dollarshort wrote:

After posting this I realized I really don't care what dallarshort has to say, so this post has been deleted.

 

I started this thread with last year's numbers and thought I would go ahead and continue with weekly updates.

Warning: Strong potential for scattered rambling thoughts.

The first week started out slow as I expected. Holiday weeks, especially Christmas and New Years, have the potential of low productivity.

I returned to work 12/31/07(Monday) and was asked to deliver a 3stop load that was dropped by another driver. It had two drops in Phoenix and one in Tucson. A rather crappy load (169mi plus $60 stop pay) but I assumed I would end up with something like this and accepted the load and hoped for something better when I was empty(I'm not really that naive, but I like to hope for the best and expect the worst).

Put in my MT call at noon and was informed "no freight available, check back in 3hr" Again, not surprised and I headed off to the truckstop and watched a movie on the laptop. Three hours passed and I sent a message asking if any load were available "not yet". Sat another hour and was given a load that picked up in the Phoenix yard the next day(Tuesday, or any time B4), and delivered in LA first thing Wednesday morning. That's 124mi deadhead and 327mi loaded, just great.

Decide to head off to Phoenix and PU my load so I can get going first thing in the morning. Ended up getting a late start, I was definitely in no hurry and arrived at our Ontario drop yard by 6pm and settled in for the night.

Wednesday started out good with a 7am delivery 5mi up the road. It was a live unload and was done in about two hours. MT call goes in "no freight, check back in 3hrs" who would have guessed. Went back to the drop yard and had the chance to talk to another driver. All he did was bitch about how he had been sitting since yesterday and all they sent him was a 700+ mile run to Utah that delivered Friday afternoon, and how he wasn't getting any miles, couldn't even get 10,000 miles a month, been with the company 6 years, can't figure out why he's not getting miles, etc.

Well, here is why he's not getting miles.

He sent a message to dispatch refusing to take a 700mi run that delivered in two days. Dispatch tells him there are 11 drivers waiting on loads (I'm one of them) and this is all that is available at this time. He then called his fleet manager, bitches up a storm and eventually is allowed to refuse the load. He also stresses that he expects to remain next inline for a load and is told by his fleet manager that he won't loose his place.

After letting this driver unload on me about how miserable he is I eventually manage to get away and head over to my truck and wait for a load. Ten minutes later he's pounding on my door. I'll spare you the details.

Anyway, around 4pm I get a load offer "can you deliver this load tonight", it's a loaded trailer sitting on the other side of the yard and delivers 35mi away at 9pm (pays $35 plus mileage). Yup, the day just keeps getting better (I hope you sense the sarcasm). I don't hesitate and accept the load and send in a message "happy to help out, keep me in mind if you come across a good load".

15 minutes later I get a thank you and a preplanned load going to Mobile, AL(2052mi). D/H pickup with a Monday morning Delivery.

Guess who is sitting in his truck still waiting for a load when I pulled out that night.

I make the delivery, head over to PU the other load and call it a night.

Now it's time to drive to Mobile, AL. It's late Thursday morning and I have a 2000 mile run ahead of me. I can do it two ways.

Take my time, run 500 miles a day and work 8 hr days.(perfect option for a driver that is happy with a 2500 mile weekly average).

Or

Drive three 11hr days with two stops a day, one for fuel and one 10min leg stretch. If I do this I figure I can arrive in Mobile with 35 + hrs to spare if nothing goes wrong (it did). Thus giving me time to get in a 34hr reset and start the new week fresh.

I arrived in Mobile at 7pm Saturday evening with just enough time to do a reset and checked into a hotel.

Results of Week 1

Phoenix, AZ to Tucson, AZ...................................... 169mi
Tucson, AZ to Ontario, CA...................................... 451mi
Ontario, CA to Buena Park, CA..................................36mi
Irwindale, CA to Loxley, AL....................................2052mi

Total miles............................................. ...............2708mi

2708 mi X .42 = $1137.36
Stop pay................$60.00
Shag pay................35.00
Total............... $1232.36 What can I say, they can't all be good weeks.

 

WEEK TWO



Well, since I was able to get a restart in this weekend, I’m looking forward to a fresh start and a better week.

I check out of my hotel and get started at 5am and make my delivery just outside of Mobile. It’s a 6am D/H. It is uneventful and I put in my MT call and receive a 3 choice load offer. 1. Florida (500mi w/appoint live U/L) Yuck! 2. Kentucy (680mi w/appointment delivery) more downtime than I care for, but would be great for a driver content with 8hr work days. 3. Dallas, TX (635mi Drop/Hook PU and DEL) Load is scheduled to deliver anytime Tuesday, but if I get moving I can have it there today.

I take the Dallas run and can be there with 30mins left on my log, but its 5pm and you don’t go anywhere in 30mins during Dallas rush hour, so I hold up for the night at our terminal. I can deliver early in the morning and get out of Dallas B4 the AM rush.

Tuesday starts at 5am, I’m off and drop my trailer and am offered 3 loads again. Memory fails me, but I take the shortest one offered because it is a load that PU at the same place I just delivered to and is going to Kansas City, KS (507mi). Delivery is scheduled for the following day, but it is a D/H and I can be there today with 2hrs left on my log with a good chance of getting another load in the area(a driver more content with shorter days could take a 10 break at this time). This will give me time to PU the load and head over to our terminal to do some laundry.

I deliver my load, do a MT call and am quickly given a one load offer that is a D/H PU just up the road and is a 2 stop delivery to MN(650mi plus $30 stop pay). Yuck again, but it keeps me rolling.

I arrive to PU my preloaded trailer that was supposes to be ready at noon. It is now 6pm and I am told load is not ready, “should be ready by 10pm”. Oh well, so much for laundry night. Customer has overnight parking, so I start my 10hr break, start my detention time, play on the computer for a bit and hit the sack.

Wednesday starts at 5am. Trailer is loaded and ready to go. The first stop is in Rochester, MN (400+mi) but not scheduled to deliver until Thursday morning. Its insulation going to a small business and I figure I would have a good chance of U/L early so I can get as close as possible to the 2nd stop to deliver early the next day. I get there around noon and find out no one can unload me until 5pm or so, no problem, better than the next day. 4pm and I get the knock on my door to back to the dock. I’m unloaded by 5 and decided to spend the night.

Get started at 5am again, don’t want to start the 14hr clock too soon, could have an adverse effect on getting a load later in the day. Make it to the 2nd stop in Marshall, MN(200+mi) after a nasty little snow storm and am U/Led by 9am. If I had gone strictly by the load assignment it would have much later in the day and the chance of getting a load would have been less likely.

MT call goes in and get a one load offer within 5mins. D/H PU in St Paul, MN with a scheduled D/H delivery to Kalamazoo, MI(706mi) the next day, Friday.

Everything goes as planed (except another snow storm in WI) and trailer is dropped by 9am. MT call goes in,”no freight available at this time, check back in 3hrs”. I knew it was too good to be true.

Three hour go by and I send in a reminder, reply “working on it”, 20mins later I get a one load offer. D/H PU in Lima, OH(180mi DH) and deliver anytime Monday (that means Drop and Hook and I can deliver it anytime B4) to Pinedale, LA(1006 mi LD) Yeah, no more snow! I jump in the drivers seat(still have time to make it close to my PU today). Park at a truck stop 15mi form my PU.

Saturday starts at 6:30am, PU is uneventful and I start driving. Hours are getting short, but if I push is I can be in LA by Sun afternoon with 3hrs left of my 70hr. As I drive into Nashville I contemplate stopping at the TA to do a 34 restart. Downtown Nashville is only a 1 mile walk and they have so many great bands and awesome food. If I do that I will deliver by Monday, on time, but would be 10hrs into my next 70 clock plus would have to spend Monday night in Pinedale and be ready to go Tuesday morning. Instead I opt to push on, spend the night south of Memphis and make my delivery early Sunday afternoon. This now leaves me with a possible opportunity. I put in my MT call. I only have 2.75hrs left for the next two day. I know from experience that loads offered out on the weekend often have enough downtime to fit in a 34reset, especially if it’s a drop/hook delivery. I wait for my load offer knowing that if it’s a load I cant deliver because of an available hour issue, all I have to do is send a message telling them I’m out of hours and will do a reset. If, however, a good load comes up that I can work into my schedule, all the better.

15mins after my MT call I receive a 2 load offer. Both are D/H loads, one to New Jersey(1300mi with appointment delivery) I don’t think so, I wouldn’t have been able to make that due to hour restrictions anyway. The other load PU 180mi away, is a D/H, and has an open delivery date going to Ogden, UT (2087mi). Life is good. I head on down to my PU and drop the trailer at the shipper with no time left on my 70hrs. Head over to the truck stop 1.2 miles away and spend my 34hr reset in the middle of nowhere. Oh well, can’t have everything. New Orleans is only 30 miles away and I contemplate bobtailing over, but decide not to. At least I get to watch the Cowboys dream get crushed once again on the truck stops Big Screen.



Week Two Results: miles include dead head. Monday, Jan 7 through Sunday, Jan 13

Mobile, AL to Coppell, TX…………………634mi
Coppell, TX to New Century, KS…………..507mi
Kansas City, KS to Marshall, MN…………..650mi
St Paul, MN to Kalamazoo, MI……………..706mi
Lima, OH to Pinedale, LA…………………1186mi
Pinedale, LA to Reserve, LA………………..192mi


Total Paid Miles:………………………………..3875mi
Actual Miles = 3969

3875 miles @ .42 ………………….$1627.50

 

ahh,,evertruckerr,,,i didn't see any NC runs :? ,,decent miles,,but are you
a single man with no familey,, or home? :cry:

 

what a great post, almost a biography of a truck driver!!!! a lot of smart moves can make ya money

 

WEEK THREE
Monday Jan. 14 through Sunday Jan. 20



Well, it’s Monday and things couldn’t be more boring. One big drawback that comes with just making it to a shipper when you run out of hours is that you can get stuck in some very desolate areas while doing a reset. My options of entertainment include a small Shell truck stop and a dollar general store. This is going to be a long day. At least I have a good selection of DVDs, (I was able to stop off at a Blockbuster in Pinedale, LA at my last stop, used DVDs 4 for $20). I also have a strong signal on my Sprint Broadband card, so I’m good to go.

Tuesday is here and I’m ready to go. My 34 reset was done at 2:30am, but I don’t need to get started that early, so I start out at 5am, my preferred start time. It seems to work out best most of the time.

I head over to the shipper and PU my loaded trailer and am ready to roll.

I’m going to take a step back to Monday here and talk about a conversation I had with another Crete driver while at the truck stop doing my 34 reset.

This driver, I’ll call him Clyde (the name really seems to fit), has been with the company for 16 years. We went inside for something to eat and of course started talking about Crete. We were both in agreement that freight as a whole has slowed down and he was seeing a reduction in his miles, nothing overly significant, but noticeable. I told him that I too had felt the slowdown, but felt it was due more to the increase in live loads/unloads, particularly during the last quarter of last year, and the loss in productivity due to sitting around waiting for appointment times.

As the conversation continued it came up that I had just come off a 3900 mile week and he was very surprised, telling me that he almost never got more that 3000 miles in a week and usually gets 2500-2700 miles a week.

Sorry to get sidetracked, but I felt it was important to bring up Clyde. I thought it was a great opportunity to point out how a difference in driving styles can affect your overall mileage.

I had told Clyde that I was in the middle of my 34hr reset and Clyde was telling me how he couldn’t remember the last time he had done a 34 hour reset outside of hometime. “Don’t see any reason to sit around all day, why do that when you can just work an average of 8hrs a day and never have to shut down”.

It just so happened that we were loading out of the same shipper and delivering to the same customer with a Drop/Hook delivery in Ogden, UT(1895mi) scheduled for Friday18th 00:00-23:59. That means that it is a Drop/Hook delivery due anytime on Friday. That also means the load can be dropped anytime before that.

It was late Monday afternoon and Clyde had decided to spend the night after picking up his trailer. I had yet to get my load, which would happen the following morning. Clyde had asked me when I planned on making my delivery. I pointed out that it was about a 30 hr drive, so I planned on having it there by Thursday mid-day, that way I would be there early enough to get another load and should still have around 3hrs of drive time left in the day to do a pickup.

Clyde told me that he couldn’t run that many miles a day because he was only gaining 7-9 a day, plus he had no desire to work that hard. He was going to get started Tuesday morning, just like me, but said he would make his drop Friday evening and spend the night at our terminal down the road and get his next load Saturday.

I realize this is a bit long winded, but I’m in the middle of another 34hr reset (this is coming from the future) and I’m stuck at another nothing to do truck stop.

The point of all this babble is to show the difference between running long days with resets compared to more reasonable short days. How you run is up to you, and I have nothing against drivers that like to work at a more relaxed pace. That’s what is so nice about Crete; you have the option to work at your own pace, within reason of course.

Anyway, the result: I did arrive Thursday, early afternoon and was dispatched on my next load shortly after…I can only assume that Clyde dropped his trailer within the Friday delivery window, spent the night in Salt Lake City and was on his way Saturday morning to pickup his next load. By Saturday mid morning, I was a 1000 miles away.

OK, back to Tuesday. I leave the truckstop (Clyde is still asleep in his truck), I get my trailer, and from reading above you know that I opted for the 11hr driving days so that I could deliver early and get a new load by Thursday night.

The first day is uneventful and I take my 10hr break at 5pm in the middle of nowhere Texas, I actually stopped after 10 ½ because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find parking when my 11th hour was up and didn’t want to take a chance of getting a log violation. One drawback to running 100% compliant is that I often have to do this to assure myself of a parking spot. I do miss the old days with the other company; I could have gone a few extra hours down the road and had a good steak for dinner in Amarillo.

Wednesday starts again at 5am, my break was done by 3am, but no point in getting started too early, I’d just end up shutting down for the night by 3pm anyway.

As I start driving for the day I am annoyed to find that there was a truck stop 30mins down the road (wasn’t listed in either of my books) that I could have parked at. If I had done that I could have made it to Cheyenne today. Why Cheyenne, well there is a great little restaurant about 2 miles from a truckstop I stop at that serves a incredible Chile Verde. Instead I have to stop short outside of Loveland, CO. Another day down.

Thursday is here there is a little snow on the ground and I’m off at 5am again. I have about 500mi to go and I hear on the radio that the winds in Wyoming are acting up. This turns out to be a bit of an understatement. When I get to the top of the hill outside of Laramie I’m treated to more wind and blowing snow than I really care to deal with, but I am informed by the east bound drivers that this is nothing compared to what lays ahead. They weren’t lying. The road west of Rawlings was as bad as I’ve seen up there, as far as wind goes that is. See Pics below. Clear skies with a 60 mph crosswind and 70+ mph gusts; this was a good day to be grossing 77,000#. I contemplated shutting down for a while, but east bound trucks had made it through so I kept going.










I eventually make it through Wyoming and dropped my trailer in Ogden at 2:30pm. Send in my MT call but informed dispatch that the customer had no MT trailers available at this time (this is bad at Crete, if you don’t have an MT it can be a hassle getting another load). I asked if they knew where I could find one or if there was a load I could bobtail to. Reply “no loads available at this time check back in a couple of hours”. Not being one to give up that easily, I went back to the shipping office and asked them if they had any trailer that might be unloaded within the couple of hours. I didn’t really expect them too, but I knew they had MT trailers on the property; they just didn’t want to release any of them. “Can’t hurt to ask” I always say. Well it works and they decided to let me have one of the MTs scheduled for loading. He says there should be another MT by the time he needs one. I thank him and head out back to the truck.

Now, I pull out the gate, find a parking spot along the road a short distance away and I send a message to dispatch (15mins after being told there are no loads, I know better), “a MT trailer has been released to me, let me know when you have a load available”. What do you know; 10mins later I get a single load offering going to Paris, TX(1392mi) and its another drop/hook PU and Del. SWEET! Here is the annoying thing, and it has happened before. The load picks up at the very same place I just delivered to, so I turn around and bring back the same trailer I just left with. I apologize profusely to the gentleman in the shipping office and ask him if my load is ready to go.

It’s around 3:30pm at this time. He informs me that it is not scheduled to be loaded until 8pm (I knew this but thought I’d give it a try). That puts me past my 14hr clock (no big deal, I already have 500mi for the day) and I tell him I’ll be back in the morning. Customer has overnight parking available close by. I do call back at 8pm to find out if the trailer is ready (I can’t pick it up because of the log, but they don’t know that), they tell me loading hasn’t started, “they are running behind, you can check back around midnight”. I inform Crete of this and I put in for detention pay and go to bed.

Friday the 18th starts at 5am as usual. I head into the customer to PU my trailer. It’s loaded and ready to go. A quick check of the paperwork tells me that they finished loading the trailer at 2:30am. It was suppose to be ready by 8:00pm the night B4. That’s 6 ½ late and works out to be around $45 in detention pay while I slept.

This load is scheduled to drop in Paris, TX anytime Sunday the 20th. If I run it right I can have it there by late Saturday afternoon. Things go well, other than a 100miles of snow packed roads in southern Colorado Saturday morning. It was 3-4 in the morning and I was the only one on the road, so that went along way in reducing the stress levels.

I do get the load to the receiver by Saturday but am out of hours. Head over to a local truckstop and settle in for the night.

I know have run 3287 paid miles so far this week, have 15hrs left of my 70 and 3 days to use them. I seriously think about getting a hotel room so I can watch Sunday’s games and do an early reset. But I opt to send in an MT call with this in mind.

Crete’s dispatch works like this. You send in an MT call, the computer determines how many hours you have available based on your daily hour reports that are sent in each morning by 7am. What the computer doesn’t seem to take into account is the number of hours that have been worked sense the last hour report. In my case at this time, the computer thinks I have 27hrs available, but because I have been driving all day I actually only have 15.5hrs. What does this mean?

Well I send in a message that “I’m out of hours for today, do you have a load offer that I can PU in the morning, or do you want me to check with dispatch in the morning”. This way if a good load comes around I can take it. If I’m only offered what I consider to be bad loads, all I have to do is tell them I don’t have the available hours and go watch the games. After all, I have good miles for the week and I could think of worse places to spend a 34 reset.

Now, I’m convinced that dispatch just pushes a “Load Offer” button because loads offered after a full day are often not feasible and it takes a second message refusing loads due to log constraints to get what seems like a personalized response.

Anyway, I get a 2 load offer. First load is a Drop/Hook PU anytime today, (DaH! I’m out of hours. See what I mean about my “Load Offer” button theory) that is going somewhere in TN (600mi) and has a delivery of Monday 00:00 to 00:00. That means it’s an appointment delivery and the appointment time hasn’t be set yet. NO THANKS! These often end up having late afternoon deliveries and make it difficult to get another load that day, or you will get a load and all of a sudden I’m running nights. Icky poo!

The second load offer peaks my interest. It’s a Drop/Hook PU in Fort Smith, AR any time after 7am the next day and delivers in Jacksonville, FL (1204mi) on Tuesday at 15:00. I hate afternoon deliveries for above mentioned reasons, but with my tight hours, this might just work for me. I’m also thinking about going home and this definitely gets me to the right side of the country for that. This load would have never been offered to me if the computer knew that my hours were this short.

I do some quick math and determine that if I get going at 4am, I can be at the shipper when they open, get my trailer and go. If I drive 11hrs I will be able to make it to Montgomery, AL. Once there I can do a 34reset through Monday and start driving early Tuesday and will be able to drive the final 500mi and be in Jacksonville by 13:00. This gives me a two hour window to deal with the unexpected.

I accept the load and do as planned. I arrive in Montgomery Sunday night in time to catch the Cheeseheads desinigrate. I can’t believe Favre threw that interception.


Week three results; Monday, Jan 14 through Sunday, Jan 20
Miles include deadhead

Reserve, LA to Ogden, UT………….…….......….…1895mi
Ogden, UT to Paris, TX…………….........…………..1392mi
Fort Smith, AR to Montgomery, AL……............703mi


Total Paid Miles………………………….............……..3990mi
Actual Miles………………………3892mi

3990 X .42 = $1675.80 plus $45 detention pay
Yes, I did get paid for more miles than I ran. Crete pays practical miles. If you can find a shorter way, it’s your option. I ran some back roads through Colorado instead of Interstates. This isn’t common, but it does happen.


In closing, I have shown that these kinds of miles are possible, but everything must work out perfectly. You can’t waist any time and you need to be proactive in your thinking. I don’t eat much, so I don’t need to stop 3 times a day for meals. I tend to eat one good meal a day and I take my showers, do my laundry and food shopping, etc during my 10hrs breaks.

I can’t recall having two weeks like this in a row in a long time. I’m sure I’ll run into a kink or two soon. In almost every case in the past two weeks I have been able to deliver my load a day early and almost every PU and DEL has been a Drop and Hook. This is the exception, not the norm. D/H usually run in the 70% range at best.

Wow, what an endless rambling that was.

Catch ya next week.

 

Wow. Drivers on here need to pay attention to this. You are racking up big miles during a slow time of year by being smart. Very interesting thread.

 

Welcome back dipstick, an expensive lesson I'm sure.

A great example of the "Grass is always greener"

 

Well, I'm sorry to report....I'm starting to question these numbers.

I drive for Shaffer-- and wanted to get one of these print out reports like you
produced in post#1.

Was told Crete/Shaffer doesn't provide any such report/table---showed this web site to the Crete fleet manager/terminal manager in Cheyenne, Wy and asked if they'd ever seen such a "report" they said no.

They were also very suprised to see the "grand total" of 139,000 miles---and
suggested I look at the miles that "Driver of the Year" last year reported---he's the top mile getter for 2007.

So far, you've reported this year--dead of winter--freight dead, 2700, 3800?, 3900?---- Don't use so much grease on these newbies---Crete's a great place to work-- if they want to come ...they'll come.

 

the best post i have ever read, keep them coming