Detention on Reefer Loads

If you can get 175 an hour run to the bank. Detention does usually start after 2 to 3 hrs but I'll tell ya what ,good luck getting 1 out of 10 loads to even pay you anything. They always find an excuse to to not. Plus a lot of the time is first come first serve so they don't even have to worry about it. Atleast that's my experience. And it also seems that the more the lumper fees are, the longer you wait and the ruder they are. I've had enough of reefer for just this reason. Its time for something else. Sometimes between loading and unloading I spend more time waiting than driving with no compensation. Cold storage ..... have fun.

 

Dont forget bouncing around produce sheds thats the real fun

 

Have you had the experience in Nogales? What a hoot.

 

Nogales salinas ....yakima and an expetience i will avoid as long as possible. Eagle pass .....recently hada buyer in phoenix dragging his feet to ecen place the order.....24 hrslater i was in salt lake city decided when hedoes place his order he can find another usucker. To move it

 

As someone who has invoiced for detention many times, I'll tell you how it works. The "broker" can tell you anything he wants, its the customer who's paying the detention time, IF they choose to pay. So even though you billed them for it, they will always say, at the end of the load, "IF THE CUSTOMER PAYS IT, WE WILL PASS IT THROUGH TO YOU" 95% of the time, it NEVER happens. #TRUTH

 

And the customer says "I'm over here, you're over there, the broker is somewhere else, someone else is paying the freight .... ha ha ha ha ha ha you have about as much chance getting my accounts payable to pay a detention fee on as the man on the moon does". Detention is more of a possibility on some sort of a dedicated lane with the same broker/shipper/buyer is utilized consistently and everyone gets to know and understand one another over time. Learning the problem shippers and docks and that they should be avoided is about the only recourse you'll ultimately have.

 

Truth b told in terms of Produce anyway there us NO such thing as detention on picks cuz there is no such thing as an appt at a produce shed ANYWHERE--no matter what anyone tells you--and ESPECIALLY NOT at Nogales or Yuma ir any other border point since 99% of what u get there is cross border and that is a whole other set of headaches--the ONLY way to do produce is and always will be direct for buyer(customer)at least then You can negotiate rates based on times vs availabilities--which is y anymore u see less and less of the bug O/O large cars and more and more mega comp reefers
Just Sayin

 

detention is a problem. if the team is use to multi-stop loads. and can work well together. then the detention really worth ######## about. the other part is. some time when there is long wait times. it's either the line is that long. or the shipper is running behind do to shortage of finnished product. or a shortage of labor in certian departments. drivers normally see people walking around in the shipping department. doesn't mean they are assigned to that department. when i was working for a while in recieving. it was one of 3 things either the truck showed up checked in with security. and we never new they were there due to lack of communication. or it is a lack of help. due to people not showing up for work. or it was a matter of space availble on the floor. the way it works in the warehouses. each depart is given a budget and a production quota. so sometimes there's not enough in the budget to have the staff to meet the production quota. which means sometimes lines of trucks form. drivers get upset. and they don't realize that complaining is slowing production down. the company i worked for. was a traveling construction company. that installed coveyor. very strict guidelines either by the customer. or by osha. prohibited drivers from being inside the building. I got one driver in one time. only because the driver refused to accept that he was not allowed in the building do to safety and security reason. he didn't much care for the near strip search coming into the building . he came in on the customers side. then had to go through security to get into the side the construction work was going on in. he couldn't believe how searous they took security in the building. after that i spread through the drivers of that trucking company. on which door we wanted them to come to. we no longer had any trouble out of the drivers on that job site.

 

In the produce world, If you can get anything for detention time, grab it. Most p/up times are just good estimates.Wait times of many hours are common. I have never heard of a trucker automatically being paid detention time for delays in loading produce. Now on a dedicated run, possible, I guess.