What is a normal idle percentage for company drivers?

Senior level executives probably have millions of shares of stock in the companies that build the starters for the trucks

 

Another good reason to never buy a used fleet truck.

Start truck and as soon as the air builds head out and mash the throttle to the floor to get up to 68mph as soon as you can.

 

Well...if you're a good driver, and they give you good loads, and good miles, which Marten seems more than capable of doing, the guarantee won't mean anything.

 

@mjd4277

 

And then after 6 or7 hours running at 68 mph pull into the fuel island and shut ‘er down. All that ticking and clicking noise is just the trucks clock running

 

I saw my idle % while driving a day cab and going home at the end shift. I would hit 20%. Customer delay means more idling, except for the 1st week of spring and last week before winter.

 

I was in the 70-80 range at times lol.

 

There are seperate breakdowns of long idle and short idle percentages. What they look at is long idle. Short is unavoidable stop and go traffic, etc. If they don't provide APU's they aren't serious about keeping long idle down.

 

A couple of trips through cities or a few routine traffic pile ups will take it well past 4% despite any heroic efforts on your part. You can't achieve 4%.

They want their new drivers to turn the truck off every time they get out of the driver seat? Imagine the no-start issues if that really happened. There are some trucks out there that won't start back up again...A lot of them with loose cables, old crappy batteries, sketchy alternators. Trade one issue for another. Seen it before.

 

I try to keep the idle at a minimum but there are circumstances that apply were it can’t be avoided (charging up the air pressure after doing a brake bleed down,drop & hook, etc.).
With exception to the day cabs all of our trucks are equipped with APUs and inverters.
The one time I was contacted about high idle was because when I went on hometime my truck got stuck because of all the snow and ice (about 3 feet give or take) that got dumped on at the holding yard where I park my truck. I explained to my fleet manager that at this time of year the northeast usually gets back to back to back snowstorms (literally a trifecta) and when it melts and refreezes traction is compromised-especially in a dirt lot!