I got stuck waiting for a load just last week for over a day. Dispatcher went above and beyond getting me a nice chunk of detention pay. Agree with MTownZ, and it's a good rule of thumb all around: don't be a PITA for your dispatcher. Try to understand he's got a ton of other drivers, and you're not special. Give him the info he needs and get the freight delivered on time. As for hours under a trainer, it depends on the trainer and his comfort level with you. My trainer drove for two hours after I hopped in his truck, after which I did ALL the driving, save for a couple times when he would take over after my 11 was up so we could stay ahead of the freight. Another student I talked to said his trainer ONLY allowed him to drive 4 hours a day.
I understand all that. Not trying to give a victim mentality. Though I would possible want to drive more than 4 hours and not every day will be the same. Just would hate to loose pay while in training only due to something like that. I normally have a good attitude, just can't stand my paycheck being disrupted by no fault of my own.
In trucking dumb ish is gonna happen and there will be days you lose a day of driving to no fault of your own. Be it from a shipper/receiver taking all day, to a 9 hr road closure that you hit the front end of and can't get a detour, or any other off the wall stupid thing that you think is only happening to you. I have lost an entire weekend of driving before because a customer (quad) took 10 hrs to load me, which meant I couldn't make my friday morning appt and the the receiver (usps in atl) refused to let me come in late so rescheduled for monday.
Just to be clear. You are basically paid a flat salary while out with a trainer. I know they've made some changes since I went thru the program. It used to be you had to work a full 7 days before the trainer turned your payroll. Now I think trainee get paid every week as long as they are on duty at least 4 hours per day. So if your trainer goes home for 2 days then you get a pro-rated check for 5 days. Before if trainer went home you had to wait for him to come back out to complete the 7 day cycle. So technically you could be out for a couple weeks and never get a check. But like I said now you get paid every week. It's kinda confusing I know but as long as your on duty for at least 4 hours you are paid for that day. Hopefully this makes a little more sense.
That must be one of the things that changed since I went thru training. Basically what I was getting at is if you sit at a dock most of the day as long as you got the 4 hours in you still get paid for that day.
That has changed. Also used to be just 5 and a half weekswith your trainer now it's a minimum of 15000 miles logged.
