Per Mile/Practical Miles / Percentage

There has been many debates over various pay scales, Practical, HHG, Percentage, etc. Although I have my opinions as to which is better for "ME".....the one thing that is often over looked is the miles......

For example, a company that pays .28 practical and gives you all the miles you can legally handle, than you stand a good chance of making a decent living. On the other hand, if a company pays .40 practical but does not give you many miles, you could very well starve.

As for percentage, it all depends on what types of loads the company hauls. High paying loads = more $$. Cheap loads = less $$. But then factor in how MANY loads you're pulling per week. Several cheap loads may equal more money than a few high paying loads or vise versa.

In a perfect world, you would want to maximize the pay with minimize the runs.

 

A search of the site using the "Search" feature will provide some prior dis ussion of this issue. Also, in the "Storage Trailer" section further down on the board there is a very informative post you may find of interest.

 

I think that HHG is the most heinous scam going in this industry...in the US? The neoliberals couldn't send trucking to a third world sweatshop so they brought the sweatshop home. What do they call that...whenever you work but don't get paid? Slavery?

 

Exactly, for if you are O/O or Lease Op. you want to run More Money, Less miles to save on wear and tear of the equipment. Thought I would chime in my 2 cents worth.

 

In 2007 when this thread was started $.27 was pathetic! That is and still is an embarrassment! I made that back in the late 80s! To be insulted in 2007 BEFORE any of this excuse of a recession in trucking was a BFI crap company! To be even asked to open a door for $.27 is again an embarrassment and I would not pee on the tires of a truck for that!

As for percentage ONLY if you have a copy of the contract between your company and the shipper or broker with the price of the haul. If not then you are going to get ripped off by a BFI! They can tell you anything to get you to turn the key to the truck! Don't forget that those empty miles cost come from somewhere so that percentage pay needs to cover those also.

HHG? OMG! who the hello still uses THAT ripoff book or old program? Again another BFI wanting you to run about 12 to 23% more miles that they pay!

The safest routing will be practical miles. PC Miler is the program I'm used to. My last experiences was with PCM 20.0. It's now up to V 25.5 I think. It was at worse less than 10% off in practical. It did have a few stupid problems such as every parking lot their spotters and mappers saw became a truck parking area! I checked a lot of them against my routes I was given and printed off and it was a joke! Churches, every grocery store even those I saw with no truck allowed signs, a small auto transmission shop in NJ and other idiot places! BUT the routes were always good and pretty close on the miles and way better than HHG and others.

Now that joke of shortest route. IF your company pays you that crapola then drive the stupid thing! I have proven time and again that shortest does not mean bestest! (Yeah, no such word!) as it costs MORE in fuel due to not staying on an interstate, it costs in log book quarter hours or minutes on e-logs due to stops, slower speeds, traffic and narrow roads and the speeds assigned to those roads NEVER match to real life! But let your company keep thinking you'll drive the practical route as they know you will but if you kill their fuel mileage, their log hours and here is where many of you screw yourselves is it IS the companies hours just as much as they are yours! They send you on these bullcrap side show roads to screw you out of pay and you follow these routes and those HOS they think are yours effects them just as badly but believe it or not those college educated idiots that think they are coming out ahead are doing themselves worse that they are you with loss of fuel mileage, loss of those very expensive 1/4 hour lines in the log book, wear and tear on the truck and a schedule that's going to get bent because they believed that last box that says 3.25 hours when in the real world that 150 miles did NOT take that 3.25 hours but maybe 4.00 because of a few extra red lights, a farmer on his tractor pulling a 10 row disk and all those 25 MPH zones! All those routing programs only calculate by the average speed and when it spits out it's route those higher ups with the brains in the company do not add maybe that 45 minutes or 1 hour to the load for those just in cases that always happen then find some way to blame you for wasting their fuel, killing the appointment and anything else the idiots can throw on you!

The best way to get paid?

Off the Hub or by the Odometer which has become few and far between due to idiot drivers taking advantage of a good employer by padding the paycheck with out of route miles and those being on purpose miles! those guys you can thank!

My choice? PC Miler practical and a fair CPM of over $.35 which is still old pay and not up to today's cost of living expenses and they know it.

Keep driving for those BFIs who pay less than a fair rate and you'll keep getting bent! Stop driving for those morons and when THEIR wallets go flat they might figure it out that they still make money IF they pay their drivers! They still think paying orientation costs is the way to go! What a stupid way to throw good money at a black hole! And they call themselves CEOs and Owners!

 

Excellent post! I want to make an observation. If HHG were truly zip code to zip code, as companies claim, then there'd be a chance (maybe not an equal chance, but a chance) that some trips pay more miles than the actual route. NEVER HAPPENS!!

HHG, short miles, zip code miles, whatever you wanna call it, it is nothing but an excuse that companies use to swipe a few miles from every trip. It is dishonest. It is theft. It must stop.

Being forced to work for free used to be called slavery. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution outlawed slavery, and slavery by its new name = short miles must go.

 

Very old thread. Companies will tell you how they pay. You have a choice. It's not theft nor slavery. Don't work for those kind of companies. Encouraging drivers to tear up equipment or waste and steal fuel from these companies isn't going to fix anything and will likely cost someone a job with bad marks following them around. That you do this just goes to show what a sorry excuse you are.

 

If anybody suggested it, you just did. It never came up in any of my posts. Also, if the idea is bad, it's a bad idea. No need for you to try to insult me.

 

I always thought hourly was the best way to be paid, myself...If i am inspecting the truck, i am compensated. if i am strapping, tarping, etc, i am paid until the job is done, instead of a set rate that is predetermined. Fueling, waiting, getting inspected by the dot, all paid.

Plus, when bad things happen, you are not the "fall guy". Goofy shaped load that will be a pita to tarp? paid at rate until its done. Dot is pulling suprise inspections in a kmart parking lot? paid while they hold you up. Dispatch doesn't know what to do with you after an unload? not your fault, you are a driver, not a dispatcher, pay me.

Why donate? if i am in the service of an employer, why would i give away time for free?