greyhounds wrote: Safety Valve wrote: Ours was governed at 67 mph visible on the speedometer but personal Laptop GPS revealed the true goverened speed to be 63 mph yeilding a max average of 42-43 mph possible with actual trip planning at 28-35 miles an hour. When I approached the saftey dept with the GPS data and asked to be "Up-governed" to the proper company speed of 67 I was told to keep quiet as the company makes alot of savings this way.No, I ran dollar trucks long ago and used to keep a list of mile markers regularly used by LEO's and would begin the braking to come out of the 110's down to whatever speed 5 miles out. Anything sooner will mean you show blue smoke from hot brakes on flat ground at 70 mph to the LEO. If that isnt a waving the red-flag in front of a bull I dont know what is. NYC to Youngstown disappeared very quickly at those speeds. Miles burg hill at 90 mph upgrade loaded for the first 7 of 10 miles until momentum wore off was a thrill... coming over the top at 65+ fully loaded while the poor saps slogged at 15 mph in the right lane or shoulder.Ive had R model macks at 3 grand in the far left lane on the Legion Bridge at the VA/Md Border. Something that is not possible today. The first 4 of 6 to the silo to unload makes an extra load or 70 dollars for that day's work making such speeds worth the risk as citations back then were only about 60 dollars and a few points.Ive been beat by faster trucks and am humbled at the engineering that makes such fast rigs possible. Elpaso to Houston.. 150+ mph or more I dont know.I do feel those days are pernamently over.In my last days on the road I was more than content to slog up hill and get down with brakes still cold and ready in case I needed them.OK. I believe 100 or 110, but I don't buy 150. No offense intended. You're a good guy. The apples from Yakima to Little Rock belong on a train, not on a "dollar" truck. You can thank "Your Federal Government" for diverting the fruit to the trucks.I have a friend/acquaintance who drives local for Con Way. He used to do over the road. We've both got way too much experience driving I-94 between Chicago and the Twin Cities. (My experience being in a car or SUV) A J.B. driver almost killed me one night about an hour north of Madison. But that's another story.So I'm talking to my friend and relating the story of the J.B. driver. Friend has got his own story. He tops a grade northbound at Tomah, looks in the mirror, and sees his 2nd trailer "comming on around". He said he just clutched the steering wheel with his two hands and his forehead.The "Hang on For Dear Life" strategy worked. And he lived to tell the story with no wreck. But he's an experienced commercial driver and he's convinced multiple trailers are not safe.
Safety Valve wrote: Ours was governed at 67 mph visible on the speedometer but personal Laptop GPS revealed the true goverened speed to be 63 mph yeilding a max average of 42-43 mph possible with actual trip planning at 28-35 miles an hour. When I approached the saftey dept with the GPS data and asked to be "Up-governed" to the proper company speed of 67 I was told to keep quiet as the company makes alot of savings this way.No, I ran dollar trucks long ago and used to keep a list of mile markers regularly used by LEO's and would begin the braking to come out of the 110's down to whatever speed 5 miles out. Anything sooner will mean you show blue smoke from hot brakes on flat ground at 70 mph to the LEO. If that isnt a waving the red-flag in front of a bull I dont know what is. NYC to Youngstown disappeared very quickly at those speeds. Miles burg hill at 90 mph upgrade loaded for the first 7 of 10 miles until momentum wore off was a thrill... coming over the top at 65+ fully loaded while the poor saps slogged at 15 mph in the right lane or shoulder.Ive had R model macks at 3 grand in the far left lane on the Legion Bridge at the VA/Md Border. Something that is not possible today. The first 4 of 6 to the silo to unload makes an extra load or 70 dollars for that day's work making such speeds worth the risk as citations back then were only about 60 dollars and a few points.Ive been beat by faster trucks and am humbled at the engineering that makes such fast rigs possible. Elpaso to Houston.. 150+ mph or more I dont know.I do feel those days are pernamently over.In my last days on the road I was more than content to slog up hill and get down with brakes still cold and ready in case I needed them.
Ours was governed at 67 mph visible on the speedometer but personal Laptop GPS revealed the true goverened speed to be 63 mph yeilding a max average of 42-43 mph possible with actual trip planning at 28-35 miles an hour. When I approached the saftey dept with the GPS data and asked to be "Up-governed" to the proper company speed of 67 I was told to keep quiet as the company makes alot of savings this way.
No, I ran dollar trucks long ago and used to keep a list of mile markers regularly used by LEO's and would begin the braking to come out of the 110's down to whatever speed 5 miles out. Anything sooner will mean you show blue smoke from hot brakes on flat ground at 70 mph to the LEO. If that isnt a waving the red-flag in front of a bull I dont know what is.
NYC to Youngstown disappeared very quickly at those speeds. Miles burg hill at 90 mph upgrade loaded for the first 7 of 10 miles until momentum wore off was a thrill... coming over the top at 65+ fully loaded while the poor saps slogged at 15 mph in the right lane or shoulder.
Ive had R model macks at 3 grand in the far left lane on the Legion Bridge at the VA/Md Border. Something that is not possible today. The first 4 of 6 to the silo to unload makes an extra load or 70 dollars for that day's work making such speeds worth the risk as citations back then were only about 60 dollars and a few points.
Ive been beat by faster trucks and am humbled at the engineering that makes such fast rigs possible. Elpaso to Houston.. 150+ mph or more I dont know.
I do feel those days are pernamently over.
In my last days on the road I was more than content to slog up hill and get down with brakes still cold and ready in case I needed them.
OK. I believe 100 or 110, but I don't buy 150. No offense intended. You're a good guy.
The apples from Yakima to Little Rock belong on a train, not on a "dollar" truck. You can thank "Your Federal Government" for diverting the fruit to the trucks.
I have a friend/acquaintance who drives local for Con Way. He used to do over the road. We've both got way too much experience driving I-94 between Chicago and the Twin Cities. (My experience being in a car or SUV) A J.B. driver almost killed me one night about an hour north of Madison. But that's another story.
So I'm talking to my friend and relating the story of the J.B. driver. Friend has got his own story. He tops a grade northbound at Tomah, looks in the mirror, and sees his 2nd trailer "comming on around". He said he just clutched the steering wheel with his two hands and his forehead.
The "Hang on For Dear Life" strategy worked. And he lived to tell the story with no wreck. But he's an experienced commercial driver and he's convinced multiple trailers are not safe.
I concede that the 150 is not that great. 130 maybe. The tires wont take it.
I stayed away from multipule trailers. To haul those on the east coast meant to ride very short wheel base tractors which was really bad for the back on that concrete back then. I have zero experience with multipules. I cannot imagine the procedure (If any) to get out of a multi jack... I think the best procedure is always not to get into one at all.
Ive a few with a trailer and when it breaks loose you only have a moment to decide just where to put the steering wheel. If you wait too long or mis-calulate you will NEVER get the rig back. Skid pad training is one way to reinforce this. Sadly many CDL Mills never see a Skidpad.
In fact, I think the current system of the CDL Mill be ripped up and tossed. Why is it that we can place a 20 year old Soldier in Charge of a multi-million/crewed platform doing a vital mission and have that soldier do it effectively within reasonable human limits or mission limits. Yet we cannot stop a driver who has not stopped to bathe in 10 days or do laundry once a week because "He's gotta go" Something is flat broke in the industry.
The full trains on the turnpike (Ok two 45 foot trailers does not a train make...) were very special, you could see the driver input a steering movement and just about watch it travel from axle to axle all the way back.
If I sit down and add up the number of moments where there is great clarity and potential for loss of life or injury... I would be committed to the funny farm long ago. You will lose a few along the way and just count your peices and move on. Some of those include my own life thanks to driving while sleepy. I have nothing to blame but me for that.
I kinda got into alot of counter-top talk here in this thread as I cannot keep my mouth shut.
Final word: LCV and greater GVW's are not the solution.
Training, Pay and Oversight at all levels is the answer. Yes you run smaller freight and might take a little longer but everyone will be regulated and more rested for the work.
Somehow I think that day will be a long time coming. There has been trucking since World War One and little has changed. You would think with today's so-called modern society that Truckers would indeed be Kings of the Road in the traditional style. The USA is by nature a consumptive or consuming society that gives very little back.
My wife and I would run LA downtown to Edison NJ in roughly 55 hours flat. And back again to LA by the end of the week. That's 6000+ miles. When the DOT questions about two oil changes (One every 15,000 miles) in a month there better be two drivers in that cab.
It gets a little bit mind bending because you meet and make friends with a single out of LA pass him on the way through Barstow, come back to see him slogging across Texas or New Mexico and then catch him again in New Jersey at the end of the week. he would be looking forward to the weekend off to sleep while we are just getting ready for a dinner and movie later on friday.
Once in a while I will pay the Man the hundred dollars, sit the required out of service hours and move on. It's cheaper that way than to actually show a logbook they can inspect in some states. In other states you need to be perfect in every way or they will hang you out to dry. If all states were like the few that actually takes safety seriously, I fear that the trucking industry as a whole will suddenly become incapable of actually running freight the way they do.
Tell me again about the hog law where the train crew cannot move that engine one more inch after 10 hours. You might need to drive 300 miles evauating parking spots for 6 hours past your hog law.
I had three log books, one for DOT, one for the company (They get destroyed after 6 months.. oh well) and one for me for hash figuring.
I should have been prosecuted badly if I got caught running off the books like that. But the sad state of truck enforcment, apathy in the logging and precise set points and trip-points made it possible to really work the system. All of that needs to be torn up and thrown away. It's rather easy when that state owned scale inspection site has rusted shut for 10 years on the "Closed" sign. Pilots will never get away with that with the oversight from thier company and FAA.
That was years ago, If confronted with that situation today I would have laughed at dispatch and hung up on them taking my required time off.
Ed, no offense taken. WHen I got out of trucking school I started on the docks, learned the rough ways fast and went to the markets next up there. Im one of the few drivers wanting to go TO the markets while the rest of the drivers waiting on dispatch want to run AWAY from there. Just more money that's all.
Now out west means keeping food, water and power in the truck for two people sufficient for 8 days. You leave out in the morning into a winter storm on the divide and dont know if you are going to spend 4 days in the ditch waiting for a tow while the storm progresses. For the locals who grew up in that area it's not a problem but for us it was something to behold.
And the pay? If that load of apples paid me 1.00 a mile from Yakima to Little Rock, the resulting prices on those apples at the food store will be way too much to pay despite my taste for 5 apples a week.
What kills me is that company drivers dont get the pay they deserve. I think the freight rate on those apples is about 1.70 a mile or so and the company sucker gets paid .32 of that. The rest vanishes into the pit of the trucking company's pockets and shareholders. They proclaim profitibility in a tight business known for bankrupcy while the trucks are given just enough shop time to keep running.
No I see nothing good in the increase of freight. Say you increase my GVW from 80K to 120K They will simply stack the beef boxes a little thicker in that 48' trailer possibly breaking the floor unless the company went out and bought one with a third axle or one with a 10 foot spread and threw the old one away. Under the current weights charts I cannot see running 120K across 75 feet. It just wont bridge out properly on 5 axles.
Let's say that they did put 120K gross on that beef load. It will take longer to load (Already several days using migrant labor 24/7) and longer to unload. Two people throwing 550 boxes of beef (About 80-95 pounds each) will need about 6-10 hours to do the work and demand 120 dollars in lumping fees possibly twice to replace tired people with another two or three rested and strong lumpers ready to finish the load. The reciever's responsibility began when the forklift actually lifts the beef and takes it away.
Oh those lumper fees? Your cost. Now tell me how many dollars 1100 miles times .32 cents a mile again before taxes? That is about 352 dollars pay to the driver gross. Assuming 40 dollars every one hundred is for required taxes you probably will net about 212 dollars not including any company benefits you signed up for. You will probably not get paid for about 10 days for that load and you already ate 2 days going on three for that run.
Little wonder drivers sweat in the trailer for 12-16 hours shoving that beef while dispatch buries them with threats of ternimation if they fail to pick up another load already schedule for that day. Little wonder our Orientations bulge with dozens of motivated wanna-be's ready to go on Wedensday and impatient to get into a big truck and make lots of money. They dont see the reality that will sink in 3 months later. The ones that survive thier first 6 months to a year will be our future trainers, company officials and dispatchers. Once they get out of that cab they are NOT going back in it.
So much for no touch loads. They do exist but for companies like McKesson and running 1+ million dollars value on two pallets on the nose.... that is the ultimate in no touch for me. Once you get to that level, there is no worries about pay or supervisory oversight there are many people tracking you and your truck in real time with dedicated runs. All you have to do is eat enough to drive well and stay awake long enough to cross Illinios with thier killjoy 55 mph speed sleep-inducing limits.
Dont get me started on pay.
They cann never get the shippers to pay the rates at which professionals can be properly paid. They want a warm body and the freight there Asap at the cheapest rate. As long there is a starving owner operator willing to run the freight for little more than the actual cost of fuel it will drive the wages down for all.
I personally discovered the best pay is in the Trainer and Team Lead positions from a driver's point of view. To be allowed to become a trainer means to demonstrate the best and have many Company officials sign off together before you start pulling that nice salary that disregards the actual activity of that rig for the week. You could spend 8 days in the lot teaching someone to back properly because the trucking school that taught the person did not do it right and still get paid well.
Team lead is best with a spouse so the two of you can pull all of the revenue to the household. The tax return for that year put both of us into very high income for our area. However the toll on the health pretty much made it irrevelant. We spent our time rescuing loads in trouble from single drivers who were late. High dollar loads, perishables like flowers and other loads that made powerful people very angry and willing to fire the trucking company and find another because singles cannot endure the required trip to get it delivered on time.
I am one of the loonies that lived in Boston, NYC and other points with a friggin 53 foot. The high point of my life was taking those trailers with conventional tractors INTO restraunts designed for straight trucks "Just so" working around paying customers cars on the lot. No problem except getting out and making sure the mirriors I folded on a few cars were unfolded and undamaged.
It costs an astounding number of thousands of dollars to put a new hire INTO a truck. I think it was between 5K to about 12 K Max depending on the situation. To get the fired driver OUT and make the rig ready usually means a minimum of a cab-detail/clean up and a set of 10 new tires plus required shop work. That is if you actually had fired the driver without having to go and recover the truck.
I look at the General Aviation Schools and recall that people who spend X thousands of dollars to get training needed 6 months maybe a few more and were around people with several pairs of eyeballs evaluating that person all the time. In the CDL Mill you have a bunch of hot, thirsty, hungry and debt ridden people on a dusty lot driving a wore out truck making a half hearted effort to back a trailer into a 16 foot slot not knowing that they will be challenged in the future by extreme situation on the road.
These people trying to learn how to drive a truck do so under a personal risk of failure to pay the bills, not supporting the wife and new baby or otherwise making any income at all during that time. They arrive into Orientation living on scraps and a bit of fast food or what is offered by the company if any. The pay that they get at orientation is delayed a week and usually vanishes from the pile of Comchecks that these new hires on the brink of economic bankrupcy start drawing in order to eat on thier first day out.
The atmosphere of motivation is also very poor. They are told during all of thier time in training that they will make money and are they ready to drive? On the actual first day with a revenue load from a actual dispatcher they find themselves with 300 miles to drive, 250 pay miles and 4 days over a long weekend to deliver it.
Pilots who go on to Commerical and ATP are Never treated this way and they go on to successful paths.
FM I ran all 48 states and Canada and trust me the drivers that got paid more were the ones that ran the NORTHEAST. We called them the Loonys anyone crazy enough to take a 53 footer into downtown Boston or New York can have the Extra Money they got. As for a company paying a driver extra to pull a LCV FORGET IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. All that extra revenue will go straight to the owners pockets. The Mega-Carriers like Swift JB Hunt Werner Schiender are all out there cutting rates and trying to drive the small companies out of Business that way they can then force drivers to work for 25-30 cpm and drive trucks that only run 65 maybe 68 mph. The companies leading the charge for the LCV are the Mega carriers why you ask they are the ones faced year in year out with turnover rates of 150% that is right every year they have to replace every driver on avarage 1.5 times in their trucks. Yes they have some long term drivers but when it costs you 5K to hire a new driver and get him into your truck and you have 19K trucks in Swift's case it gets expensive. Drivers also are forced to wait for hours to get unloaded or reloaded and get paid NOTHING for this time and with LCV's that would be worse. Who led the charge to get rid of Detintion time for drivers the MEGA-CARRIERS again.
Now lets see here you have a group of companies that are interested in one thing getting their all ready wealthy CEO's richer on the backs of the people that earn him the money with underpowered equipment that can barely safely maintain highway speeds at current weights. Now YOU meaning FM want to allow them to add another 40K to the gross weight to that while not paying them anymore and also not improving parking or the loading or unloading situation all across the US. Lets also throw in lack of regulations on fresh produce. Remember that Spinach recall last year it was not the GROWERS OR THE RECIEVERS that got stuck with the bill of getting rid of it if it was in transit it was the TRUCKERS THAT HAD IT ON THE TRUCK.
edbenton wrote:For one thing FM in Canada there you can not pull a LCV truck til you have at least 3 years OTR experiance. 2 the roads up there are built in the European model where the contractor has to STAND BEHIND HIS WORK FOR 30 YEARS. Here as soon as the work is done it is the states problem. Also Canada is the 2nd or 3rd largest country in land mass but has not even 1/6 of our population so the roads execpt by Montreal and Toronto are no were near as crowded. 3 Down here in the States the ATA and the Mega-Carriers call the shots up in Canada it is the Insurance Companies and the Goverment that do the RCMP aka the Mounties are not someone to screw with I have seen to many drivers end up losing everything because of being a typical UGLY AMERICAN up there. The thing is our INFASTRUCTURE will not allow the larger trucks on the roads that plus the number of drivers with 10+ years of experiance that would tell the compaines KISS MY A$$ as they walked out when forced to pull them. They may work out in the west but here in the Midwest and East Coast NO WAY IN HE!! would I want to see them the 53 footer is bad enough out here.
That's all good and well, but it still seems your opposition to allowing higher GVW and longer LCV is anecdotal and predicated on a regional bias. So can I make the assumption that you wouldn't be in opposition to allowing these changes out West? That's where I live, and if only us Westerners are the beneficiaries of lower retail prices due to greater trucking efficiency, I have no problem with that.
BTW - don't you think that the drivers of heavier or longer rigs would get (or at least should get) greater compensation?
While I don't push a rig for a living and will gladly defer to those who do to provide the details, my observations around Chicago show that 53' trailers are a very tight fit in most parts of the city and I do remember that the brief usage of 57' trailers was even worse. Most truck and intermodal terminals in the Chicago area do not have direct access to the various expressways, so the drivers have to maneuver down city streets that are pretty tight even for smaller vehicles.
A question for the drivers here: I have heard that triple bottoms (3-28' pups) do not track very well and tend to fishtail. Is this true?
I have hauled into Canada quite often and had no trouble with thier weights or roads. Just made sure I kept my rig within USA standards which is somewhat "Lighter" than that of Canada. Frankly once I crossed the Ambassador into Ontario I could care less what Canada thought of my vehicle weight.
To be honest I had three concerns when over the border.
1- Customs. Always Customs before anything else. Sometimes I wait a day in the Detroiter until absolutely certain the paper work is in order.
2- Grocery shopping. There are some items we can get that is NOT availible in the USA
3- Getting out via Buffalo when empty out of the Toronto area safely.
And finally the performance of our Governments dont really matter in domestic issues. They say the people has a voice but in the Halls of Congress those voices are very faint indeed.
Ed and Safety,
One question: How is it that the Canadians are getting by so well with heavier GVW trucks on their roads? All I'm suggesting is that we take a look at their regs and see if they can be finessed into our road/TOFC system.
It'll never happen? Hey, we all thought France would never elect a pro-American conservative as their president..............
Moral: Stranger things have happened than increased US GVW/LCV standards. Like the American people pulling their collective heads out of their..um....waste rejection portals, and actually doing THE RIGHT THING.
Murphy Siding wrote: What does LCV stand for? -Thanks
Longer Combination Vehicle. You're welcome.
It's now legal in every state to pull two 28' foot trailers behind one tractor. In some states you can legally pull three on designated routes. On some routes (New York Turnpike and others) it's legal to pull two 48' foot trailers (Maybe 53' now) behind a tractor. These longer combinations are called "LCV's".
You also got your "Rocky Mountain Doubles" - a 28 behind a longer trailer and your "B" trains where the kingpin of the second trailer rests on the rear of the front trailer instead of a "dolly". "B" trains (they're trucks) actually work pretty good because they're basically like an articulated railcar.
The push is on from the truckers to expand their use. Ain't gonna help 'em. Maybe UPS and FedEx would benifit. They could possibly hang on to some of the perceived savings. The truckload carriers would just get headaches - they'd end up passing the savings through to their customers, have more wrecks, and beat the highways up more than they are.
LCVs can work in areas away from population centers (Utah), but if anyone tried to bring them through the Chicago area it would be a disaster.
The ones that operate in New York State don't go near "The Big Apple". They have to break 'em apart and dray 'em - just like a TOFC load.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
We do haul well over 80K
Need over sized permits, Weight permits many axles, special rigged power and escorts and lots of time.
I remembered that our containers used to have permits allowing 98,000 pounds gross weight provided that the box's maximum gross is not exceeded. I have had rigs weighing up to and beyond 130,000 and believe me, performance suffered; the resulting citations wiped out any profit for that run in the thousands of dollars and that was at one scale house. I think now they try to improve by putting third axle under the boxes on the chassis but I have reason to believe that many of our boxes are overweight.
My solution would be to have regional groups consisting of daycabs taking trailers to and from trains at railheads all around the USA but positioned to favor how the products flow. Instead of trying to dispatch 400 truck drivers out of Nogales to Chicago with Produce, I have a bunch of Nogales locals load these into trains and have the Chicago people unload it.
Kurn wrote: FM,picture this.A 60' trailer,120,000 gross, and Swift on the side.
I think Im going to be faint.
Especially when I consider inadequate leased power designed to be thrown away in 2 year's time for more inadequate power that is governed and casterated at less than permissible speed limits existing today.
As far as I am concerned a company truck MUST be capable of generating full horsepower at 2100 RPM (Or 1900 or whatever they are now) at the top of the top gear availible to the transmission. Not having the top two gears unuseable at 1400 Rpm because the speed is maxed out at 62 mph on a very slight uphill grade.
I'll tell you a dirty secret. Trucking companies cut thier trucks down speed wise and save hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in Insurance Premium costs.
Imagine paying 100 dollars for three months insurance on your personal vehicle. Now imagine if you agreed to cut your vehicle down to 50 mph and pay only 30 dollars every three months. No matter what happens unless downhill, your vehicle as it is right now will only do 50 mph.
What a waste.
Oh yea, one other thing. Increase the Vehicle weights causes our fine DOT to writhe in agony over entirely new weights, length and gross ratings for Scale Law enforcements, permits, re-trofitting max scale capacity and building bigger on-off ramps at interstates and stronger bridges to withstand the increased beasting from the suddenly massive, long and heavy vehicles.
Why not put two or three drivers to work with several trucks to haul the same load and charge the customer the bill for the rate times two or three? One of my companies used to split two steel coils onto one coil per truck to double thier money and reduce the stress on the trailers that way. it was much easier to run one big coil.
Yes we can put two coils on one truck... but why bother?
If there are no dogs in heaven,then I want to go where they go.
In addition to some good explanations below, I'd add it's important to remember we are in a global economy. Crude oil prices are determined by traders on the international commodity exchanges. Production and consumption overseas plays a big role on prices over here.
Oil companies don't have much control over the prices for crude oil they buy. As I've seen explained, Saudi Arabia, for example, announces each month how much oil they will sell next month at what price. Take it or leave it. First come, first serve. They are an exception to my first paragraph because they do not sell through the commodity exchanges. However, they do follow the prices on the exchanges to determine their prices. That way, they need not share their profits with the commodity traders.
Trucks, by the way, consume 3 times the fuel than trains calculated on a ton-mile basis. Therefore, we should haul as much as we can by rail. (Not to hurt the feelings of my trucking friends. I know several.)
Food prices have been reported as increasing in reports made over the past year with much of it tied to ethanol production. Corn prices went from about $2.00 / bushel to about $4.50 / bushel. It's down now to about $3.70 / bushel because farmers planted man y more acres of corn this year tha previously. That's not due to transport costs. It's supply and demand. Some of the increase was due to weather as Australia had a dought in its corn fields last season. Also, USA diverted a much higher percentage of its corn output to ethanol. Higher feed corn prices resulted in higher prices for meat. There was a huge percent increase to chicken prices this past winter.
Weather, too, impacted produce prices for California crops this past winter.
Any vegaterians out there?
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
trainfan1221 wrote:From somebody who works in this industry, I can tell ya I always have to answer as to why prices are going up, especially milk. Very often its due to increased transportation fees for the usual reason, fuel prices.
Wow, no need for me to jump on the trucking wagon as our two experts have so well outlined the reasons not to increase weights. Thanks Safety and Ed.
Our problem with fuel prices right now is refinery capacity. Excellent Wall Street Journal article today in section 1. Oil prices are well below the $78 high reached last year. Margins on refining are at an all time high.
These are very interesting times. The green team and the average family will be at odds pretty quickly if push comes to shove. Higher energy costs will just gut the average family's finances.
ed
FM, I gotta say Greater GVW and Lengths....
WILL.
NEVER.
HAPPEN.
Today's drivers cannot even get a 53' trailer into some of those grocery docks MUCH less manuver safely worth a damn anywhere in really big old urban areas. Sure, they can go to Walmart with thier acreage of loading docks and comchecks but truly great old food distrubition areas still in operation in the Northeast demands the best driver we can dispatch up there.
The ONLY place I have accepted those bigger vehicles is on the Turnpike and in Michigan with the B trains. They dont put children on those or pups fresh from driving school and brainwashed to run 10,000 miles each week for that wonderous paycheck.
Grocery prices go up. I still shop for the same quanity of food items each week. For example I consume 5 washington Red Apples each week. The cost on those apples rose from 25 cents a pound through 50 then finally around a 1.00 a pound.
I have seen the Yakima and up into those parts along the Columbia where they had great Apple farms with trees groaning with BIG apples going to wastelands full of tree stumps and back again as the growers go through the best of times and worst of times.
Personally Im GLAD someone gets a load of apples across the cabbage in winter to my grocery store.
What are you going to do with the old 40 foot boxes hunh? Stuff it with 48,000 pounds on the floor and stuff a 53 footer with another several tons and add a third axle under there?
Add that the requirement for drivers to unhook and slide the tandems back to the rear causes problems.
No, Very few drivers who are not already functioning effectively in the food business know how to deal with delivering food. They need to be issued a trainer who will show them how to do it properly for a few weeks, made to hand unload the stuff and then demonstrate being able to get into a variety of places without tearing the truck up.
Some of those places trucks are parked with thier mirriors inside of each other and maybe a little bit of rub on both trailers on either side of yours. Gently now, dont ruin the paint with those rivets.
Then you tell me I will need to put a BIGGER, LONGER and HEAVIER truck into those same places? Im thorwing the steering wheel at ya and paying the yard jockey 10 bucks to spot the durn thing and give up my lunch to cover that little loss.
Or better yet, retire and get out of the trucking industry all together and let some other poor newbie fresh from school learn how expensive those tires, mirriors and other people's stuff is trying to back big long trailers into tiny docks.
Before you laugh at me, I will tell you up in Boston and in several other places you will push gently against a chain link fence to complete a circle in places with just enough room for straight trucks. Sometimes Ive left doors behind getting out of a enclosed dock.
It would be the only time I will take a load into that specific reciever. Next time a dispatcher offers me that load, one of two things will happen. I get another load going elsewhere or I get to find another job at home when I get off that bus.
I buy my food at the grocery store every week. So does the wife for her foods. We buy the same things each week on a budget. We have not looked at pricing for a long time. We just check the use-by date and get the freshest we can find.
Gasoline and Food make up the two largest items we spend each month in our budget. We know how to do without on half that budget if necessary but the USA would be in SERIOUS trouble should you stop the gas and food trucks all together.
I have long advocated turning big rigs from all desiel into hybrids with electric traction motors inside each of the ten wheels and a constant speed engine/generator up front or midships. When you get fuel mileage from 5.00-7.00 up to 20-30 mpg then come back here and tell us how much money everyone is making.
Trucking companies consistently refuse to equipt trucks with Genpacks that only need 1 or two gallons of fuel a night to provide heating or airconditioning to the driver and engine block heating. They feel that the cost of the GENPACk is too high and the tare weight penalty further erodes thier earning potential.
I have seen some truck stops try to build overhead racks to provide shore power and such to trucks parked. In today's JIT and 24/7 demand who the hell has time to sit in truck stops?
I say running that 600 cat to heat a cab or spin a 5 pound air conditioning compressor is way more expensive. I think the Tucking company deserves some blame for being dummies with properly equipped trucks. I dont know who is doing the "Spec'ing" and Buying from that ivory tower. It aint the senior driver on top of the roster list, that is for sure.
Oh those news articles crying chicken little the prices are rising OMG! etc... just fluff to cover what little paper is left in thier printing presses.
When the day is over, there is food on our table and several days to a week's worth in the ice box. We are content.
Oh one other thing. The right hand side outer two tires on all trailers make up half of a trucking company's tire expenditure for the year. I think JB Hunt alone goes through several million dollars worth of tires. I would love to see that money paid to those who work in the industry not wasted because some puppy does not take a few extra moments to clear that 53 footer around a 1910 era street corner.
Oh those stories about the Big Tunnel on I-70 in colorado and jake brakes only serve to harden my distate for crappy attitudes our puppies carry with them on the road today. I would like to show them DONNER in a winter storm, Spotted Wolf in a sand storm or even Mount Eagle in a Ice and sleet storm (Sans chains) See if they quit shaking in fear of life long enough to get home safe.
Mountains are unforgiving and will take your life or those of others around you. I refuse to be a party to having a non-trained driver up there on the hill. Or down in a street corner mashing the bus stop trying to get into a grocery place.
If I had one of those who demonstrated mental attitudes against Jakes in my cab I would have discharged that person and advised dispatch to send the student back to the school that trained him or to another school that will do a better job of training. But that person will NOT drive MY rig another inch. Period. I dont care if it's Lake City LA or up on Grant's pass...
My personal favorites are those who ignore bill-board sized warnings in large yellow and black with very specific low clearence heights and trash the trailer, cab and destroy the first 1/3 of the load. They get to walk home any way they can.
Little wonder we dont have very many GOOD drivers on the road today. Those of you who are .. Two toots for ya and keep the dirty side down.
FM remember I am a FORMER OTR TRUCKER and there is more to it than what you just listed there. As to your suggestion on the LCV and heavier gross weights FORGET IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. The drivers of today have a hard enough time handling the 53 footers into spaces designed for 40 footers in citys like Boston Philadelphia NYC and others all over the east coast. I for one also would not want to try to take a load that weighs more than 80K down some of the mountains in the west yes they do it now BUT WHERE they do it the DRIVERS ARE BETTER TRAINED. The CDL mills would not know how to train someone how to handle a load that weighs 120K or so. It would take converting ALL THE SOYBEANS AND OILSEEDS over to even get 1/2 of the boideisel needs that the US uses. The simple fact is we are a oil based econemy and there is little we can do about it however the War in Iraq has done little to help matters since that has increased the Goverments own usage by around 200% of diesel and jet fuels. Refinery capicaty is done some right now but will be at same levels in a couple weeks. The trucking industy as a whole was just forced to replace all of its equipment to meet new emission standards and the new ones are even worse and cost even more. All those costs get passed on to the customers and us. It is a circle and we are the final ones that get hurt. Besides if they do raise the limits on weights and allow LCV's look for alot of the experienced drivers to RETIRE and you will have drivers with and avarage of 1 year OTR time handling those 120K lbs missles and just remember what happened in San Fransisco that would happen a HELL more often those drivers are less safe than the older drivers. I forgot more about trucking than those schools EVER teach any of their students. Why do the companies that train have a 6 to 8 week training program anymore it is to get these students off the range into the real world.
I had one student who actully tried to go down Eshienhower pass in CO in Neutral his *** was out of the truck in Vail with out a Bus ticket. Another one belived that engine brakes were for wimps and refused to use them we ended up in the runaway ramp on Parlay in Utah on that one he was fired in SLC and these are the people you wnat in charge of 120K FM sorry I will be happier paying a little more for my food and other stuff if it means those drivers that have the knowledge stay on the roads.
edbenton wrote:Actually OIL PRICES are the main reason why food proces are going up. The trucking comapnies that deliver the food to the gorcery warehouses can only eat teh higher fuel costs for so long. Every company out there has a Fuel Surcharge on every mile they are running anymore. Now the stores are being forced to pass the costs onto us the consumer and it may not seem like much but it adds up. We pay a few cents more for every item but it adds up in the totals at the end. Yet you see the OIL compaines report 9 Billion in profits each QUARTER and nothing gets done about it.
Several things here need clarification. As a trucker you'll notice that diesel fuel really hasn't changed much in price over the last 6 months, while it is gas that has risen in price. Thus, the cost of delivering food hasn't really gone up, yet food prices have risen during this same period. Now, it could just be a lag time from when diesel spiked up last year to that spike affecting retail costs, but the rise in food costs right now is more relatable to the spike in commodity prices due to the ethanol mandate.
That being said, what would you like to have done to the OIL companies? It's not their fault they can't build new refineries to meet growing demand, what incentive do they have? Too many environmental regs, too low a profit margin on refining oil into fuel, too many EPA seasonal boutique blends to have to retool for every 6 months, too much liability to take on.......heck, only a fool would try and build a refinery in the US these days!
Exploration and drilling? Same story, the oil companies are not allowed to explore/drill/develop potential new oil fields in ANWR, off the California coast, et al. How are we supposed to bring down the base price of oil if we don't add to the supply from our own known domestic sources?
You know perfectly well that when supplies become constrained (and in this case that constaint is artificially induced from government regs), the profit motive shifts from maximizing volumes to maximizing margins. It costs a lot of money to retool a refinery to produce 46 different fuel blends every 6 months while the foreign sources of crude oil stick it to us, and it is perfectly just for them to pass these costs onto the consumer, most of whom probably voted for the politicians who instigated these absurd environmental regulations in the first place. Keep in mind also, the OIL companies today make most of their profits from overseas opeations, not from their US operations.
Hey, you want a solution? Then next time you vote, make sure you vote for someone - regardless of party affiliation - who endorses development of all known domestic sources of hydrocarbons, who endorses a protective price floor for the development of coal-to-liquids/oil sands/oil shales technologies so they won't get burned by an unexpected flood of oil from OPEC, who endorses rationalizing and streamlining environmental regs to allow us to build more refineries while keeping our fuel blends down to one or two basic formulas, who doesn't get all caught up in the promoting of so-called alternatives like corn ethanol and biodiesel which of course are causing the price shocks in our food supply, and most importantly........allow for higher GVW and longer LCV regs so that the truckers who deliver our retail supplies can do so more efficiently.
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