Team driving explain this please

You would just have to hope it played out to the averages. This week you might drive more, next week the co-driver might drive more. And teaming, if he drove less, it may be because he got stuck loading and unloading more often during his shifts. As long as you both tried to be fair to each other, it would work out. Now, if one person was just lazy......it would be time to look for a better team mate. With elogs, it would be possible for the company to see who drove exactly what....so pay practices may start changing.

 

Because you're getting .30 x 6000 instead of .36 x 3000. Do the math. Now consider 3000 of those were while you were sleeping and also you never sat for more than a few hours without a load, nor did you ever get a load less than 800 miles.

 

Also consider if you can sleep while a truck is bouncing down the road or while the other driver is nodding off and continually hitting the rumble strip, shifting hard and using Jake every opportunity. You should gross more running team but you also have to consider the lifestyle that goes with it. Not everyones cup of tea.

 

Nope.

I get .50 a mile to me, spouse got .28 So call it .75 to the truck more or less.

But wait. That 6500 mile round trip you just finished from LA to Jersey and Back in the same week will only pay a bit over 5500 due to HHG Mileage pay scale. (About 15 to 20% less than actual ground miles) By the way that is two trips across the USA so your paid miles should be around 7000 for the week. If not a little more. Its grossing 3500 to me and 1960 to spouse. It all goes into the same bank account anyway.

Because of company paperwork, billiing etc it might take a few weeks for that trip week to show up and be paid. So we were always short a trip or two or four. Constantly checking with DM with a stack of completed trip information by trip numbers, dates, trailers used, weights where, when, what etc. Drove em crazy. We finally moved on because there were too many 0.00 paychecks waiting on papers with that poor truck racking up 20K to around 26K miles a month non stop.

 

Disclaimer: every trucking company pays their teams how they're paid this is just the way not necessarily how we specifically get paid and I'm going to use $0.50 so it's easier to follow.

Driver A drives 3000 miles in a week driver B Drive 3500 miles in a week. The team combined made $3250. Each driver would get exactly half of that in their check.

Even though driver B drove 500 more miles both paychecks would be identical. $1625. Each driver would be able to select their tax deductions health insurance and what not based on their needs.

Why would you team very very simple...
While you're sitting at a yard for three hours waiting around for a load to be ready or swapped or received or loaded... The team is turning miles and making money.

Companies generally use teams to go long distances so I might pick up a load on the west coast drive it 1800 miles Non-Stop in 12 hour shifts with my partner until it gets there leave it in a yard. Immediately hook a new load and be out of that yard in 30 minutes going back. This will take me 3 days. My week is only half over and I already ran 3600 miles.

 

OP, you finally get on with Roehl?

 

Your not going to make twice the cpm wage just for team driving.
You will make about 50 % more.
You are making 30 cpm but your also receiving this pay when your team mate drives.
Most honest companies pay 40 cpm, you get 60 cpm,for putting up with all the bs.
If you can find a decent team mate, you can make 50% more on a yearly basis.

 

Here is the thing, many don't get that you are not driving but you are getting the miles.

My teams are given a little higher rate, 2% than solos but they all know that if they get a cross country run, they drive 11 hours and then sleep for 10 and get paid for sleeping.

Now other owners seem to split it between the drivers based on the logged hours and others just do a reduction in rates and then a split.

My team drivers are almost all H&W teams, they get all seem to run hard and take time off each month to readjust.

 

We can and did run really hard for about 6 weeks. Then we throw a dart at the USA map and tell FFE dispatch to give us three days to a week off there. We totally park that truck, get home and forget about it or.... if freight in a given area is overflowing, we will do it in a hotel for a few days and play tourists. In exchange you got a really intense team 24/7. Some of your dispatchers will get tired and sleepy and have to have the next shift dispatcher keep an eye on us.

I have teamed with strangers in the past several were trainers, two in particular became life long friends. It's interesting. He's trying to sleep at night in the bunk at 90 mph hearing preaching and big pipe over the speakers and Im trying to sleep hearing hard music and god knows what else (Basically a opposite) we settled it one day in that cab I said that I was a protestant and what the hell are you? That's roight, Im a hellion. But let's turn that sleeper speaker stuff off will ya?

And that was a beginning of a wonderful friendship. Speakers off in the sleeper. But up to that point there was a potential for the team to break up because of conflict. That got settled nicely. I think hes still running with his Wife. So that would make them very, very valuable to any company lucky enough to have them.

Someone spoke about sleeping. It is very difficult for me to sleep unless the team driver is any good. Does that make sense? If you stuck me in a greyhound bus and I sleep dreaming about that stupid blasted engine rpm, brake application pressure, tire traction and suspension behavior.,.. I need a couple days alone on arrival to stop being mean and nasty being short on actual sleep. If the team driver turned out to be really horrible, there will be no sleeping with him or her at all. He or she would be gone. Gender does not matter to me. But it shore does to alot of people. So, husband wife teams are the best. Everything else is average. For a team. They can always do way better than singles ever can, especially bypassing the HOS Restrictions by Uncle Sam. Turn that logbook into a 24/7 money making tax breaking freight shaking trucking.

 

The driver doesn't get paid more per mile in fact some of these companies pay team drivers less per mile. But a good company will keep the teams rolling consistently.If the team is married and have a joint bank account and can stand each other 24/7 that works better then say teaming with another driver from your company.