Swift drivers, sound off

I know. After all this time you'd think they'd have figured it out by now, huh?

 

However, that 268 mile run might get you closer to where the freight's moving. Isn't 268 miles still better than just sitting there and not making any money?

 

Though some of the smart planners usually send a msg letting drivers know if they are sending a small load like the one I got for 40 miles total that they will backup with something like the 1800 mile one I have after the 40 mile its nice to know. I will usually just take them anyway, the thing is that these small loads can be a real hassle at times using up allot of hours/bs procedures/location is a pain/time of day that messes with you being a human being and needing to do stuff.

Shrek do you guys know or have an alert when a driver reads a msg or even turns the key on? I know you can tell we have read, attempted to fill out a canned msg and stuff, but I mean say I sleep, wake up read a msg that has been there for hours. Right after I have read I get all kinds of questions or stuff that seems that someone is watching my actions with a current time listed, they know I am up now.

 

Mrs. Otter: You make a valid statement. This is why I will generally find out whether it's in my best interest to take it or turn it down. In this case, it was all three loads going to the St. Louis area. Memphis was booked about even, which meant there was plenty of freight. If I hadn't had that information, or booking was slower, I would have been on the phone with my DM and most likely run one of the loads (all identical with the exception of load number.) Since I had the information, I allowed the offering to die on the vine, tried again a little later, after taking care of some other personal stuff and chose the one I'm under now.

It does not bother me in the least to pull a series of 450 to 500-mile loads in a week. As long as pickup and delivery times are reasonable, I can easily get six or seven in within the week. Six 450s is 2700 miles, seven is 3150. An easy week with an approximately $750 paycheck or a harder week with substantially more. One and of those 450-mile loads (including FSC) almost pays my fixed costs for the week. ($615.60 for the loaded miles, $650.84 total fixed costs) and after that, all I have to do is buy fuel. The rest goes to Taiowa. That's the way I look at it.

But, I don't do a spectacular amount of sitting. Although I did run into one of those "terminal turds" yesterday sitting around in the smoking section bragging about making a consistent 13,500 miles each month. My thought: "yeah, right. And you have time to sit around the terminal with your feet on the table." No idea who some of these .....guys.... think they are trying to fool.

 

maybe a consistent 13500 a month--but only 7000 loaded and the rest running home mt every weekend to keep his wife happy so she keeps paying his truck payment when he is to lazy to drive

 

I run a lot of 400-700 loads. I like them...some can be done same day others take a day and a half. I hardly ever sit. Only problem with that scenerio is when something goes wrong at the shipper/receiver it can cause havoc with my timing and that usually costs me money....such as this last week. But all in all I'll take shorter runs...under 300..especially if my clock is short...I never take resets...just my 2 cvents worth on running loads.