Any Tanker Truck Drivers On Here ?

bullsh!t.

you know what's required to make the bonus every month. if you choose not to do it, it's your choice; it's not the company penalizing you.

 

that was good

 

I've been driving tankers for 15 months now. It can be better than reefers and it can be worse. I get paid by the trip. I also get paid a token hourly wage for demurrage over two hours per trip.

Last week I spent 30 minutes dropping an mt and hooking a preload at Tyson. I then spent the next 14 hours waiting for Tyson to give me paperwork because their employees would not read the seal numbers or trailer number on my ready-to-go trailer. Compare this to the JBS/Swift plant I load at where they almost always get me in and out doing live loads in 20 minutes or less for 46,000 lbs.

There is a lot of variety in professionalism across the industry I haul for. I've never been to a Tyson that has their own scales, yet JBS/Swift just replaced their on site scale with a new, wider, longer, scale. The Wall Street Journal reports JBS is bidding to buy Pilgrims Pride from bankruptcy court now. I'm all for it. Maybe they could buy Tyson and implement their "best practices" there too.

The main problem with hauling animal byproducts is the short trips combined with the frequent loading and unloading has meant that I have never earned more than $12 per mean average hour of work. This low average wage is also a function of over capacity in the industry and the resulting empty miles ratio which can some weeks reach 70%.

I earn a mean average of $700 per week and I am home most weekends although how long can vary from four days to less than 24 hours.

Recently many of our recievers have reduced their recieving hours so drastically that we show up at say 4:35 PM and must wait until 7 AM to unload. This really messes with productivity especially when combined with short trips.

Loading trailers can also be a problem. Our company uses trailers which weigh anywhere from 11,400 lbs empty up to 14,500 lbs. Combined with full size OTR trucks we can have empty weights of 35,000 lbs frequently. It is not uncommon to be overweight after driving to a remote scale after loading at Tyson, etc. Now add hours of out-of-route driving to your schedule to avoid the law and you really can't make any money.

What's my bottom line. Well, I'm glad to have a job but I have very poor pay and I don't see it getting better. If you can get a job outside the trucking industry I encourage you to do so.

BRI

 

I wouldn't start my truck for a buck a mile if you want to pull a tank you can do much much better and if you pull a hazmat comodity even better yet
an exp last year I had a gravy run mead colo to cushing ok my guys were working 5.5 days a week and taking 5k + home a month you ain't gonna get that with the orange guys
I miss that run