Refusing to Haul a Dispatched Load

There are legitimate reasons to refuse a load after you've accepted it and hooked to the trailer.

Hours of Service ain't it. You should know how many hours you have available and whether your clock will allow you time to safely haul that load. If you accepted the load and then realize you can't haul it because of hours, you may have opened yourself to a service failure.

Too much time on the load....ain't it. You have the option to review the load before you accept it. If you believe there is too much time between pickup and delivery, talk to your DM about it. The load needs to be picked up. You can offer to your DM to go pick it up ($50 in your pocket) and take it to the yard, you may get an even better choice for doing that favor. But talk to your DM before accepting the load. If you accept it first, you are committing to pickup and delivery times.

Here are some reasons to refuse to move a load:

Your truck broke down or the trailer is damaged to make it unsafe to haul. Well, duh...

The load was scaled incorrectly and it is impossible to make California legal....and it is going to, from or through California with no way to route around. (Scottied67 can attest to this) If it was only supposed to go through California say...Portland, OR to Phoenix, AZ, offer your DM an alternate route with the mileage difference and request to be routed that way. There are a few options to get from Portland to Phoenix without touching California. And most of them are much more pleasant than I-5 anyway. Enjoy the scenery. It's a beautiful ride.

You suddenly came down with food poisoning and *brrraaaaacckk!!!!* can't haul it. But you better be telling the truth.

The load is leaking oil (or some other substance) and you don't want the ticket. California is especially militant about this. This is the reason I am not going to Houston (we-have-a-problem) with that load I was dispatched on a while ago. I hooked to the trailer and did my pretrip inspection. Wait...what's this? Motor oil....hmmm.....where's it coming from? Looked under the trailer...it's leaking from between the floor boards of the trailer. Methinks there is something more than stainless steel inside that trailer. It was back in the corner awaiting a wash from the high-pressure hose. I'm thinkin' Dispatch knows about this....so I'm immediately on the phone with my DM.

Long story longer, he pulled me off the load and told me go on ahead and take the paperwork back to the window. When I got there, I handed over the paperwork and surmised right away that the leaking trailer was not news to these guys. I ferreted the story out of them. Apparently, the driver who dropped it knew about the leak and said something to dispatch about it. They had the security guard go take a look at it. He said it's just on the outside of the trailer and let's just wash it off. (I interjected at this point: "So now, he's a Haz-mat expert?") Anyway, they now know it is not a simple wash job. It is a return to shipper for proper packaging. Whether that is actually done or they, instead, find some poor sucker to haul it who isn't smart enough to pretrip his or her trailer remains to be seen. But...no service failure and no argument about it.

There are other good reasons to refuse to haul a load after you've accepted it. Mostly stuff the shipper has control of. I've kind of left it open for others to bring in good reasons. But your DM needs to be part of the process. Storming into the terminal, slapping the paperwork on the counter and hollering about it probably won't get you very far.

 

In this thread, I'm speaking about first accepting a load (Macro 9 response to the preplan is the time to refuse for HOS or whatever....or to accept the load) and then hooking to the trailer or arriving at the shipper. Then refusing to haul the load. After you've first accepted it.

But you are right. In a way, too much time on the load could be considered an HOS issue. However, that's not quite what they had in mind for that. The question that should be answered there is: will hauling this load place you in violation of HOS rules? If not, HOS refusal does not apply. 95% of the time, the computer will just kick you loose of the load and send you the next most logical one. 5% of the time, a planner will look at your refusal and your reason, then have the &#$ with you for misuse of the Macro 9. Of course, if you are O/O or L/O, you can refuse for any or no reason. I just don't want my Company team members to wind up in dock with the boss. I kinda like working with most of you.

Regarding simply accepting everything: you can still be the boss of your own boat. You only need a legitimate reason for refusal and contact with your DM. (I'm speaking to the Company side here.) If you don't have the hours to legally run it, don't feel pressured to do it. If you are supposed to be going home to Georgia in five days, you are sitting in Memphis and they send you a preplan to Idaho, you can refuse for hometime request. But these refusals need to be made with your Macro 9. Not after you've been dispatched and then realize...."Oh, crap! I can't make this one happen!"