Why would a driver leave his company??? 12/7/2018

very end of video talked about manless trucks.

if robots did all of our jobs. this gives us all more freedom. as we are having robots do our jobs for us. many jobs can't be done by robots. it's work that gives us what we have not money. so robots can be used to increase giving us what we have.

farming, mining, factories, warehouses, plants, dams, building houses, etc.

will always need humans to do some of the works that give us what we have.

 

@05:37

... i recall those days

Ask dispatch to get a load home and they

would often reply ... " we're not running a travel agency "

 

Trucking sucks..lmfao

 

In my whole time working OTR for 5 different companies safety & dispatch were like 2 different personalities in the same body.. Neither dept seemed to care about each others mandate, but only driver compliance with each entities demands When your only paid for what you produce being a safety complainer with dp could thin out your wallet real fast.

 

Nice video. Could have been 20 minutes shorter if not for lighting up the cigarette(s) & puffing on them every 6th word haha. A bit painful after awhile.

 

I gave up after 27 minutes... I can't speak for all since we only focus on intermodal drayage. Here are my opinions/our challenges in regards to the topic.

Driver leaving company:
- inconsistent volume of loads
- competitive market quotations plus upper management profiting goal vs the increase of driver rate and maintenance expenses
- uncooperative warehouses, consignees, brokers and shippers (not paying waiting time, congestion or dry run, etc.) lead to MC vs O/OP/Drivers in terms of money
- rails, SSL, chassis pools maintained bad equipment that lead to $200+ charge back (they are getting better now, but not for all locations)
- Safety vs Dispatch vs clueless management/owner(s) = disorganize

Driver shortage:
- youths today are advertised to proceed with STEM subjects and since most jobs require STEM discipline, many signed up to become engineer or technician without second thought.
- want to be home daily and lack of lifestyle
- negative opinions and images against truck drivers and the trucking industry
- increase of equipment expenses
- stricter regulations, especially in CA
- stricter insurance requirements and expenses (small and mid-size firms usually don't have enough cash to establish their own insurance, so driver recruit requirements must be shared and agreed with insurance company, especially on auto-liability policies)

Trucks:
- the year of a truck effect the fleet insurance expenses (10 years older, 20 years older, etc.)
- the year of a truck effect the probability of winning an accident lawsuit (jury impression)
- incompatible with ELD (I am not sure how other safety operates, at least I don't perform only one thing during a day, especially knowing everything can lead to a lawsuit. I have to stand for the best interest of all my drivers and the company. It is best to keep it simple and apply ELD to all trucks and do everything with one click so my drivers and I can discuss other things like financial management or life when calling each other instead of asking for papers all the time)
- port/city requirement like CARB

Driver pay:
- it can be the trucking company, but trucking companies are near the bottom of the chain, just above the driver. Trucking companies make about 10-30% of the sales quote, but retailers are making over 120% and still want the freight to be dirty cheap with world class service. It's cut after cut after cut.
- employee shortage. Youths are mostly heading to the IT side of logistics. Most don't last as a dispatcher even you are paying them $50-80k a year because of the work loads and stress. If companies hire more, either lower salary or lower driver pay. If your dispatcher gets to go home and not pick up phone calls or track and trace or pre-dispatch, your dispatch is lucky. Most companies don't have that luxury for dispatcher and safety. 24/7 on call. System updates must be accurate.
- insurance rates continue to increase
- more trucking companies entering the market, driving market rate downward

The pressure is really on both the driver and the company from my view. If we are to continue in the trucking industry, I would choose to work with my drivers and my dispatchers while building understandings with my upper management. It is not easy and I had many arguments with my drivers before, but we cool in the end and at least, we get things done together. That's what matter.

The loneliness I have with my safety job is never from the industry. It's from the general public.

 

In my experience it's the lying. When you are being recruited and are given bad information it makes drivers want to say piss off. When a company says hey we want you to run 2500mpw and you budget for that and then you get in and they decide they want to run you 3500mpw That's a lot of down time you're loosing. Every company Ive known just assumes their drivers are bad at handling money and therefore need to run like dogs to keep up. Not all of us are like that. $1k a week is fine for a guy like me. If I wanted to run that 3500mpw I would have hired on with a company that advertised 3500mpw. (Of course those are usually the companies that end up shorting your miles so you have the same problem only in reverse)