What's wrong with HHG miles?

You're right it's a marketing ploy, and it's a great one. Why not just say eight hundred dollars per mile, paid one mile? Nobody will go for that because now I feel I'm working 1,999 miles for free. It's human psyche. I want to know I'm getting paid for each mile I drive or as close as possible. HHG won't allow me to feel fairly compensated. Neither will the eight hundred bucks a mile example. So I go with practical miles, even for less cpm, because I feel I'm more fairly compensated, regardless that the paychecks are the same. It's Marketing 101.

 

More than likely your company already knows the actual miles you will be driving. If you are trying to trip plan with HHG then you need a better system. With a basic laptop under $400 you should have one and be using it to get more realistic miles and routing information. The systems most companies are using pre-dates the laptop.

HHG or pratical are just a away for the trucking company to justify the miles between to points, so that the customer and trucking company are on the same page ( you the driver are not part of this). It was never meant to used as a way to trip plan.

I know more than a few companies that pay by the hub mile..................I get paid by the hour, so miles are a joke. I do trip planning on my laptop using Delorme Steet Atlas. I have been using it for years, I have just about all the truck stops plotted, most restricted roads plotted.

Mark

 

I see said the blind man......can i please purchase some more of that fabulous snake oil!

 

You are stuck believing you are right and others cannot think for themselves.

You keep using the same example. However, if the company paid you HHG miles that are 25 miles less than practical were and the rates are the same, then your arguement is moot.

I can make the assumption and post that you are just repeating a company line, and never have driven as a driver.

Sorry, but you do not know the business I am in or how it operates to make such a judgement.

You may be right concerning the way yours runs, but do not think I am a dummy or cannot see through a marketing ploy.

I know the bottom line and when the change was made, the income increased.

We will just have to agree to disagree here.

 

I don't think many of us here would work for cpape anyway. I keep track of my miles to the 10th, I don't see a difference between what I run and what the company shows on dispatch, if anything I drive fewer miles. Our loads list loaded and empty miles, but I think our salesmen use actual, I think they predrive the actual load before the company bids on them, b ut then Bulk is different than general freight.

I would not work for a company that gave me mandatory routing, If a company has fuel stops they need to be enroute, I'm not taking my time to run 100 or 200 miles out of route because of fuel. I drive the shortest distance that I can between the Consignor and Consignee.

I deliver early or on time, I get the best mileage possible out of the equipment, I have very few breakdowns (Normally when I tell them I have a problem and they tell me to run anyway)when the shop listens. On the company cost of operation index Im always in the top 10%. But I don't expect the owner to tell or demand to run a certain routing unless he's had a problem with something I've run. Most of the owners thinking they are making money are actually costing themselves money by hiring drivers whom do not know what there doing. Hire experienced drivers let them do there jobs.

Alot of driver spend way too much time thinking the grass is greener its, not. Do your job if your not happy move on.

 

I used to be paid by HHG.
That crapola is dark age stuff!
When the same company I drove for using HHG and us losing 89 miles on a certain load we had from Springfield to north Chicago that got old fast and we (the 25 drivers) started to refuse that load and then a few more when we found out about the mileage software that was coming out! Not to mention the difference in the hub and the pay! We were first, mad about those no pay windy loads but when I finally got my first mileage software things had to take a turn for the better. They did. They went out of business about 3 years later when the Old Man retired and the kids started to use the company as a toy store as usually happens!

OK Cpape I see now (from the last thread) that you do heavy haul which is a completely different animal than me running reefer. First (from that other thread) you couldn't put me in an over dimensional load! But that's just me I'm too lazy for step and OD and tarping and throwing chains and getting blown half way across Texas holding on to a stupid tarp in a tornado! And besides, I always post I don't drive for someone more than 3 hours or 200 miles from my home so no biggie I'd have to rule you out and then you wouldn't pass my interview anyway due to HHG miles!

And no matter how you want to sugar coat HHG it still will taste like poo!

BUT when it comes to pay there is none of that "averaging" you are saying. Me I can actually beat "at times" practical miles on PC Miler and an older program that I have no longer and can't for the life of me figure out where it went! I still have 5" floppies in the drawer! LOL. BUT, in every instance where I talked to someone and they were still on that antique method of pay and routing I always came up with more miles and as most of us do when I found out their CPM they would have done better with something other than HHG!

Yes OD pays better as it's different in many ways and my hat is off to every OD driver out there. But a mile is a mile and I want my honest pay for an honest mile driven! I know that there is no such thing as a straight line in OD and I would expect to be paid for every mile I drove!........

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This I would expect from as I said in that other thread which is why I came in here "a college boy and someone on the blunt end of the stick which is office desk jockeys!" Also the gooberment screws up enough! Lets hope they don't try to start a mileage program or routing trucks! They couldn't run that "hoehouse" in AZ they took over for tax evasion! Just image not making a place that sells sex and boose profit and thinking

. 110% if I'm figuring 110% OF HHG correctly? OK that I might jump on but only if my rate of pay stayed the same or better! Again you can't sugar coat PAY v miles v short changing. That is where those who drive desks for a living and look at crap on paper will still be screwing their employees! It's human nature!

I've owned my own. I know how to broker my own and do it occasionally for friends and there are NOT that many shippers or brokers that use that old rip the driver off HHG stuff! Heck I figured all those books were rat poop by now anyway!

Most companies are using more respected systems so they do get their freight moved.They know we know and have access to information and can turn down their "offer of HHG" and we or those of us enlightened with this knowledge won't take it any more!

Now heavy haul, that has to go miles out of route due to a low overpass or road construction and didn't pay those OOR I hope would not be holding their breath waiting for me or any other driver to pull that crap for a few cents more a mile! Those pennies do not add up to what in another world is more miles at the same rate of pay. Now I guess in OD you might pay what a mile? $.41 to $.50 to a company driver? OK I was at $.41 a mile dedicated to NYC with different deliveries in a 2 day period. I want you to do this. Take your HHG and figure this route for me/us as a put it up or whatever deal and tell us the program you use or if you're still flipping pages?.......

748 West Olrich Street, Rogers, Ar 72756 to
87 19th street Brooklyn, NY zip11215

I'll just do the one drop and this is a real route just missing the last 5-7 drops. My newest program shows:
practical 1313
shortest 1278
My OLD program shows 1284 practical
and 1262 but this is a 1998 program so it's not even used or shouldn't be!
My actual miles going my route was 1295

Rand McNally HHG and yes I made sure it was the HHG, BUT I'll be darned if I could do a short or hazardous or find a restricted route button! This is why no driver should trust any non trucking program and this as far as I'm concerned is NOT HHG or a trucking program! On line has it at 1293 BUT it took me through 2 tunnels and across the south end of Manhattan and through downtown Indianapolis! Not a real truck route so lets see what yours says!

 

I can't wait to hear this answer.
This is a pretty intersting thread. I am still in Wannabe status so this is a great disscussion for learning reasons.

 

cpape, lets take wages and the "big picture" a step further here. Why not suggest to the office staff or the guys that work in the shop/garage to come in and begin work at their regular time ( for instance 8am) but not to punch in untill 10am...... this is the way drivers feel when the pay stops but you still have an hour and a half of driving left to get to the destination. Whats actually wrong with getting paid for what you do? Are tolls not a tax deductible business expense? I totally understand there are drivers who would take a longer route to milk mileage but there are ways to deal with that and even chargeback fuel to them for stupidity. I'm just saying if you were on the crap end of the stick you wouldn't be so perplexed about the "big deal" over mileage pay. I've said for years a man should not be paid according to how many times a wheel go's around. An experienced driver with a good record should be earning no less than 50-55 cpm in todays world using HHG. And no, I'm not a union employee.