Quote:
Doesnt matter what you make per mile if you dont get any miles
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I've got to get on that one. Here's my question and this really goes to anyone. I'm not asking this to be combative...I'm bringing it up to illustrate the point. I hear people say with a lot of companies, not just Heartland... "I don't get any miles."
So what do you consider NOT ANY miles? If you're under 3000 miles a week, is that considered not getting any miles? 2500? 2000? What's the cutoff?
I hear that with so many drivers that I've started calling them out on it. If a driver calls in and tells me he's wanting to change because he doesn't get any miles, I'll ask him straight up what he's getting. You know what I'm finding out? MOST drivers consider getting around 2000 miles a week is not getting any miles.
Let's see.
With Heartland, 1 year of experience puts a driver at a minimum of $.40 in a regional or $.45 OTR (another penny if he has HAZMAT). Our regionals average around 2000 to 2200. OTR is averaging around 2300 to 2500. Using the "NOT getting any miles" complaint, 2000 miles would gross a 1 year driver $800 to $900. That's pretty lowball, but for the sake of argument, I'll go with that.
That's $41,600 or more for the year, for a 1 year driver, using the numbers above, which are low on the average side. Truth is, our averages are in the mid $50'000's for regional runs and in the low $60,000's for OTR guys.
Again, averages. Top OTR guy clipped $85K total last year and the top regional guy his $76K.
Are there guys that don't get any miles? Again, depends on the guys definition of NO miles. I'm sure there are guys that get FEW miles or don't get AS MANY miles as the averages. After all, average means that half the guys are doing better than that number and the other half are not. But you'll find that in this industry, a lot of that is going to fall back on the driver. Not all, but a lot of it. A driver that gets out there and runs, does his job, and doesn't mess around in truck stops, isn't going to do that bad. And if you're getting $.45 a mile, give or take a couple of pennies, those average miles equate to a pretty decent living.
Again, I will say that there are some good drivers out there that would do well doing just the averages, but somewhere along the way dispatch or planning has dropped the ball. Yeah, that sucks and it's something that we or any company worth their salt is going to want to eliminate. But by and large, you will find that those guys that take their job seriously and drive the truck and wait until they are done for the day to play, are going to at least run the fleet average, which is going to equate to a decent paycheck.
My thoughts. Take'em or leave'em, but I'm not posting to argue about them.