I got hit with my first service failure and I don't agree

It's ok. We WILL get to the bottom of this.

If you wish, can you retell the story of that day as it happened from beginning to end. Basically I would like to hear you tell it again and how you did your time that day. Somewhere I bet there is a way to understand one another ....

 

the op is on elogs. time is up when time is up, there are no 2 ways about it.

 

I would say this is a problem of shippers/receivers lacking flexibility. The electronic logs might lack the flexibility to cheat on paper to "get the load there on time" but shippers and receivers are going to have to stop expecting trucking companies to bring them the moon every day of the week. Delays are just part of the daily life of trucking.

And it's the 14 hour rule that's causing all these problems, not the means of enforcing the HOS. All these protesting truckers should be up in arms over the HOS.

 

It's easy. You do know what the 14 hour clock is for, right? I mean are a super trucker that's done everything....

Anyway, his day started at 9am. That means at 11pm he must shut down. Period! He was held 4.5 hours wasting that 14 hour window. At 11 pm he shut dowm. Didn't matter how many hours left on the 70 at that point.

 

Swift hands out service failures like a pedophile in the park hands out candy.

Swift had such a problem handing out spiteful ###-covering service failures to drivers they instituted rules. They used to trash a driver's record with so many unjustified service failures that upper management was overwhelmed by all the disgruntled drivers and instituted guidelines for issuing service failures. However, the rules are seldom followed, that is how much they respect the drivers there.

Every service failure I got at Swift violated those guidelines. Not just one, every one. Every one I got at Swift was complete and utter BS and not one was for a late load. It was all spiteful payback for some planner's or CSR's failure to do their job. As such, I got everyone removed but each was a huge time wasting fight. In two of three service failures, I got the terminal manger of the planner to see my side imeadiately and get the service failure removed, only to see weeks later the planner or CSR reinstated it out spite. Thats right, their boss would side with me, they would resend the service failure, and two weeks later is back on me. I would have to call the terminal manager again to get it removed. Why did that happen - no one ever got punished for these shenanigans.

However, You will most likely not get this service failure rescinded; you got played by a dishonest planner. When you agree to a load at Swift, it is your bullet when late. It is simple as that.

 

Let me explain how you got played.

First, I just about guarantee their was no load at 17:40. Who sets needs an appointed P/U of a preloaded trailer at .40 after the hour. That was just a BS load to get you to reposition you closer to the shipper, avoid detention, and encourage you to take a load that you might not otherwise.

After you get to the shipper, the swift planner cancels the load. This cuts the deadhead miles out of the next real load and his planning stats soar for the better. Your miles to the shipper now look like out of route miles, not deadhead miles that look bad to a planner.

How much did you get paid for that 5 hours waiting for a load? My guess is nothing. Five hours of truck driver work for free. One load is canceled, so no detention is paid. The planner knows full well that some drivers will ask for detention payed if wasting 5 hours picking up a load. It makes it much easier to deny paying the driver if the load is canceled.

Third he knew your hours were running out, but he was probably running out of available trucks in the area. If your hours are done at 23:00, fat chance of you making a pick-up at 23:30 let alone agreeing to one. But here he has got you on the hook. You might as well pick-up the load since you are there already. It appears to be no more work for you. But in reality the only reason you are there in the first place because he planned you on a phony load that looked good to you. Funny how they just sometimes disappear, and some other load just pops up.

 

Bottom line is the driver should have just said can't do it.

But you are so right with your breakdown of how they play the game

 

While true, that's hindsight. I've been to plenty of places where one load cancels, but there are several more loads ready to go. If the planner is playing games then the driver has little recourse.

 

I hate games with a passion. If you provide a mission by thunder stick to it... *Grumbles.

Oh, computer logs that's different than paper logging... Im obselete vs computer logging, in the past some have provided certain workarounds but I fear a sort of a civil war rising once the true bite of HOS kicks in for everyone. This Nation must then suffer a loss in GDP and Cargo times...

 

No it's not. Hos is hos...