Are shippers intentionally detaining drivers?

Yeah I dont miss those days either running meat , I quit running cali for reasons other than produce .

 

Ya
Meat, produce, and cali are all horrible.

 

Yeah I did it steady the first 2 years I was at Morehouse and got burned out , I just run omaha to penn , jersey and upstate ny now and back to omaha .

 

Agreed ! I hauled for Anthony marano in Chicago and they are large enough to get peoples attention at a produce shed if they jacked me around .
Most times I just had to tell the shipper I'm a buyers truck and things started moving .

 

Years ago I drove otr for a private carrier that made foam for the bedding , auto and furniture industries, sometimes i would get a backhaul going back to the plant .
More than a few times I saw attitudes do a 360 when the shipper found out I was a customer pick up .

 

There are a few tricks customers and trucking companies use to all but avoid ever paying a driver detention, even if they say "we pay detention" on their website and every ad they run. If nobody is paying for wasting your time they will waste as much of it as they can. Or, at least they have no good reason not to waste all of your time.

 

It was the week before Christmas, 1979. I’m in Cali gathering up produce for the backhaul to the Midwest. Grocery DC in Kansas City said you gotta be here by 10 pm Friday night or you don’t get unloaded until next Wednesday, the day after Christmas. Every pick in the Central Valley is at a two bit produce shipper that jacks around for couple of hours finding two pallets of rabbit food or fruit. Finally finish loading near Bakersfield at noon Thursday. Speed limit is 55. Logs are paper. Truck only has a 350 Cummins, the Monfort trucks blow by it like it’s a tinkertoy. Had to sleep a little while in New Mexico sitting in the driver’s seat with my pillow on the steering wheel, because if I ever crawled in the bunk the game was over. But I made it on time. Here’s the point: in 41 years it apparently hasn’t changed a bit. You still get the shaft hauling produce for brokers.

 

This, or telling the receiving clerk that you’re going out to dinner, have the jockey move your trailer when it’s done. They get really aggravated when you don’t appear to be phased by their spitefulness. Especially places with lumpers that will call you to tell you your done and to pull to the side to wait for the lumper check to be processed. I always decline and say I don’t pull out of the door until I have signed bills in hand.