mercer transportation

I'm selling my carrier and going to start running for Mercer. Thanks for the info.

 

Is it possible to be home every weekend? YES
Are there $9/mi loads? YES, every day
Loads out and back? YES

BUT you have to put it all in perspective. I've been home EVERY weekend since March. I know several other drivers that have been also, we all work in the same area. However we have a regular shipper that we all work with and they pay us to go out and back. In between I pick up local loads that can pay over $20/mi. Remember, concentrating on that number alone is not the whole picture. Take a load ten miles for $450, hell that's $45/mi. Yet people say they won't do that because it doesn't make enough money? Any one load should never be a deal breaker, a driver that has business savvy understands this. If a cheaper load gets me to a place where good loads are, is it better to wait a week for a good load, or take that lesser paying one and get on with the good freight? Each driver has their own expectations and requirements for revenue, where they want to run, home time, and Mercer or any other company may or may not be able to fulfill those needs. Most likely you will not walk into Mercer and start having everything go the way you expect at first. There is a learning curve of at least a couple months, and since the industry and market forces constantly change, the learning never ends. What worked last year may not work this year. Customers come and go chasing cheaper rates or better service. Remember, the only constant is change.

We all know there is a huge percentage of experienced drivers that dislike change, they want it how it was "in the old days" whether in their minds that is ten, twenty, thirty or more years ago. All of us who have been driving for decades know a lot of things were better a long time ago. Pay, in particular, is the key item, when in my own experience I used to work about six months out of the year and averaged $2.25/mi all miles. Fuel was 50¢, insurance was just pocket change, and a good truck could be had for $20K easily. Change, it happens, get over it. Adapt to what's needed to be profitable and accept the fact that many things that will not be liked are going to happen regardless, like EOBRs and even more restrictive HOS rules coming our way soon. Find a way to make it work. Drivers have caused many of the problems we have in this industry. I know it goes against the grain of the "truckers image" but try to be part of the solution instead of the problem. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

 

I would love to haul two short runs a day and bring in $450 a load but most the time when i do these loads it takes me 3-4 hours to load and the same to off load so i only get one load a day yes short hauls cost less and make more money than long haul thats a fact now if i was getting wait time after two hours than ya thats all i would do or if it would only take two hours to load and a hour to drive there and hour to offload than ya id turn and burn but thats my problem with short hauls. Its not really all about miles i dont give a per mile rate until its over 300 miles anything under that is a flat rate local is $350
100 mile run $550
200 mile run $750
300 mile run $900
but anything over that price really starts dropping but most drivers look for 1,000 mile runs i have never understood that i look at how many miles i can drive in a day i try to load drop and drop the next morning and do it all over again but thats my way of thinking. I talk to ever driver i get a chance to and ask as many questions as i can from what most drivers tell me they do get home most weekends but some dead head 300 miles home and some go out of the way 300 miles just to be home over the weekends its what ever makes you happy i have a place i drop off 50 miles from my house i sleep in the truck insted of driving that 100 miles there and back but thats me i dont keep my truck at home so it stays at a yard with no one around you worry about someone taking your truck for that load or just the fact i warm my truck up 30min before i leave any place and sometimes i sleep better in the truck because you dont have kids jumping on top of you..

 

Bayou - you touched upon a very important topic, loading/unloading times and detention. That's something that every driver needs to stay on top of. When I see things are going to be delayed I'm on the phone documenting everything with the agent and insisting that I get paid. If they start the crap of "this customer doesn't pay detention" after the fact, then I have to start talking about leaving without getting loaded. I know I'm "committed" to the load, but the load I accepted said I load at 10am and it's now noon. I don't know what loads you see, but I have been noticing far too many that say something like "customer takes six to eight hours to load, no detention". Well, if I do manage to somehow get sucked into that situation I will make it a point to log it legal. What, you "need" that delivered 600 miles away delivered at 6am? Sorry, I lost eight hours of my day getting loaded. I'll get it there when I can, sorry you're now going to be paying $300/hr for the crane and another $600/hr for all the workers sitting around with nothing to do. I didn't cause the problem, I'm not risking anything to make them happy when I'm not getting paid for my time. Just because so many other drivers are willing to put in 20 hr days and driver 12-16hr days doesn't mean I have to. I don't even think we should have detention time at all, but rather get "on the clock" at a reasonable rate from when we arrive to load/unload if an "open" schedule, or from our appointment or scheduled time otherwise. Our pay should be for hauling the load, then loading and unloading time should be a separate charge based on actual time spent on the job. That, to me, is about the only way it would be fair. Of course since truck drivers are exempted from almost all state and federal fair labor standards we will be waiting a long time for that kind of change.

 

I was at a pipe yard just last week in Baytown,tx right next to the race track got there at 7am and at noon the customer called me I said your paying $60 a hour for me siting here at 4:30 I was pulled around and than told they don't load stepdecks with levelers I was pissed it took them all day to tell me that now I dont make anything and lost a full day

 

Hey - I am a Owner Operator leased onto Mercer and I recently have been considering switching over to a con trailer. Does anyone out there have any suggestions or experience with Mercer and these trailers, or any other carriers? Let me know...

 

Bayou - I'd be having a real problem with that situation. First I would have been on the phone with the agent as soon as I knew of any delay. Then I'd be raising all kinds of hell being told about not loading your trailer. The agent knows you have a step and it is their responsibility to only dispatch equipment that can be loaded. And yeah, most obvious, the ########## shipper #### well should have told you upon arrival that they couldn't load you. At least you wouldn't have wasted a day, and could have been on the agent's ### and with your coordinator to put you at the top of the list for another load. I know I must sound argumentative and combatant, and I'm not at all. No screaming, yelling, cursing, just firm and polite and businesslike. And consider whether you want to haul for that agent again if they don't at least try to make it right. I've only got one agent that seriously pissed me off and didn't fix the problem, which they created in the first place. They've called me a few times desperate to move a load and I was right there. Nope, sorry, price not a factor, tough luck you'll lose the customer ... now, remember when you refused to pay me for ..... ???

Another thing, not everyone can do this .... I try to make a screen shot of the load I've accepted. I've gotten paid and seen a difference of a couple hundred dollars on the pay. I show them what I accepted, if somebody else made a mistake let them pay for it, it wasn't my mistake. You've been around enough to know that given the chance anyone that makes a mistake in this industry generally end up taking it out on the driver. Just like not knowing you couldn't load your step there!

 

I haven't seen that many loads that require them, but I have seen many places that would not load them. Generally they're better for a dedicated operation where they're requested. I have not yet run into another Mercer driver that has one although there must be at least a few. What are your reasons for wanting to switch?

 

Snowman_w900,

If trucking used to be good why are you still trucking? What have YOU done to make it better for you? Clearly life is better for you in the past.

California, depending on which statistic you look up, makes up around the 7th largest economy in the world. As long as that remains a fact freight will move in and out of the state. As far as I can tell YOU still live in the USA and are still free to make YOUR own decisions. If YOU don't like what California is doing....stay out! Not once did I recommend everyone "buy a new emission truck" because I want to run California. Nor did I state I "AGREE" with California. I've simply made a decision to run California. No one forces me to do so. That being said I'm willing (and able) to pay the price. Second, I don't recall YOU or anyone else in the room during MY rate negotiations. Have you ever been involved in negotiations? If not let me fill you in on how it works if it's done right....Money becomes a much smaller issue once all parties are aware of what each party needs. You may be surprised to hear what one of the biggest problems shippers/receivers deal with daily. So just for you I'll let you in on the "secret"......IT'S DRIVERS!! Drivers showing up with attitude, entitlement, demands etc. Drivers who are VERY inflexible. Guess what.......Agents, dispatchers, brokers get tired of dealing with the same tried and true behaviors of the typical driver as well. If you don't know what I am talking about, are getting madder and madder at me with each passing word then perhaps YOU are the problem. Look around. Stop talking and start listening and observing more. In case you're to worked up to do this let me tell you what the majority of drivers are doing.....THEY'RE COMPLAINING!! They're part of the problem. These guys are LOSERS!! Losers fear change. Losers live life looking in the rear view mirror. Losers talk about what was. Losers certainly don't offer solutions.

Personally I could care less if the Mercer guys I've visited with simply "didn't want me to know their business".
Their business isn't any of mine. It's MY opinion (and close observation) that Mercer has some of the least amount of complainers/losers of any O/O company.

 

It wasnt thru a broker when you pull in I filled out a sheet and it ask what trailer you have and I put step it ask if you had 4x4s also ask how many straps you have pisses me off I put all my stuff up and 10 hours pass and than say we don't load them that's pipe for you all them loads do is mess my trailer up anyway with pipe stakes