My Pride Transport thread as a newbie

I think it's the box that they put the chains in. Pretty sure they only have bunk heaters.

 

Yeah, only bunk heaters. There were a couple trucks with some kind of electric APU that they were testing for International that ran off their own set of batteries separate from the tractor batteries. I knew one guy that had one and it was broken every time I saw him.

 

-There's also 2 Cascadias that have battery operated APUs unit 02002 and unit 02001. I drove 02001 and mine ran for about a week with no problems but then it died on me tried to get it fixed at the yard and they didn't seem to care about it when all they do is complain about fuel econ.
-Sorta sucked that I was burned outta my produce runs Pride was really looking good till then

 

Hating per diem is quite a bit more like hating Bernie Madoff than it's like taking an automobile's safety features into consideration when buying.

Also, "getting the $$ now" comes at a much greater cost to the driver than just "a bit less" unemployment insurance.

The easiest thing to look at is vacation pay. Convert 25% of your earned income to per diem and there goes 25% of your vacation pay, straight back into your employer's pocket. If you earn $52K/year, that's $250 per vacation week.

Suppose you've been with the company a little while and receive two weeks of vacation. Do you really think that come tax time, the investment return on the piddling amount of tax that didn't get withheld (that cherished "give me my $$ now" money) because you took per diem, is going to exceed $500?

Let's suppose it isn't that piddling after all. Suppose 40% of your income gets withheld by the IRS (I'm making that number ridiculously high to give you a fighting chance). Converting 25% of your earned income to per diem means the IRS can no longer get its grubby hands on 40% of 25% of $52K. 40% of 25% is 10%. 10% of $52K is $5200.

Let's fortify your chances even more by assuming you get all of that $5200 in one fell swoop at the beginning of the tax year (instead of what really happens - receiving that amount spread out over the course of a year).

$500 is 9.6% of $5200.

I've given you every fighting chance I can think of, and you still have to find some place to invest your "give me my $$ now" $5200 that'll earn you a 9.6% annual rate of return for your per diem choice to make financial sense - and - that's just with regard to per diem's impact on vacation pay alone! If there's any bank paying that kind of interest these days, I'd sure like to know about it. In general you have to put your money in something pretty risky to get that kind of return.

I'm not interested in talking finance with anyone saddled with so much debt or other type of financial calamity that investing money is a pipe dream. Unless you have a lot to gain by hiding earned income (the textbook example is alimony payments), accepting unforced per diem's a mistake.

But I'll agree with you on the importance of a vehicle's handling characteristics: I personally would feel a lot safer driving a Porsche without seat belts than a Ford Explorer with every safety feature under the sun (except manufacturer attention to the laws of physics). :smt069

 

hey u still with pride ?

 

Did they do a Hair test sweetie ? or UA

 

They do both the urinalysis and hair sample.