Interesting statements by recruiter

You should have asked him does he keep his house at 20 degrees? Running a small heater will drain the batteries and if you have any weak batteries it will kill them.

Drivers do watch TV in the trucks...

I spend time with each company for 12-14 months, and if I was not happy then I moved on. So, does that mean I had personal issues - nope.

You should have asked him also how much time has he spend OTR in a truck.

 

Well, for the most part, if someone is happy at a company, they aren't going to get on a forum and complain.

And no, you shouldn't have to pay for fuel used while idling, unless its a flagrant violation of company policy (i.e. you leave it idling at a truckstops for a couple days and go home), or your company has an idle time limit.

Even then, I'm not sure of the legality of docking your pay.

I suppose the company could say you knew you weren't allowed to idle and did it anyway, thus making it a willful act of misconduct. If you could be easily held financially responsible for things like that, companies would be docking employees for every piece of equipment that malfunctions while they are using it. I'm sure that varies state to state though, and California just happened to be the first answer the googles gave me.

 

Turnover rates in the industry are high--at, near, and well above 100%--and have been for 30 years. It's not just Schneider. Lack of home time is one of the reasons.

It does makes sense. It costs a carrier a lot to hire and train a driver. Someone with a record of job hopping is probably more likely to job hop. Why invest in them?

You can buy it 100%. Company driver: the company pays for fuel. May Trucking used to (and may still) require its drivers to pay for "excess" idling. I don't know what "excess" meant. The drivers signed a document that they'd pay. Lease-operators and owner-operators pay for fuel.

There's a lot of information available. Take it all with a grain of salt. Here are two experienced drivers you can believe:
http://littletrucker.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tekilka29

 

After 30 years at this, and seeing all the ups and downs that go on, I still am not convinced there is any substantive driver shortage. Some, but not the level that all the crying is about from the big companies. Every few years, the big carriers start screaming about driver shortages. The turnover rates in OTR have been statically high for ever. Most of this "turnover" is drivers hopping from company to company. Always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. And while this kind of stuff in going on, trucking companies will have empty trucks sitting around waiting for the next job hopper to show up. The good drivers already have a good company to work with and they stay there, so the big carriers can't attract them. I will concede that retention rates are lower than in the LTL companies, but that is a combination of lifestyle hardships, lack of companies doing right by their drivers, and drivers who have a lousy work ethic. The better OTR companies have turnover rates, even in today's "driver shortage" environment, in the 20-25% range. Still not ideal, but a far cry from the mega carrier's 80% on over 100% range. I just checked the other day, and the carrier I am with is at around 22% turnover. Not bad compared to a lot of 48 state van and flatbed outfits.

Now the fun thing is comparing the numbers.... my carrier has roughly 300 trucks in van and 100 in flats. And a 22% driver turnover for roughly 88 drivers hired each year.

Now take someone like Schneider. I am not sure anyone outside of accounting knows to the exact number, the number of trucks they have, but I would be in safe territory to say they have 20,000. Now a carrier like that, with 100% turnover, is having to hire 20,000+ new drivers every year. That is really sad. They really need to look at what they are doing wrong. I could tell them, but they wouldn't listen. And it isn't all about pay or home time. There is a lot of little things that make a company worth staying at. Pay and home time are essential, but anyone who has been at this for a while, knows there are a lot of other things that can make or break the relationship between a driver and a company.

Now to be somewhat fair. For every 100 new student type drivers that a large carrier takes on, only 2 will make it and still be driving after 3 years. Over half will bail out before the end of one full year. Almost all of those 100 new drivers will have some form of preventable accident in the first year that goes on their record and limits their ability to shop for a better place to work. Another reason many do not stay in trucking... they can't move into something better. Not talking about vehicle to vehicle accidents either. Stupid little preventables like running over a traffic sign on a tight turn, bumping into another vehicle while backing into a dock, etc. When a carrier concentrates it's recruiting efforts primarily on newcomers to the industry, they are going to experience this kind of assembly line shuffling of drivers. Then they want to cry and howl that there is a driver shortage.

 

Thanks for the links. The Blog was good, and a relative short read, compared to other's.
The U-tubes are a real Love/Hate for me, I love to watch them but the time they consume makes me sad.

 

I dang sure watch TV. I watch TV, movies, play Xbox 360 and have a laptop and phone i charge. The recruiter sounded just like the ones that came to my school....liars...and crazy people.

Ethan

 

Nice truck, Ethan.

 

I am of the opinion that there is an ongoing shortage of competent, professional, productive drivers who are capable of dealing with the various issues that come with the job. There may even be a surplus of drivers capable of an adequate performnce if they are micro-managed by their companies.

I think we need far tougher training and licensing standards and fewer picayune rules.

 

I wish the one in my signature was mine. That's a glider I'm working toward. I'm in a company prostar right now.

Ethan