between 10 to 15 grand a year. Guess who will be paying that.
Good. Maybe less of the general fund will have to get transferred over to cover the highway fund. And shippers can find other ways to ship if the taxpayers stop subsidizing truckers ROW.
Are you even aware of just how short of parking spaces the OTR industry is around major cities. Driver's literally take their own life literally in their hands to park sometimes. They get robbed shot beaten have loads hijacked due to the lack of safe parking in the major cities. If you shop at Walmart Amazon Best Buy or any other major big box chain I can guarantee you this 100 percent of all the products are delivered to the warehouse via truck and to the store the same way yes that includes Whole Foods also which Amazon owns. Not one of these stores gets rail delivery. Yes they use cofc and tofc for the longer hauls and Amazon has even bought their own aircraft for logistics. However when it comes to getting to the warehouse or store they all use an OTR truck and drive it there.
Oh yeah as for your suggestion to hire more driver's this industry has a massive labor shortage problem. Why it's called we are losing the last of our old breed that loved the job. The current generation well to put it mildly can't survive without a lot technology in their lives. That and they have a major problem passing a drug test.
No keeping my driver's in compliance is easy the ELB program that I setup starts screaming find a parking spot a minimum 45 minutes before the 14 hour clock dies or their 11 hours of driving time for the day is over. Since we have implemented it 0 HOS violations in inspections in that time frame. So my job is fairly easy. The hard job for me is playing mom for all my kids at work. When covid hit my work kids became a little bit more of a hassle. But I am a mom. Even my boss knows that while he's away from the office seeing the customers that I will keep the place running smoothly or at least keep them from burning it to the ground.
If that tax goes into effect those of us in the OTR industry are predicting a 30 to 40 percent increase in freight costs. That equals about a 10 to 15 percent jump in the prices of everything across the board.
Electroliner 1935 Shadow, I understand most of what you are saying but I would like to understand what your drivers are facing. I percieve that they arrive with the tractor at a shippers dock to pick up a loaded trailer or do they bring a trailer to be loaded. If they arrive with a trailer to be loaded, I presume their clock is running. Does the shipper have any monetary skin in the game to load the trailer quickly? Then when on the road, the clock is ticking and when they reach their time limit, they have to park and get rested (sleep) before resuming the trip. Or if team driving, swap drivers and continue. Are there any operations that use a pony express type of operation where they have a pool of drivers that swap out like Railroads do? Do your drivers deliver a loaded trailer to its destination and have to wait for it to be unloaded or can they drop and go? If they have to wait, can the receiver be billed after a period of time? What happens if their time expires while waiting? A second question. Back when I was a teen (late 40's), my dad worked for a local trucking company based in Cincinnati as a rate clerk. LTL. Common carrier. Every thing had a rate and there was a tarriff that covered it. He was licensed to practice befor the ICC. I understand that deregulation did away with that. How does trucking work today? If I call Hunt or Roadway to name two, and want to ship 4 tons of boxes of XYZ to Cincinnati, or a full truckload of whatever, how is my cost determined. Dad had rates that were based on the material, value, damageability, etc weight, distance, and of course, what the competion's rate was. Is there anything like that today?
Shadow,
I understand most of what you are saying but I would like to understand what your drivers are facing. I percieve that they arrive with the tractor at a shippers dock to pick up a loaded trailer or do they bring a trailer to be loaded. If they arrive with a trailer to be loaded, I presume their clock is running. Does the shipper have any monetary skin in the game to load the trailer quickly? Then when on the road, the clock is ticking and when they reach their time limit, they have to park and get rested (sleep) before resuming the trip. Or if team driving, swap drivers and continue. Are there any operations that use a pony express type of operation where they have a pool of drivers that swap out like Railroads do? Do your drivers deliver a loaded trailer to its destination and have to wait for it to be unloaded or can they drop and go? If they have to wait, can the receiver be billed after a period of time? What happens if their time expires while waiting?
A second question. Back when I was a teen (late 40's), my dad worked for a local trucking company based in Cincinnati as a rate clerk. LTL. Common carrier. Every thing had a rate and there was a tarriff that covered it. He was licensed to practice befor the ICC. I understand that deregulation did away with that. How does trucking work today? If I call Hunt or Roadway to name two, and want to ship 4 tons of boxes of XYZ to Cincinnati, or a full truckload of whatever, how is my cost determined. Dad had rates that were based on the material, value, damageability, etc weight, distance, and of course, what the competion's rate was. Is there anything like that today?
Say one of my driver's has a delivery in Joliet to make. But due to lack of parking which is a major problem he had to stop in Morris Illinois for the night before. He gets up drives 30 minutes after doing his pretrip inspection and gets to his delivery place. We'll say Amazon they have a huge warehouse in that area. He's got a full truckload of goods for them. They are having some issues getting everything checked in and it takes 8 hours. Well even though he's used at most 90 minutes of his HOS regulation time his clock has been used up by 9 hours. His reload is in Lasalle about 1 hour away. He gets there it is a drop and hook we have close to 100 trailers at that plant alone. So he's only used at most 3 hours of his total HOS time but his clock is at 1030 expired. He has just 3.5 hours left in the day to drive to his next destination. We don't allow anyone to split log at all here. So he's basically wasted the day thanks to a regulation that tries to force everyone onto the same schedule. If there was no clock and it could be stopped like with every other HOS prior to rewrite he cou still drive about 8 more maybe 9 hours if he napped at Amazon and if he is like most of my driver's I'd the wheels aren't moving their in the bunk sleeping unless they're eating.
Since I do most of my long distance traveling in the wee hours of the day - most Interstate Rest Areas have none or very few parking spots available for trucks during the night. The entrance and exit ramps of the Rest Area have rigs parked along both sides nose to tail.
How much is the OTR industry contibuting to state coffers to expand truck parking at Interstate Rest Areas?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Part of the problem is that with Amazon, Walmart, etc., being so big compared to even the biggest trucking companies, they can refuse to pay detention time for trucks waiting well past their appt times and the trucking companies can't do anything about it. The vendor will just cancel their contract.
Shadow the Cats owner Are you even aware of just how short of parking spaces the OTR industry is around major cities. Driver's literally take their own life literally in their hands to park sometimes. They get robbed shot beaten have loads hijacked due to the lack of safe parking in the major cities.
Are you even aware of just how short of parking spaces the OTR industry is around major cities. Driver's literally take their own life literally in their hands to park sometimes. They get robbed shot beaten have loads hijacked due to the lack of safe parking in the major cities.
Sounds like the trucking industry needs to stop parking in public places. They need to spend their own dime, and create safe parking places in metro areas. Problem solved.
Shadow the Cats owner If you shop at Walmart Amazon Best Buy or any other major big box chain I can guarantee you this 100 percent of all the products are delivered to the warehouse via truck and to the store the same way yes that includes Whole Foods also which Amazon owns Not one of these stores gets rail delivery.
If you shop at Walmart Amazon Best Buy or any other major big box chain I can guarantee you this 100 percent of all the products are delivered to the warehouse via truck and to the store the same way yes that includes Whole Foods also which Amazon owns Not one of these stores gets rail delivery.
In your rant that I quoted, you were talking about otr trucks. Again, those can be replaced.
Shadow the Cats owner Yes they use cofc and tofc for the longer hauls and Amazon has even bought their own aircraft for logistics. However when it comes to getting to the warehouse or store they all use an OTR truck and drive it there. Oh yeah as for your suggestion to hire more driver's this industry has a massive labor shortage problem. Why it's called we are losing the last of our old breed that loved the job.
Yes they use cofc and tofc for the longer hauls and Amazon has even bought their own aircraft for logistics. However when it comes to getting to the warehouse or store they all use an OTR truck and drive it there.
Oh yeah as for your suggestion to hire more driver's this industry has a massive labor shortage problem. Why it's called we are losing the last of our old breed that loved the job.
Increase the pay like other industries are doing in order to retain and get more people. Stop running them in the ground, and when you ignore HOS laws, you are doing just that.
An "expensive model collector"
Shadow the Cats ownerWhole Foods also which Amazon owns. Not one of these stores gets rail delivery.
Ironically, I see a lot of Amazon containers on IM trains...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
We have increased pay our average OTR driver here last year netted not grossed close to 90k. Our owner operators were in the 220 to 250k in revenue for the year in our van division. The tanks and blower aka pneumatic drivers were about 25 percent higher on those numbers. The top paying fleets are in the 70 cents a mile range for OTR drivers now less than a decade ago 50 cents was top pay. If you're willing to run decent miles of around 3k miles a week making over 150k a year isn't hard at top paying fleets. That's before any bonuses are offered.
Shadow the Cats owner If you're willing to run decent miles of around 3k miles a week making over 150k a year isn't hard at top paying fleets. That's before any bonuses are offered.
If you're willing to run decent miles of around 3k miles a week making over 150k a year isn't hard at top paying fleets. That's before any bonuses are offered.
BackshopHow many days a year are those drivers home?
Three thousand miles at an average 60 miles per hour would be fifty hours, subject to all those variables. That assumes mostly over-the-road mileage.
One must remember that for some drivers, home is their truck.
That said, a fifty hour workweek should certainly allow for a fair amount of home time, assuming a driver isn't always going "somewhere else."
One of our regulars here has been driving truck all over the country for years now, and his accounts invariably include time at home.
tree68 Backshop How many days a year are those drivers home? Three thousand miles at an average 60 miles per hour would be fifty hours, subject to all those variables. That assumes mostly over-the-road mileage. One must remember that for some drivers, home is their truck. That said, a fifty hour workweek should certainly allow for a fair amount of home time, assuming a driver isn't always going "somewhere else." One of our regulars here has been driving truck all over the country for years now, and his accounts invariably include time at home.
Backshop How many days a year are those drivers home?
Our driver's last year averaged between 90 to 120 days at home. For us at my company a day at home is 24 hours of nonstop time. We don't include his day he gets into the house. So if a driver gets into his house at 1230 in the morning his time at the house starts at midnight the next day. We also don't allow resets on the road unless you're broken down in a motel.
Let's compare my driver's day to say someone who works in an office building and has a commute into it shall we. My driver gets up he reloaded yesterday and has a delivery tomorrow morning 650 miles away from his current location and then he will be headed back home with his reload. We run out and back no all over the USA. He eats his breakfast does his pretrip inspection and starts out. In about 9 hours he's close to his final destination and finds a spot for the night and relaxes watching some movies on his flat screen that we provide for him while heating up his home cooked dinner his wife made him before he left the house. All our trucks come equipped with refrigerator freezers microwave and 32in flat-screen TV for our driver's comfort. He gets a good night's sleep and makes his delivery and pick up and heads back towards the yard the next day.
This is the day of my husband's cousin who commutes in and out of his job on a daily basis. He's up at 4am everyday so he can leave at 5am praying to beat the inbound rush to his job and 90 percent of the time he fails in that endeavor. He deals with thousands of people all trying to get towards their jobs. He lives about 50 miles away to save on property taxes. He normally spends 4 to 5 hours a day on the road. Then when he gets home he has to deal with all the other stuff still. He's lucky to be able to get 6 hours of sleep a day. Yes He's home everyday but does he really have any quality of time with his family.
My husband's father was also an OTR driver. The one thing that my husband always said was when dad was home he was home. There was nothing he wouldn't do with us nothing was unimportant enough for him. His cousin missed his own daughter's sweet 16 party. Why his company said he either flew to Australia to take care of the customer or he was fired. Around here we would be able to find another driver for the load.
Shadow the Cats owner Our driver's last year averaged between 90 to 120 days at home. For us at my company a day at home is 24 hours of nonstop time. We don't include his day he gets into the house. So if a driver gets into his house at 1230 in the morning his time at the house starts at midnight the next day. We also don't allow resets on the road unless you're broken down in a motel. Let's compare my driver's day to say someone who works in an office building and has a commute into it shall we. My driver gets up he reloaded yesterday and has a delivery tomorrow morning 650 miles away from his current location and then he will be headed back home with his reload. We run out and back no all over the USA. He eats his breakfast does his pretrip inspection and starts out. In about 9 hours he's close to his final destination and finds a spot for the night and relaxes watching some movies on his flat screen that we provide for him while heating up his home cooked dinner his wife made him before he left the house. All our trucks come equipped with refrigerator freezers microwave and 32in flat-screen TV for our driver's comfort. He gets a good night's sleep and makes his delivery and pick up and heads back towards the yard the next day. This is the day of my husband's cousin who commutes in and out of his job on a daily basis. He's up at 4am everyday so he can leave at 5am praying to beat the inbound rush to his job and 90 percent of the time he fails in that endeavor. He deals with thousands of people all trying to get towards their jobs. He lives about 50 miles away to save on property taxes. He normally spends 4 to 5 hours a day on the road. Then when he gets home he has to deal with all the other stuff still. He's lucky to be able to get 6 hours of sleep a day. Yes He's home everyday but does he really have any quality of time with his family. My husband's father was also an OTR driver. The one thing that my husband always said was when dad was home he was home. There was nothing he wouldn't do with us nothing was unimportant enough for him. His cousin missed his own daughter's sweet 16 party. Why his company said he either flew to Australia to take care of the customer or he was fired. Around here we would be able to find another driver for the load.
Anyone who spends 4-5 hours a day commuting seriously needs to rethink their job and life. Long commutes like that basically take away your life outside of work.
PsychotAnyone who spends 4-5 hours a day commuting seriously needs to rethink their job and life. Long commutes like that basically take away your life outside of work.
Several co-workers of mine were out of a job when the facility they were working at closed. They were able to get jobs at the faciity I was at. One packed up and moved, another stayed "home." For the latter, he went from a one hour commute to a two hour commute as he didn't want to move.
Both are now retired. I'm not sure if the one who moved is headed back to where he lived before, or is staying in this area. He does like it on the lake. The other got to retire in the home he'd been living in right along.
Shadow the Cats ownerHe eats his breakfast does his pretrip inspection and starts out. In about 9 hours he's close to his final destination and finds a spot for the night and relaxes watching some movies on his flat screen that we provide for him while heating up his home cooked dinner his wife made him before he left the house. All our trucks come equipped with refrigerator freezers microwave and 32in flat-screen TV for our driver's comfort. He gets a good night's sleep and makes his delivery and pick up and heads back towards the yard the next day.
No matter how nice you make it sound - you're still spending most of the week in a truck. Hey, if people like that, good for them. But I don't think 150K is going to be enough in this day and age to convince too many others to take up trucking as a career. And the trucker shortage seems to be a testament to that.
We can barely get people to work for railroads - and we are home a lot more than that for similar pay. People are starting to value their time more - and many employers (not accusing yours of not) wll have to realize that some decade. We're losing people with 10-15-20+ years. They're not all leaving for higher paying jobs, either. They're leaving to have a semblance of a life. A thing that was possible when there were more assigned trains and yard jobs. Those have been disappearing due to a certain operating philosophy that has creeped in.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
How many jobs are out there for non college graduates that pay the equivalent of 72 bucks a hour for a 40 hour workweek. That's what 150 grand a year breaks down to. For that kind of pay you can get a single income household again in most areas or at least the spouse is only working part-time if they want to. The money is there for those that want to work for it.
Again. It's not simply a matter of money. And until corporate America realizes this - worker shortages will persist.
zugmannAgain. It's not simply a matter of money. And until corporate America realizes this - worker shortages will persist.
There is nothing like that in the railroad industry, to my knowledge, and provision of microwaves and hot plates, while valuable, aren't much of a substitute.
Frankly I think it's been settled science for decades that random crew calling limited only by Chinese-puzzle schemes of Federal regulation is a dangerous operating practice.
I suspect your drivers appreciate what you do for them. I was fortunate to have good working conditions. I hear its a jungle out there. But I didn't get an answer to my second question:
Shadow the Cats owner How many jobs are out there for non college graduates that pay the equivalent of 72 bucks a hour for a 40 hour workweek. That's what 150 grand a year breaks down to. For that kind of pay you can get a single income household again in most areas or at least the spouse is only working part-time if they want to. The money is there for those that want to work for it.
But aren't your drivers working more than 40 hours a week? Actually, a lot of college graduates would be hard pressed to find those wages for a 40 hour work week.
Jobs that require a certain hardship generally pay a premium wage rate. Even jobs that pay decently without too much hardship (showing up, breaking a sweat, getting your hands dirty) are having trouble being filled. Those that have a greater degree of hardship (away from home, non-traditional or on-call hours, etc.) are just going to be that much harder to fill.
Times and attitudes are changing.
Jeff
People who live in their trucks have no life or hobbies. When you're on the road driving, you're not on vacation. You can't stop when you want to sightsee. You have to take the most direct route, drive/sleep on your HOS and deliver on time. You may catch a few sights driving down the road, but that's about it. Besides, most deliveries aren't in the good area of town, so you may see things that you don't want to.
Since deregulation and the abolishment of the ICC rates are pretty much set by what the market will support. If capacity is tight rates will rise if to much then they will drop on the open market. Now if you're hauling on a contract with a shipper then you'll be on a negotiated rate that both you and they have agreed to pay with conditions for fuel surcharge and other things put in.
Oh and Backshop as to your claims that people that are OTR driver's have no hobbies or life. Let's see here I have one driver who has been to 22 different amusement parks in the last year alone another that has seen 6 different Nascar races in 6 different states Including the Daytona 500 this year plus the Southern 500 he's got tickets for Martinsville next weekend and a load to get him there planned. 3 more of my driver's were coaches of a little league baseball team this year. How they did it was simple they rotated which days they were in during the week to allow at least one of them at anytime to be able to coach the team.
2 more of my driver's are competion grade BBQ chef's they literally compete with their freaking food they make. Let alone the 50 or so of my driver's that have adopted classrooms to help kids learn about geography in their education.
That's neat, Shadow.
Two points...
1. I didn't say all OTR drivers didn't have lives. I was replying to Overmod's post about couples living in their truck.
2. Your company doesn't seem to be anywhere near the norm as far as how trucking companies treat their drivers.
Anymore the mega carrier that treats their drivers like crap is becoming the rare carrier. Why except for their training purposes they have zero influence on drivers. Most new drivers know that it's called do your time at a mega carrier then get the heck out.
What percentage "gets the heck out" and into a smaller carrier -
and what percentage "gets the heck out" of the industry entirely?
It's about 50 percent stay and the rest leave.
Shadow the Cats ownerIt's about 50 percent stay and the rest leave.
Any sources on that? Seems that if 50% stayed, smaller outfits would have no problem with hiring (just by numbers alone).
You're forgetting about the average turnover rate of a carrier can be well over 100 percent in a year for a bad one. If you're a decent carrier it's still 20 percent or more. That doesn't include the retirements or medical retirements either. That's just driver's that quit and leave the job.
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