Why do OTR megas pay so little for 70 hrs worked?

More like 3 months.

 

Okay, you were leased to Swift. I thought you were a company driver.
The loads were too heavy? Like in illegal? Or just maxed out? I see you still made 6K a month though. For that kind of steady income I'd think a guy would put up with heavy loads as long as they were legal.

 

I made that as a company driver. I make less with a truck leased to swift than I did dedicated and company. I'm lucky to make 800 now.

 

They were too heavy as in beer loads out of Golden Colorado, either heading west on 70 into California and through the Rockies, or through the mountains of Virginia. Maybe 1 in 4-5 loads was empty beer cans and those were 7400lb. All the rest were loaded at gross with half tanks.

 

I am now. I wasn't then. I make less now.

 

Because L/O is cancer and should probably go away.

 

It's funny how some employees, if you pay a decent wage, will do you a good job and work hard for more money ( the good ones).

Some people though, you have to keep them a little hungry to keep them working. If you pay them too much, they will get a pocket full of money and then won't work again until they are broke.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but that's the way it is.

 

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It basically equates to how many people they can trick into slave labor.

 

I always think it is amusing that new truck drivers are going to earn more then the average truck driver at a training company. Never thinking they are a training company for a reason; that reason is they pay less then what a good driver can make elsewhere. I you think your going to make $1,000 a week that is $52,000 a year. The Federal government says in 2016 the average truck driver made $41,340. Their are guys with years of safe experience, in specialized trades, with their own trucks and with unions that skew that figure, but a newbie at a training company is going to best that.

But, for sake of argument lets use your figure of $1,000 a week. If you log 70 hours to make that $1k:
$1,000/(40 + 30x1.5) = $11.76 an hour. That is noting special as a wage.

In the real world you will find we all fudge the log book as much as they can in order to perceive our 70 and possible earn more money. If we consider that to be conservatively an extra 20 hours a week:
$1000/ (40 + [30 +20] x 1.5) = $8.69. That is below minimum wage in most states.

And like I said before, fat chance of a new driver bringing home $1,000 every week a mega training company. Tell your FM whatever you want, when the door hits you in the ### they have another warm body to put in that truck's seat.