Here is a summary of my first three months of 2008 with Crete.

This is a chart of miles run. Each trip is posted on the date that the load was delivered. There were a couple of instances where I delivered two loads in one day. On these trip I listed the miles for the second trip on the next day to avoid distorting the length of haul numbers.




And here is a quick breakdown of the above numbers.

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Does Crete let you take the truck home?

King

Yes they do.

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Thanks for the info. Hey are you going be with Crete when go to Phoenix?

King

I've had it happen a couple of times. One being that Kankakee to Hopkinsville run on which the discrepency was significant. According to my fleet manager, there is a glitch in the system that he is going to bring up with some examples at an upcoming meeting in Lincoln to see if something can be done to correct it because it costs fuel and productivity for the company as well as the drivers. He apparently had one driver run his route exactly and come out almost 300 miles over that for which he (and the company) was paid. I've been encouraged to report it every time it happens so he can keep a log of it. You should do the same.

So far, I'm kind of enjoying your burn-it-out approach and am gunning to kill my 70 in six days if at all possible. I'm on a run from Andover, MA to West Branch, IA (1196 loaded, 73 empty). I picked it up Thursday and will be delivering it this morning. Yesterday's challenge was to get all the way through Chicago from Milton, PA before rush hour kicked in. Just made it by the skin of my teeth and shut down in Morris, IL with my drive time at 10.75. Believe it or not, dispatch actually thanked me for my hustle when I requested a new delivery time and updated my pta. They just told me to take it on in. Hopefully, there'll be something good coming out. The options on Saturday morning should be better than what I would have gotten had I put in an empty call in the wee hours of Sunday ... especially since there were going to be at least two other Crete drivers who I saw at the pickup putting in from exactly the same place just before me had I passively accepted the original delivery schedule.

Thanks for getting me to reconsider this approach. When I first started with Crete, my trainer was an old guy who didn't think it was profitable and was a big advocate of logging 8 to 8.5 hours per day and never doing restarts. Then again, I suppose you don't really want rookies running like this, so it was probably for the best at the time.

Yes, I plan on sticking with Crete. They have been treating me very good and they have a yard in Phoenix which will actually make it easier for me to get home in the future.

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Thats good man. I know Crete is one of the better companies to work for these days.

King

Yeah, Cali sucks. Im in this hole now. As I type, its 90 degrees in the bunk. I deliver tomarrow at 10 but will make every effort to speed up my departure of this state. It was a preplan I was put on. As a n00b to Crete, I dont want to start refusing loads until I figure out what I can get away with. The only good thing about California is its scenery.

CARB won't care if no one comes into their state. They have only themselves in mind...they don't care how much their Nazi regulations affect their inbound freight. After all, enough companies ship their loads in by rail, and rail is not bound by the 'low sulfur fuel' rules. They would keep their regulations in place even if they had to pull freight in by mule team, but then they would regulate the greenhouse gas emissions coming out of the mule's butt. I personally get on the internet and check out the local motel offerings that have truck parking that is close to the consignee. Then turn in the receipt on my taxes at year end. Even sleeper equipped trucks are allowed a certain number of motel receipts by the IRS.

As for the way I feel about Crete, my negative attitude has tamed a bit, partly because of the overall way freight has slowed, and the way the high cost of fuel has effected many other companies. At least here, a 2000-2300 mi. week still pays the bills, and this company is strong enough to withstand a longterm downturn in the economy, and still keep me in the black. In fact, I have chosen to refi my mortgage to clear out as much 'other' debt as I can, J.I.C. I hate to say it this way, but in the long run, for this industry, this may end up being a positive for the companies that survive. Survival of the fittest, those that pull through will have a little less competition. Then freight will be more profitable and plentiful. There is a show on XM on the weekends about running a trucking business. Mostly geared at the small companies, or solo O/O's. That is where I heard that same comment. But most of his ideas stem from an attitude of run your business to be profitable in the bad times. He says 'run smarter, not harder'. Many of his business advice tends to follow much of the way this company has been run for years. Which is another reason I have chosen to 'shut up and drive' here.

I just wish that Freightliner could figure out what's wrong with my truck. Have had it in their shop's 3 times in the last 6 weeks (1 shop twice in one week during a week of hometime, a week-because I was hoping the truck would come out running right) Still giving me problems, but thankfully not bad enough to park me on the side of the road, but it has taken out my cruise control. Normally not a problem, except when running thru OH, or IL where I tend to not take any chance of getting a speeding ticket, so I ease off a bit.

Dare I say, April has been a decent month. Not a record setter, but an improvement over the last 5 or 6. Have spent less time waiting for them to find a load, even if short, but something to keep me rolling when I have available hours on my 14. In fact, since I left in late March, the equipment has been the biggest restriction I have had lately. Easter W/E was in shop for a brake valve on trailer, continuing truck electrical problems, then had a trailer that someone dropped at a customer in Indy, that someone decided they needed one of the brake lights, grommet and all, then it looks like the front was hit while being pulled by a spotter causing a water leak (I say that because the damage would have torn a hole in the top of a sleeper roof if it was one of our trucks) plus the inside of the rear had been damaged by forklift. Some of the support rails were bowed up and the roof had been partially torn lose from the frame at the rear of the trailer. And the directions to the shop in Scranton, PA sorta' sucked. Took me an hour to find them. Then they didn't have any emptys, had to go all the way back down to Wilkes Barre to get one, then, no freight. They did finally find something about an 1 to 2 hrs later. The way things have been with me, instead of getting there early morning to deliver on the loads with a window, I have changed to del'g later in the morning, and taking advantage of the afternoon freight bookings. Which is totally opposite of the way I have done things for years. It seems to have helped, since I was having to wait until afternoon anyway to get a load, it doesn't kill as much of my 14.

Home time has always been one of the drawbacks here, unless you live in the mid-west. Anything in the n/e, s/e or west of the I-35 corridor is not always easy. Sometimes you get lucky, but with the way they plan things here...it's just dumb luck if it works out anywhere close to when you want home. But I plan for that, and don't stress it as long as I don't have 'exact time' plans. In that case, I either schedule a vacation, or start hounding them 2 weeks early, and keep bugging them every other load.

Well, this is going to be a short update.

I spent the week at home packing up our positions and putting the house on the market.

I had originally planed on being back in the truck by Friday morning but it became apparent early in the week that I wasn’t going to be able to get everything done in that time frame so I called my fleet manager and requested some additional time off. He said sure and asked me how much time I needed and approved it without question.

I had a 600 mile drive back to Columbus in the rental car and left the house in the late Saturday morning, arriving Saturday night.

After letting dispatch know I was back in the truck but had no empty trailers availible I was given a load that was ready to go in the yard but had enough time on it that I could put in a good 8hrs of sleep. I hit the sack and started my run Sunday morning.

My first load was a drop/hook delivery to Manassas, VA (424mi). Not the longest run but the load info stated that they had overnight parking and it delivered first thing Monday morning. This worked just fine for me because I was still worn out from my previous week of packing and didn’t really want to run all that hard anyway.

I arrived early Sunday evening to find plenty of parking and noticed that there were already two MT trailers sitting in their yard. As least I know I will be able to get going first thing Monday morning.

A quick search on my GPS let me know that there were a number of restaurants about 1 ½ miles away so I got a little exercise in and had a good meal before going to sleep.



WEEK FOURTEEN RESULTS
Monday, March 31st through Sunday, April 6th
Miles include deadhead

Columbus, OH to Manassas, VA………………………….424mi

Total Paid Miles……………………………………………424 Miles

Actual Miles…………………………..410 Miles

424mi X .42 = $178.08

In regards to my earlier questioning the “practical miles” routing in relation to this run. I was given a “suggested routing” that was entirely via interstates and by using my Streets and Trips show mileage of 445mi, an excess of 21mi. Not bad and quite acceptable from my point of view. I, however, opted to take a few short cuts and come in from the backside, thus avoiding the Washington DC loop. This alternate route included a few two lanes over some extremely hilly roads that I had traveled in the past. This was a very light load and the hills wouldn’t slow me down much, if it had been a 40,000# load I wouldn’t have done it. By making a couple of 7min stops and logging them as 15min stops I was able to gain some time back.

When all was said and done I made it to the consignee without really saving any time on my log but only turned 410 miles and I was able to avoid DC.

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