Hub miles or Practical?
 

Which is better?

$ .35 cpm hub miles or
$ .41 cpm practical


Trying to decide my next step. Also the .35 cpm company has better equipment.


Thanks for the insight!

I would go hub but that's my personal opinion, that way you get paid for every single mile you put in. Practical only pays you mileage for whatever route the computer spits out. If you run into a backup and have to get around it, your not getting paid for any extra mileage you have to put on. Or you know a better route than the computer, it's further in miles by say 30 miles but you will save 30 minutes by going that longer route. Hub will pay that extra 30 miles, practical will not.

So what is the difference between Practical Miles and HHG?

The one problem with hub miles is the one driver that abuses it,I work for a company that pays hub and we have one driver (a real good friend of double r who posts here) :D and he does alot of out of the way driving and puts on miles that he doesnt need to and as we all know it takes just one to mess it all up and start getting paid hmg or practical!

Go to mapquest or something similar and type in your location and another location say 1,000 miles away and click on "quickest route," that is what they call Practical miles. Take those same locations and click on "shortest route," that is HHG.

Practical is better than HHG, but Hub is better than Practical, but Hourly is better than Hub.

That's exactly the problem lucky. One driver can screw it up by saying, "Ha, watch me make a load of money on this run, I'm going to run a total of 500 miles on a run that is normally 250." That is why very few pay Hub miles. It's an honor system deal.

A lot of times...practical miles are based on "zipcode to zipcode". You can make in the run in fewer miles than the paid mileage, and on the other hand maybe drive a few more than paid.

Hub can be straight hub...all miles driven, or "portal to portal" / "gate to gate". That will depend on the company.

The 41 cpm can offset any differential, but that would depend on what part of the country you are in, and where you are going..... In the NE....running N to S usually comes pretty close on practical, but I found that if you were having to run S before going W, or vice versa...you could come up short.

The others are right though....if you are getting true hub, you will get paid for every mile you run.

Either of them beat the pants off of HHG....

I found another company. This one pays $17.39 hr and hauls mail. They state that they pay aprox 60 hrs a week.


Anybody know anything about hauling mail?

Nope, but I'd jump all over that in a heartbeat. I make less than that per hour worked running on practical miles with negligible loading/unloading time (less than two hours a day usually, including pre- and post-trip.) That sounds like a deal unless you live in a high rent area.

As far as the broader question, .35 on hub miles, or .45 on practical, I'd say it really depends, but hub probably wins. Let me take my own situation for example, and see how it would shake out.

Practical miles means I drive 500 or more and get paid for no more than 440 of them. (I had to drive 60 miles round trip out of the way to go take a random drug test Friday, so that was 560 miles, or 120 miles or roughly two hours for absolutely free.)

440 * .45 = $154
500 * .35 = $175
560 * .35 = $196

I run the same route every day, so I can't say how this would scale out in the world of random pickups and random deliveries. In my situation, hub miles would clearly kick ass.

(When they switched from HHG to practical miles, it didn't make any difference on this route.)

(Looking at the base pay of $154 a day, I sure am glad I get stop-off and trailer move pay, or I would go broke fast just on miles alone.)

Mail drivers do tons of night driving.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Yes, he is my best friend. :D Tell him I said hi(not)
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Hub miles. Like someone said, if you get caught in a back-up and go around, you get paid for thos eextra miles. If your looking for a place to park in a truck stop, you get paid to circle around it(don't abuse that one though). Now, getting paid by the hour, that is the best way to do it :D .

update:


The .35cpm is not hub miles it is pc miler 2% and with an apu


I'm waiting for more details on the hourly gig.

Wouldnt it depend on which jobs pay better weekly. Example, most of my jobs over here at JB are rand mcnally miles. However, occasionally I will get jobs open that pay hub miles. The rand mcnally miles job might pay more weekly, so wouldnt that be the better job? Im really surprised sometimes that some drivers would rather be able to get on the CB and brag that they are making hub miles than making more money. I say this because I see it happen. I swear if one of those hub miles job is open, I sometimes just say "this job is hub miles" and the driver will say, "I will take it" without even hearing what it pays weekly.
My point is that not all the best paying jobs are hub miles. And more than likely if a job is really easy for us to fill. It wont be the highest paying job.
Really after years of doing this job, Im convinced that if big companies like us switched to hub miles for every job and lowered our pay 10cpm, we would get more hires, even though those drivers would be making less money yearly.

In order to be paid for 3,000 miles, a driver operating under HHG pyramid scheme must actually run 3,300. A driver paid off the hub will drive 3,000 miles and get paid for each and every one of those 3,000.

Thus, the HHG driver is working 10% more than the hub driver for the same pay. Only in trucking is this considered a good deal. Everywhere else, it's known as a HOSE JOB.

Why not just switch to hub and give your drivers what they rightfully deserve? Why is it always pay-cuts with you McMega haulers?

The entire pay by mileage system sucks to be honest. Just about every other occupation is compensated on an hourly basis. If shippers were obligated to pay shipping charges based on a federal mandate that uses hourly wages as a basis, chances are there would be very few holding drivers at their docks for hours on end. But I'm just a dumb driver so what do I know. :sad:

Im just a recruiter, I dont make company policy. But I am smart enough to know why we pay rand mcnally miles. Because that is how we charge the customers. Its about compitition for freight. Say "company A" bids for a customers freight. They bid 1.45 per mile @ 1000 Rand Mcnally miles. And then say Company B bids for the same freight at 1100 hub miles....Who do you think gets that customer?
Here is a great idea for you Cold. Since you are so smart and know a better way to run a trucking company than us. Why dont you get busy, start your own company, become a "mega carrier" and pay all your drivers 50cpm at hub miles? If that is a better way run a company, you should knock us off the top pretty quickly.

Hourly pay for OTR would never work. "Sorry boss, conditions were just unsafe. It took me an extra three hours to get there."

Hub miles can work if you're running fixed lanes, but the guy who decides to cruise into a neighboring town so he can hit on the waitress at Applebee's would screw it up for everyone else anyway. "Just trying to avoid the construction boss."

I agree with Sheepdancer in the sense that the only number that matters is the number on the paycheck. There is a point at which the job is worth doing, and that point is different for every driver. If my pay fell below a level that I felt was worth my time, I would seek employment elsewhere. Whether that was a matter of my hourly overtime pay becoming insufficient, my cents per mile becoming insufficient, my miles driven becoming insufficient, or my load percentage pay becoming insufficient is entirely irrelevant in my opinion.

People constantly carp about how underpaid OTR drivers are. Sure, it would be great to make $500,000 a year with a free oriental massage at the end of each shift, but if the economics were behind it, we would all start trucking companies and become millionaires. As for me, this is the easiest job I've ever had and the money is fine. The day that changes, I'll move along.

In terms of the actual question - .35 hub or .41 HHG, you just have to do the math and see what makes you most comfortable. If .41 is the HHG pay, that's your starting point.

So, to boil it down, you get a 1,000 mile HHG dispatch. 1000*.41=$410.

To make the same $410 on the .35 hub pay, you would need to do run 1,171 miles (1171*.35=$409.85). If it actually only took you 1,100 miles, you would earn more by taking the HHG pay. If it actually took you 1,200 miles, you would make more being paid by the hub. Of course you could just take the hub pay and make sure you always go way out of route, but your employer would probably catch on quickly if they have any clue what they're doing.

Let me get this right.

After admitting that your sales department for your company SHAVES off the miles in order to get the contract, anotherwords, screwing the driver out of pay, you go and make yet another snide remark just because he doesn't agree with drivers being cheated out of pay? How about we start shaving what you get paid by 10%.....let's see how your a$$ would like it then. Oh yea, go ahead and lie by saying you would do it, and be happy. Just another comment proving your full of $hit.

Oh yea, JB does uses hub miles. The driver has to log the beginning miles and the ending miles for every trip, and is told that if he is over that 10% varience, they can be written up, and even terminated for it. So a driver for JB get screwed both ways. He drives more miles then paid for, then written up when he goes over their varience....which most of the time is already out by at least 10% before he moves the truck.

But it must be the drivers fault, right sheepdancer? Must be nice to live in your world. :roll:

My pay goes up and down all the time. Im a commissioned employee. Sometimes my commissions go up, sometimes they go down. And sometimes I do work for here for NO MONEY AT ALL. Example: That thread "ode to sheepdancer". I spent quite a bit of time helping that driver and didnt make one cent. Why am I not griping about being "cheated"? Because the big picture is "DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE THIS COMPANY PROFIT MORE AND MAKING THE STOCK GO UP" Just a few more years of working here and I will have aquired enough company stock that I will most likely be making more money from that than recruiting commissions.
The purpose of every single trucking company is one thing....TO KEEP THE CUSTOMER HAPPY AND KEEP THE FREIGHT COMING. A company that pays hub miles but cant get the freight because they are being undercut by other companies DOESNT DO ANYONE ANY GOOD, INCLUDING THE DRIVERS.
I will suggest the same thing to you that I did ColdFrosty. If you think you know a better way to run a trucking company...GET BUSY AND DO IT. What you are doing now is like the coach of a last place JR high football team trying to tell the coach of the superbowl champions how to play football. It just doesnt fly.

Like I said before. Your posting speaks more and louder about you than I ever could.

$17.00/.34=50 so fifty or so miles

But why is it that some companies like Roehl, CFI, Gordon, and Crete (to name a few) pay Practical Miles for their drivers? Last I looked, all of those companies are still in business. And doing rather well - CFI was just purchased by Conway for $750 million dollars.

Why does JB still insist on HHG? Could it be that they're a greedy, rate-cutting McMega hauler? Nahhhhhh.... :lol:

No thanks. I'll stick with my home everynight LTL job. Leave you to troll the truckstops handing out business cards and logbook rulers on behalf of your beloved employer.

Well, we are more profitable than all those companies, so we must be doing something better than them.

You might be one of those drivers who wonders why you should care about if the company profits. This might help you.

Here is a little news story that came out yesterday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Wachovia Capital Markets analyst on Monday upgraded JB Hunt Transport Services Inc., saying the company's expanding cross-platform business makes it the best trucking stock to invest in long-term.

Hmmm...the best trucking company to invest in???
Why should that matter to a driver?
Well, any smart driver should also be an investor. Like I said earlier in this thread. Hell I really havent been here that long and most likely in a few years, I will be making more off company stock than my paycheck.
Our drivers get the same benefits I do. They can purchase company stock from day one. And they get a 50% company match on it.
I like to use one of my favorite drivers as a great example. But we have many drivers just like him. He just retired a few months ago and worked here 21 years. He was smart enough to buy a little company stock with every paycheck. He retired with about 4.5 million. It was kind of funny, and Craig Harper mentioned this at a meeting where we were meeting the driver. At one time that driver actually owned more stock than Craig Harper himself.
So do the math. 21 years and he now has 4.5 million to retire on. That would be a little over 214 grand a year on top of his pay.
So think about this..The upside: He was just a company driver, for 21 years he averaged with is stock and pay about 250k year....the downside:people like you made fun of him on the CB, he drove a slow truck, and he got paid rand Mcnally miles.....Man, he sure had it bad :roll

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Interesting.....that driver name wouldn't be Terrence D. Matthews, now senior vise president of JB Hunt, would it?Because I just looked up that guys record.....yes, if JB Hunt was handing out blocks of options at $3.00-5.75 per share, then selling at market of around $23.00, I guess I would have 4.5 million too.

Why don't you tell us that we can options like that so we can retire rich, too. For those kind of options, I'd go back to work for JB as well.

But they don't hand those options out any more, do they? BTW, I found that info on this site:

http://biz.yahoo.com/t/83/5907.html

Fact is that a lot of workers that have been with a company for that period time have gotten those options....but not any more.

But you go ahead and make whatever claims you want. Like I said before, what you post speaks louder then I ever could about you, and the company you represent.

Just looked Craig Harper profile too.

No wonder you keep referring to craig....worth over $6,665,971 in options. His title is Divisional Executive VP/COO at JB Hunt Transport Services, Incorporated

Or how about this guy:

But this guy has to be my favorite:

WOW....over 13 million in options alone.....hmmmm, just where do you think he got all of that money??? Oh yes, the very same drivers that can't get decent miles, or even routed with HUB miles, or even practical miles.

Yepp...you sure do work for a company that cares about it's drivers. :roll:

It looks like to me, the only way to have a decent retirement at JB is to hire on as management, not as a driver. Just a thought to all of those who think they can drive for JB, and come out with millions. :wink:

You know, after this, I realize that I now work for a pretty good company. I don't think the owners have as much as your CEO, but I can tell you this. I can talk to mine. Not the BS meetings they do to pat themselves on the back, never been a driver themselves, type of boss. This is a family own business. And it may be small, but the owners grew up within the business, and do a lot for the community.

You can keep Jb. I pity you, and all who work for them, and companies like them.

Time for me to move on.

Later

Jim

whats your point, cluggy...that our PRESIDENT AND CO make money? Of course they do. They run one of the most profitable trucking companies in the nation. My point being, that a driver can also use company stock to retire well off here. Happens all the time.
You said you like your company because your boss started out in the business. Kirk Thompson started here as an hourly employee in accounting.
By the look of your responses cluggy, Im guessing you arent an investor. Probably one of those living paycheck to paycheck guys who would rather criticize those who do invest than look at their own life and realize when they retire, they are going to be screwed. Back 5 years ago, when I decided to work here. I had a list of about 20 companies in the area. I got with my investment banker and went through each company looking at their benefits and each of theit stocks. Then made my decision which company would give be the best return on my money. The choice was easy and Im still here. I now put 10%-15% ( sometimes more ) of every paycheck in company stock ( where I get a 50% match on 6% of that) and I put another 10% in a S&P 500 mutual fund (same match ) that has been doing great too. Its amazing watching that grow. You know its a great feeling when even when Im not taking phone calls and goofing off on here with you, cluggy, Im still making good money. AGAIN...DRIVERS HAVE THAT SAME OPTION. I see drivers complaining about sitting around a lot. It seems to me that sitting around wouldnt seem so bad if you just looked at your company stock growing and making tons of money, even when you werent moving and you were sitting in a truck stop.
But hey, again...that is just me.
For the record, so you can do the math, cluggy. Since the day I started, Jb stock has gone up 400%....I now own 4677 shares. We have 100s and 100s of drivers who own more stock than me. If the stock goes up even 1% today, that would be a 1300 buck gain. Now if a driver is smart enough to invest...and for maths sake lets say he owns 3000 shares. Look at it over the year. The stock has done about 50% over the last year. Lets say the stock does the same over the next year as last year. (its actually doing better) That driver would make a return of a little over 43K on the year.
43K divided by 365 days = 117 bucks a day. You say we dont pay weekend layover pay....sure we do...THERE IT IS. You say we have days where you dont get miles? Say you have a crappy day with only 150 miles driven at 42.cpm. 150 x .42= 63 bucks.....Factor in the return that your stock made...and your pay almost doubled, you can also look at that like YOUR MILEAGE DOUBLED. You say you want to work for hourly pay....THERE IT IS!...117 a day / say 11 hours a day driving is 10.63 and hour on top of your mileage pay.
My point...almost any gripe you have with us cluggy, would be cancelled out by a smart driver with a few years here who INVESTED.

I talk to Craig and Kirk all the time. So do our drivers. Do you really think of the CEOs of large companies as unapproachable people? That is funny.

Why not do it like Crete does...bills the customer based on HHG miles, pays the driver based on practical miles. Everyone is happy, everyone wins. You can tell a company cares for their drivers when they do something like that.

I dont know. They are Crete, we are JB hunt. Different companies are run different ways. I can simply turn the question around and ask, why isnt Crete as profitable as us? Why dont they have as many customers as us? Why dont they give their drivers as good of benefits as we do?
The answer will always be the same...they run their company their way, we run the company our way.
The good news is, you know what is important to you. You have a choice where you want to drive. I hire many crete drivers and Im sure they hire many JB drivers. Some drivers might think great benefits are important, some might think practical miles are more important.

And so, according to your logic, JB Hunt is more profitable than the Practical Mile companies because they pay less to their drivers?!?!!?

"Best trucking company"? I think that FedEx and UPS would have something to say about that. Especially since their market-caps are 10 times JB Hunt.

Who says crete pays more? There are many other ways drivers are paid except mileage. Benefits are pay.

But ok, lets look at the investment side of things and compare the two companies JB Hunt and UPS. Ups has only been a publically traded company for about 5 years so thats as far as we can go back.

Wow, will you look at that.What has JB has done in the last 4 years...what is that line going way up to the top of the chart?.....Oh, thats JB hunt.
Wait, whats that flat line going accross the bottom of the chart than seems, to end really close to the 0% return in 5 years? Oh wait, thats UPS.
Now If I were to choose to work at UPS, why in the world would I want to put my hard earned money in that crappy stock? How will that help my retirement? And before you say "pension"....Sorry pensions dont pay enough money for me to retire like I want to...really well off.

Take a look
http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#char...urce=undefined

And I agree that Fedex would have been a great investment if you would have got into in the early 80s when it went public. You would be very very wealthy. But in the last 5 years it hasnt done outstanding...about a 150% return. Which is good and beats the hell out of that dog of a stock, UPS, but you cant really compare that to the money people are making of the JB stock, can you?

The point im making is when you are working for a public owned company, no matter what your job is, when it comes down to it, your job purpose is one thing. You are hired there to make those who own the company money, in other words, the stockholders. That is the reason you were hired. Now, you can sit back, spend your time griping and be a tool for those people to use or you can be smart and make yourself one of those owners of the company. You well then be part of the team that is making that company a success, helping the stock skyrocket and benefiting from everyones hard work including your own. IF YOU ARE SMART ENOUGH TO DO THAT, EVERYTHING YOU DO IS MAKING YOU MORE MONEY. YOU ARE PAID FOR EVERY SINGLE MINUTE YOU ARE ALIVE NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE DOING AT WORK.

I say Crete pays more. Prove me otherwise.

Let's look at FedEx since they've been a public company for longer than UPS. UPS has a higher market-cap than FedEx, so we can assume that the returns would be greater for UPS than FedEx over an equal time frame:

http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#char...urce=undefined

OOPS!! Looks like your beloved JB Hunt got TROUNCED!!!! :lol: :lol:

Not really because JB hunt went public about 10 years after FDX.
So if you go back to the beggining of JB public offering and compare the two....they both did very well but JB just SQUEEKS BY FDX

But like I said, if you were to have started working at Fedex in 1980 and invested, you would be very very wealthy now. But in the last 5 years, Jb blows them away. What is important to me is what is making me money NOW. In the last 5 years FDX has done about 150%...which is great, I wish all my investments had that kind of return. But you cant really compare it to the skyrocket that is JB in the last 5 years.

But im glad we agree on something cold....JB and Fedx are both great investments. And UPS would be a horrible place to invest your hard earned money and time.

Just like a c.b.
 

You know this forum thing is just like a C.B. KRWOOD just asked a simple question and it turned into a match to see who can yell ( argue ) the loudest. It's like setting in a truck stop with the cb on, and people (especialy the ones who ask the questians) get tired of it!!! :evil:

This isnt an argument or shouting match, its healthy debate and its a good thing.

So hypothetically I could work at another company that pays more but still invest in J Hunt stock right? :wink: Or do you get a good deal on stock options if you work at JB?