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 .

 

Buyers rule! We got rid of our refers a few years ago and the last of the dry vans went shortly thereafter. We've since bought another dry van for a dedicated account...we work for the buyer...and that's the only way we'll go.

 

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 .

 

That usually works. We haul decorative moulding south and bring back empty wine bottles. The moulding distributor is our main customer.
The empty bottles go to one of three wineries within ten miles of each other.
The mills shipping the moulding are very responsive to the truck schedule and, barring mill breakdowns, we never have to wait.
Same with the glass. If the bottle seller won't honor the appointment time all it takes is one call to the winery and the truck is either loaded immediately or goes down the road about fifteen miles to another bottle maker. That's only happened once.
We kinda inherited the haul when the guy who had it died and we bought the truck, the trailer, and the customers from the widow. He had it set up in his will that way and everybody made out alright. Four and a half days a week, a very predictable schedule, no touch freight for the driver.
LOL..what I want to know is where was this haul years ago when we were out there fighting the van wars with the rest of the dummies.

 

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.