Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

That's Wintersville, OH it's a grocery DC.

 

I'm mid 300's as well

however I'm also a giant

 

I figured you were a bean pole since you’re a giant

 

Don’t tell me his name is jack

 

Let me start by saying that I am not picking on SSB, or anyone paid by the mile, but articles and innovations like below are why mileage based pay needs to go away for good and truckers need to stop chasing the mile and start chasing the overall value of a job. Whether we like it or not, AI and computer aided dispatch is here to stay - heck, some megas have had CAD for twenty or more years already and the systems keep getting more efficient (even if as drivers we don't see it).

The carrier's sole goal is to provide service to their customers as cost effectively as possible, and since many drivers still give away their time for free (again, not picking as this is not the choice of most drivers) the motor carrier has no incentive to do anything except reduce miles, tightly control expenses, routing, fuel purchases, etc. Same thing with these "unproductive" loads being offered to SSB. Yes, they are unproductive for him as a mileage based driver, but as someone on the other side of the desk most days now, those short hauls are gravy for the company.

One of my jobs is as Director of Transportation and Logistics for a company with 32 locations in 19 states, and another is a Transportation and Logistics Manager for a large truck dealership group that sells tow trucks, car haulers, beverage body trucks and a bunch of vehicles to rental companies. I order all types of transportation (full truckload dry van, LTL, 14 and 26' box trucks, even driveaway/haulaway of trucks, cars and chassis) on a daily basis along with managing, or overseeing the management of, more than 300 truck drivers. Not to mention my consulting business where I work with owner operators, small fleets and even other specialty distributors like my two primary employers.

When I need to order a truck for a 200-300 mile truckload shipment it may cost me almost the same as a full truckload going 1,500 miles away, yet as a mileage based motor carrier the driver hauling the load is still only getting the same cents per mile they would on the long haul run. A few carriers bump up the CPM a tiny bit for short runs, or inversely cut the CPM for longer runs (to try to make the short haul seem appealing to their employee drivers), but it doesn't come close to paying the driver what they are worth. Same with driveaway or haulaway with my vehicles that need moving, a short trip such as from my Chicago to Detroit locations costs me as much, if not more, than getting a unit from Atlanta up to Chicago or Iowa down to Jacksonville.

I know what I'm saying is nothing new. I am just trying to reinforce to the audience that, despite some drivers desires for things to remain the same, things are changing rapidly in our world and shorter hauls are becoming the predominate freight pattern in the US. Just look at how many corn fields have grown warehouses, all strategically placed to keep average length of haul down to a few hundred miles and prepare for a lot of final mile deliveries.

The days of long miles and coast to coast hauling are numbered. As my dad used to say, and I'm sure he stole this from someone else, "Do what nobody else wants to do if you want to make money like nobody else has", in other words, the money is in providing a service that few have the patience for such as final mile deliveries in New York City or hand unloading freight, etc. I know when I owned my towing and car haul companies we focused on the stuff the other towing or car haulers wouldn't do. I did a lot of auction work, especially inoperable vehicles, and a lot of short haul. My auto transport company had an average length of haul of only 90 miles, but because of that I was able to charge more than $1 per mile per unit on the truck, so we made $9-$12 per mile, and I arranged round trips most of the time. Dang good money, especially in the lates 90's and throughout 2015 when I sold out. Same with my towing company, want to go to NY City on a Friday night, no problem, in a parking garage, we've got you, off road and stuck with a piece of heavy equipment sure thing!

Now, full disclosure, when computer aided dispatch and broker boards (RAT, Cars Arrive, Central, etc.) hit car haul in 2014, things feel apart quickly because the newcomers had no idea what the lane rate average should be and began undercutting my rates, hence why I sold out when the getting was good. Car haul still pays well, better than dry van or refer, but not nearly as well as it used to. I think this illustrates my point precisely, change is coming and we can't stop it. Gone are the days of needing to know someone to get your cars hauled, now it is just a few clicks, same as with general freight.

My point in all of this rambling is that, as a driver, know what you are worth and don't settle for less. Find something that balances your mental and physical health with maximum possible earnings, and remember the money is not in chasing miles, it is in chasing dollars (which means accessorial pay for extra work besides driving the truck).

I have always made my best money as an employee driver, and owner, in the vocational fields not traditional OTR. Tried it with three different companies at two different seasons of my life, never worked well for me. I have driven OTR for Crete and JB Hunt, regional for USF Glen Moore and on the Home Depot regional dedicated account for JB Hunt and none of them could touch what I made in a tow truck, car hauler or even the year I helped launch an oil field services company in Pennsylvania as they were exploring the Marcellus Shale for natural gas.

Yes, the Transport Topics advertorial below does also mention overtime. It is not just the mileage based fleets looking to optimize operations and reduce mileage, hourly fleets are always looking for ways to cut down on the hours worked by drivers and these AI driven software solutions will be able to make that a reality very soon. I expect that we will be responding mostly to AI dispatchers within 5 years, with the humans not allowed to make many, if any, changes!

 

Why can't the overall value of a job be based on mileage pay? Why does it have to be hourly?

With hourly pay the driver who takes their sweet time witb poor trip planning, and arrives late would make more money on a load than a driver who is efficient and and sets them self up for the next load.

 

It could, although then short hauls will always underpay the driver unless the mileage pay is a sliding scale that accounts for the time needed to complete a 200 mile haul vs. a 1,000 mile haul. If we look at a lot of the vocational type of driving jobs they usually figure out what the trip or activity is worth and design their pay structure around that. Some drivers get it done faster, therefore making more per hour, while others are slower but are still paid what the task was worth instead of some arbitrary mileage number. Time and distance can easily be calculated into this structure.

My personal preference has always been task based, meaning my day is worth XXX and depending on how much of my work day the task will eat up it then becomes worth YYY to complete such task. I am a fan of a daily minimum pay for all drivers, so that they are fairly compensated for the times they have to deal with the B.S. of a short haul that takes all day to complete by the time they deal with loading, unloading and the actual time driving. It is such a gamble to sign on to any job, hourly or mileage based, if there is not any type of minimum guarantee for being available unless it is a job that you know will always go like line haul LTL drivers.

In the one company I manage, drivers are paid hourly for the local P&D work, as is typical, plus they get a bonus based on total number of stops and pieces on their truck because this will determine how hard they work during their hourly pay period. It helps compensate for high density route that have a lot more labor (handling used auto parts is dirty and some can be very heavy or awkward in size) as compared to the lower density routes that have a lot of travel time without any labor, just driving. We also have tractor trailer "hub" drivers that shuttle parts overnight between facilities, they are paid a fixed rate for the trip that accounts for the time and mileage that is typical plus hourly for any delays beyond the projected time to make the round trip such as stuck in traffic, weather or delays at our facility in unloading and reloading them.

In the dealership group, we pay our road drivers a flat salary for the week. They get XXXX for a 5 day work week, even if we don't use them, plus hotel, meals and incidentals for days they are away from home. If they end up working a Saturday or Sunday they then get the option of a daily bonus or taking time off during the week without eating into their vacation time balance. Our local drivers, we call them porters, are paid hourly with overtime after 40. They shuttle trucks around locally, keep the lot organized, pick up customers at airports, etc. They have a fixed 7:30 to 4:30 schedule M-F and almost never work weekends or overtime. The road drivers make about 20% more than the local driver because they are always "on call" and never known where or when they are being dispatched, but have to be available M-F so that unknown is worth more than having a predictable schedule.

My car haul drivers, and how I was paid as an employee car hauler, was based on the load. I got paid/paid my drivers a specific amount per unit to load/unload and deliver that accounted for the time it took to find a car at an auction or dealership, stage it, inspect it, load and drive to the destination and unload. My tow truck drivers were paid a base salary and had the opportunity to earn much more based on commission on the work they performed, but were guaranteed a minimum amount just for being available to be dispatched.

I have always preferred pay structures like these so that, the driver (me or my employees) were not the ones holding the bag when work was slow, not as productive as it could be or the company had to do something that was good for customer service but bad for the laborers or drivers doing the task.

 

A lot of my short hauls are 5-600mi runs del next day..once in a blue moon ill get short one with more time than that but it’s a rarity

 

Mileage pay is task based. Mileage is just used to figure the compensation for the task.

 

Mileage pay is piecework.

Piece work or piecework is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time.

Why figure the time needed at all?