Truck Driving Jobs

motozeke · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 26

Well I just quit maverick and now I can tell you starry eyed new guys the truth about what a typical day is like.
One don't be surprized after all the smoke is blown about how they operate professional and legal is blown and you will realize that no-one and I mean no one in this industry can run legal and make a living.Some do it to a lesser degree and It might not be told outright to you to do it and that is because they will not take that risk it will be implied tho and if you dont you will be punished and weeded out let me explain my typical day:
I would try to drop my load as early as the consignee would open say 7:00 I would arrive and usually wait for other trucks and lazy mill workers to get the load off average time 2-3 hours (maverick does not pay detention till after 3 hours and its 8 dollars and hour shows what they feel your worth) also figure putting equipment away takes time
Ok
now I have placed my empty call in and I wait and I wait maybe by 9:00
I get a message to drive 50 miles for a 2 oclock pick up at us steel which has a policy of half hour early to half hour late to load
so I drive the 50 miles and I wait and I wait till 1:30
This has been 5 and half hours already
I put my pick up number in the computer and I receive a load slip and I jump in the truck and scale where the scale man tells me what door to report to
well lo and behold there are 5 trucks waiting in line in front of me Well you know that there is 3 hours till I get that precious detention pay and guess what at 5:00 they are finally lowering my coil on the truck
well you might say hey thats 3 and a half hours you get 4 bucks right!!
wrong!! you dont get detention till 3 hours after your appoinment time and as soon as its on the truck you are loaded tarping and securement do not count
So... now I have to secure and tarp ill say an hour and a half with paper work and trip planning
ITs now 6:30 and you guess it I havnt made a cent yetbecause now I have to drive all night to get it there
and the process repeats
11 and a half hours to get a load off and on is typical in steel hauling I was in the regional steel belt route and all I hauled was steel and short runs average 350-400 miles a day
after all week of this then I would get home friday at midnight then have to leave sunday afternoon to start the process over
Oh yeah if you decide that you dont want to work 19 hours a day and try and run legal the csrs will give you a load at 8 at night to pick up after you onload and it will be for a 200 mile run they will cut your miles and increase your non-paid wait time they find great humour in this and really dont give a dam if you quit or not because they have a over 100% turnover rate and are grinding as many drivers through their orientation as they can its a revolving door company i met very few drivers here that had any substancial time with the company and the ones that did
Well... How do I say this nice possible brain damage....hummm limited education learning disability seems they were where they needed to be because there isnt much else they could do
oh by the way I stuck it out for 6 months thats all i could take
Just a warning that it isnt a bunch of roses

jefster · Joined: 21 Aug 2004 Posts: 42

been there done that but I hauled more lumber than steel so I didnt wait as much as you. I left after a year for a little different reason but when I left it was on good terms and they still put a bad mark on my dac so you might want to check that out.

jedfxg · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 553 Location: se buckeye

you feel better now?

DrewNTrucking · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 44 Location: Florida

Yeah i didnt think much of them. I was trying to get on there Specialized Division. I get a call for them saying, maybe next week we can get you in, maybe next week. They jerked on that for 3 months calling me. I started laughing at the voice mails, "like hey you folks missed out, hard for someone to wait that long for a check."

Well sorry to hear, good luck.

Snowman7 · Joined: 19 Feb 2005 Posts: 959 Location: the Buckeye

I hauled steel in the midwest and my cousin is in Maverick's steel division now so I know what you mean. It's not like that everyday but it does happen way too often. I'm sure the van guys have their stories too. It's not just Maverick, that's OTR trucking in general. We've all been there. I think it's more common in running regional vs long haul because of all the short runs. Long haul guys can plan their day better but of course they dont get home as often. There are niches of trucking where it's not like that but you have to look around and learn what's available. I might've waited till I found something else before quitting. Best of luck Motozeke and I hope you newbies are listening. :wink:

LeBron James · Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 141 Location: Coolie Campground

They're all the same. Run away from OTR OTR trucking!! Waaaaayyyy too many freebies!!!!

Chalk it up as a learning experience and move on. Hell, at least you discovered the sad truth about that sorry industry. Most of these guys still think they're raking in the big bucks working all those unhealthy hours. Reality is they'd be better off working 2 fast-food jobs.

They'll never learn.

motozeke · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 26

jedfxg wrote: you feel better now?
Way better thanx
I am lucky to the fact that my wife is a registered nurse and I have worked all my life and invested and saved (im 51 years old) We own 2 homes and have savings and a 401 k so unlike the young guys ill be fine I have already talked to 2 companies that are local and pay by hour I was a licensed builder and ran my own business for years My main interest in trucking was i thought to be a interesting job that would cover health insurance and my wife could semi retire because at our age we need health but even that is bad with all the co-pays im not defeated yet im still trying for line haul but if worse comes to worse i can go back to my old profession You young people with familys who get suckered into this line of work and are stuck is really bad and especially if they lie on your dac and ruin you for spite i will be keeping tabs on mine and if something negative comes out I guess i will have to take a legal step

zipy46 · Joined: 28 May 2007 Posts: 340 Location: Groom Lake

The thread should be called the 'Truth about Truckin'

I've run legal ....and I've run so hot I had to handle the log

book with oven mits ....and it makes little if any difference at the end of

the week.

Its a low paying line of work....my average pay works out

to be maybe 500.00 a week at best (bring home) over a years time.

It eats up my conscience to run hot...but if they need the freight

there and you can't produce and protect their reputation as a freight

hauler then the result is not to hard to figure out.

:wink:

Twilight Flyer · Joined: 13 Nov 2002 Posts: 5533

Quote: Reality is they'd be better off working 2 fast-food jobs.

So how's McDonalds and Joe's Diner working out for you, Lebron? :roll:

By the way, nice layup last night. Ooops, you missed.

GMAN · Joined: 13 Feb 2005 Posts: 9393 Location: Tennessee

It takes time to learn how to manage your time in this business. Making good money on short flat bed runs can be difficult starting out. I think a side kit or Conestoga would save some tarp time for those short runs. Some of these steel mills don't value your time. It is the driver who determines how they want to run. Most companies want drivers to run legal. The cost of non-compliance is too costly. Unfortunately, many of these trucking companies hire those with no driving experience and make them dispatchers. We should require dispatchers to drive a truck for a year or two before allowing them to dispatch drivers. It would give them a much different perspective. It is up to the driver to let their dispatcher know whether they have enough hours to pickup and deliver a load. It is critical to have good lines of communication between the driver and dispatcher. Most problems can be resolved by talking the situation through providing both parties are willing to listen.

Rawlco · Joined: 25 Jan 2006 Posts: 1124 Location: Central Maine

When a week started to go like that I would take my ten hour break at the shipper after I was loaded and hit the road fresh about 2am. That way I would arrive at the consignee after the morning rush and still get an early afternoon load appointment. That didn't always work out, but it is an option for running legalish.

motozeke · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 26

Rawlco wrote: When a week started to go like that I would take my ten hour break at the shipper after I was loaded and hit the road fresh about 2am. That way I would arrive at the consignee after the morning rush and still get an early afternoon load appointment. That didn't always work out, but it is an option for running legalish.

yes but when you arrived that day you had burned 8 hours of driving and you are still in the same boat with 3 hours to drive and you will get a load that will be loaded after your 14 hour rule which makes you illegal

Rawlco · Joined: 25 Jan 2006 Posts: 1124 Location: Central Maine

motozeke wrote:

yes but when you arrived that day you had burned 8 hours of driving and you are still in the same boat with 3 hours to drive and you will get a load that will be loaded after your 14 hour rule which makes you illegal

The 14 hour rule does not prevent you from working on line 4 getting loaded, it only prevents you from DRIVING. Once you are loaded you take the ten hour break. I also kept my Fleet Manager informed on how many miles I would have available to bounce empty. I would phrase my message to my FM like this "With my hours I will have 150 miles available to bounce empty, and can do 500 loaded miles by ten am tomorrow" This streamlined my FM's job and I was covered if they tried to give me a load that didn't work. I let them know what was possible and they gave me a load to match it. Of course that was with TMC.

motozeke · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 26

Rawlco wrote: motozeke wrote:

yes but when you arrived that day you had burned 8 hours of driving and you are still in the same boat with 3 hours to drive and you will get a load that will be loaded after your 14 hour rule which makes you illegal

The 14 hour rule does not prevent you from working on line 4 getting loaded, it only prevents you from DRIVING. Once you are loaded you take the ten hour break. I also kept my Fleet Manager informed on how many miles I would have available to bounce empty. I would phrase my message to my FM like this "With my hours I will have 150 miles available to bounce empty, and can do 500 loaded miles by ten am tomorrow" This streamlined my FM's job and I was covered if they tried to give me a load that didn't work. I let them know what was possible and they gave me a load to match it. Of course that was with TMC.

o no you cannot load or do ANY WORK after 14 hours (and why would they have a seperate driving rule of 11 hours if that were true)I went rounds with this and night dispatch till he called safty and they told him do not let him load This is one law alotta people get mixed up on

Ridge Runner · Joined: 18 Oct 2004 Posts: 2432 Location: North Ga.

motozeke wrote: Rawlco wrote: motozeke wrote:

yes but when you arrived that day you had burned 8 hours of driving and you are still in the same boat with 3 hours to drive and you will get a load that will be loaded after your 14 hour rule which makes you illegal

The 14 hour rule does not prevent you from working on line 4 getting loaded, it only prevents you from DRIVING. Once you are loaded you take the ten hour break. I also kept my Fleet Manager informed on how many miles I would have available to bounce empty. I would phrase my message to my FM like this "With my hours I will have 150 miles available to bounce empty, and can do 500 loaded miles by ten am tomorrow" This streamlined my FM's job and I was covered if they tried to give me a load that didn't work. I let them know what was possible and they gave me a load to match it. Of course that was with TMC.

o no you cannot load or do ANY WORK after 14 hours (and why would they have a seperate driving rule of 11 hours if that were true)I went rounds with this and night dispatch till he called safty and they told him do not let him load This is one law alotta people get mixed up on

I think you need to re-read that rule. You can preform ANY work for ANY amount of time EXCEPT driving after the 14 hour work day rule. After which you MUST do your 10 hour break before you can drive again. This maybe why you are having a problem making any money.

Truck Driving Jobs

Trucking Jobs

Truck Drivers

Trucking Companies

Class A Drivers.com