CRETE - A Year in Review

WEEK THREE
Monday Jan. 14 through Sunday Jan. 20



Well, it's Monday and things couldn't be more boring. One big drawback that comes with just making it to a shipper when you run out of hours is that you can get stuck in some very desolate areas while doing a reset. My options of entertainment include a small Shell truck stop and a dollar general store. This is going to be a long day. At least I have a good selection of DVDs, (I was able to stop off at a Blockbuster in Pinedale, LA at my last stop, used DVDs 4 for $20). I also have a strong signal on my Sprint Broadband card, so I'm good to go.

Tuesday is here and I'm ready to go. My 34 reset was done at 2:30am, but I don't need to get started that early, so I start out at 5am, my preferred start time. It seems to work out best most of the time.

I head over to the shipper and PU my loaded trailer and am ready to roll.

I'm going to take a step back to Monday here and talk about a conversation I had with another Crete driver while at the truck stop doing my 34 reset.

This driver, I'll call him Clyde (the name really seems to fit), has been with the company for 16 years. We went inside for something to eat and of course started talking about Crete. We were both in agreement that freight as a whole has slowed down and he was seeing a reduction in his miles, nothing overly significant, but noticeable. I told him that I too had felt the slowdown, but felt it was due more to the increase in live loads/unloads, particularly during the last quarter of last year, and the loss in productivity due to sitting around waiting for appointment times.

As the conversation continued it came up that I had just come off a 3900 mile week and he was very surprised, telling me that he almost never got more that 3000 miles in a week and usually gets 2500-2700 miles a week.

Sorry to get sidetracked, but I felt it was important to bring up Clyde. I thought it was a great opportunity to point out how a difference in driving styles can affect your overall mileage.

I had told Clyde that I was in the middle of my 34hr reset and Clyde was telling me how he couldn't remember the last time he had done a 34 hour reset outside of hometime. "Don't see any reason to sit around all day, why do that when you can just work an average of 8hrs a day and never have to shut down".

It just so happened that we were loading out of the same shipper and delivering to the same customer with a Drop/Hook delivery in Ogden, UT(1895mi) scheduled for Friday18th 00:00-23:59. That means that it is a Drop/Hook delivery due anytime on Friday. That also means the load can be dropped anytime before that.

It was late Monday afternoon and Clyde had decided to spend the night after picking up his trailer. I had yet to get my load, which would happen the following morning. Clyde had asked me when I planned on making my delivery. I pointed out that it was about a 30 hr drive, so I planned on having it there by Thursday mid-day, that way I would be there early enough to get another load and should still have around 3hrs of drive time left in the day to do a pickup.

Clyde told me that he couldn't run that many miles a day because he was only gaining 7-9hrs a day, plus he had no desire to work that hard. He was going to get started Tuesday morning, just like me, but said he would make his drop Friday evening and spend the night at our terminal down the road and get his next load Saturday.

I realize this is a bit long winded, but I'm in the middle of another 34hr reset (this is coming from the future) and I'm stuck at another nothing to do truck stop.

The point of all this babble is to show the difference between running long days with resets compared to more reasonable short days. How you run is up to you, and I have nothing against drivers that like to work at a more relaxed pace. That's what is so nice about Crete; you have the option to work at your own pace, within reason of course.

Anyway, the result: I did arrive Thursday, early afternoon and was dispatched on my next load shortly after...I can only assume that Clyde dropped his trailer within the Friday delivery window, spent the night in Salt Lake City and was on his way Saturday morning to pickup his next load. By Saturday mid morning, I was a 1000 miles away.

OK, back to Tuesday. I leave the truckstop (Clyde is still asleep in his truck), I get my trailer, and from reading above you know that I opted for the 11hr driving days so that I could deliver early and get a new load by Thursday night.

The first day is uneventful and I take my 10hr break at 5pm in the middle of nowhere Texas, I actually stopped after 10 ½ because I wasn't sure if I would be able to find parking when my 11th hour was up and didn't want to take a chance of getting a log violation. One drawback to running 100% compliant is that I often have to do this to assure myself of a parking spot. I do miss the old days with the other company; I could have gone a few extra hours down the road and had a good steak for dinner in Amarillo.

Wednesday starts again at 5am, my break was done by 3am, but no point in getting started too early, I'd just end up shutting down for the night by 3pm anyway.

As I start driving for the day I am annoyed to find that there was a truck stop 30mins down the road (wasn't listed in either of my books) that I could have parked at. If I had done that I could have made it to Cheyenne today. Why Cheyenne, well there is a great little restaurant about 2 miles from a truckstop I stop at that serves a incredible Chile Verde. Instead I have to stop short outside of Loveland, CO. Another day down.

Thursday is here there is a little snow on the ground and I'm off at 5am again. I have about 500mi to go and I hear on the radio that the winds in Wyoming are acting up. This turns out to be a bit of an understatement. When I get to the top of the hill outside of Laramie I'm treated to more wind and blowing snow than I really care to deal with, but I am informed by the east bound drivers that this is nothing compared to what lays ahead. They weren't lying. The road west of Rawlings was as bad as I've seen up there, as far as wind goes that is. See Pics below. Clear skies with a 60 mph crosswind and 70+ mph gusts; this was a good day to be grossing 77,000#. I contemplated shutting down for a while, but east bound trucks had made it through so I kept going.










I eventually make it through Wyoming and dropped my trailer in Ogden at 2:30pm. Send in my MT call but informed dispatch that the customer had no MT trailers available at this time (this is bad at Crete, if you don't have an MT it can be a hassle getting another load). I asked if they knew where I could find one or if there was a load I could bobtail to. Reply "no loads available at this time check back in a couple of hours". Not being one to give up that easily, I went back to the shipping office and asked them if they had any trailer that might be unloaded within the couple of hours. I didn't really expect them too, but I knew they had MT trailers on the property; they just didn't want to release any of them. "Can't hurt to ask" I always say. Well it works and they decided to let me have one of the MTs scheduled for loading. He says there should be another MT by the time he needs one. I thank him and head out back to the truck.

Now, I pull out the gate, find a parking spot along the road a short distance away and I send a message to dispatch (15mins after being told there are no loads, I know better), "a MT trailer has been released to me, let me know when you have a load available". What do you know; 10mins later I get a single load offering going to Paris, TX(1392mi) and its another drop/hook PU and Del. SWEET! Here is the annoying thing, and it has happened before. The load picks up at the very same place I just delivered to, so I turn around and bring back the same trailer I just left with. I apologize profusely to the gentleman in the shipping office and ask him if my load is ready to go.

It's around 3:30pm at this time. He informs me that it is not scheduled to be loaded until 8pm (I knew this but thought I'd give it a try). That puts me past my 14hr clock (no big deal, I already have 500mi for the day) and I tell him I'll be back in the morning. Customer has overnight parking available close by. I do call back at 8pm to find out if the trailer is ready (I can't pick it up because of the log, but they don't know that), they tell me loading hasn't started, "they are running behind, you can check back around midnight". I inform Crete of this and I put in for detention pay and go to bed.

Friday the 18th starts at 5am as usual. I head into the customer to PU my trailer. It's loaded and ready to go. A quick check of the paperwork tells me that they finished loading the trailer at 2:30am. It was suppose to be ready by 8:00pm the night B4. That's 6 ½ late and works out to be around $45 in detention pay while I slept.

This load is scheduled to drop in Paris, TX anytime Sunday the 20th. If I run it right I can have it there by late Saturday afternoon. Things go well, other than a 100miles of snow packed roads in southern Colorado Saturday morning. It was 3-4 in the morning and I was the only one on the road, so that went along way in reducing the stress levels.

I do get the load to the receiver by Saturday but am out of hours. Head over to a local truckstop and settle in for the night.

I now have run 3287 paid miles so far this week, have 15hrs left of my 70 and 3 days to use them. I seriously think about getting a hotel room so I can watch Sunday's games and do an early reset. But I opt to send in an MT call with this in mind.

Crete's dispatch works like this. You send in an MT call, the computer determines how many hours you have available based on your daily hour reports that are sent in each morning by 7am. What the computer doesn't seem to take into account is the number of hours that have been worked sense the last hour report. In my case at this time, the computer thinks I have 27hrs available, but because I have been driving all day I actually only have 15.5hrs. What does this mean?

Well I send in a message that "I'm out of hours for today, do you have a load offer that I can PU in the morning, or do you want me to check with dispatch in the morning". This way if a good load comes around I can take it. If I'm only offered what I consider to be bad loads, all I have to do is tell them I don't have the available hours and go watch the games. After all, I have good miles for the week and I could think of worse places to spend a 34 reset.

Now, I'm convinced that dispatch just pushes a "Load Offer" button because loads offered after a full day are often not feasible and it takes a second message refusing loads due to log constraints to get what seems like a personalized response.

Anyway, I get a 2 load offer. First load is a Drop/Hook PU anytime today, (DaH! I'm out of hours. See what I mean about my "Load Offer" button theory) that is going somewhere in TN (600mi) and has a delivery of Monday 00:00 to 00:00. That means it's an appointment delivery and the appointment time hasn't be set yet. NO THANKS! These often end up having late afternoon deliveries and make it difficult to get another load that day, or you will get a load and all of a sudden I'm running nights. Icky poo!

The second load offer peaks my interest. It's a Drop/Hook PU in Fort Smith, AR any time after 7am the next day and delivers in Jacksonville, FL (1204mi) on Tuesday at 15:00. I hate afternoon deliveries for above mentioned reasons, but with my tight hours, this might just work for me. I'm also thinking about going home and this definitely gets me to the right side of the country for that. This load would have never been offered to me if the computer knew that my hours were this short.

I do some quick math and determine that if I get going at 4am, I can be at the shipper when they open, get my trailer and go. If I drive 11hrs I will be able to make it to Montgomery, AL. Once there I can do a 34reset through Monday and start driving early Tuesday and will be able to drive the final 500mi and be in Jacksonville by 13:00. This gives me a two hour window to deal with the unexpected.

I accept the load and do as planned. I arrive in Montgomery Sunday night in time to catch the Cheeseheads desinigrate. I can't believe Favre threw that interception.


Week three results; Monday, Jan 14 through Sunday, Jan 20
Miles include deadhead

Reserve, LA to Ogden, UT.................................1895mi
Ogden, UT to Paris, TX......................................1392mi
Fort Smith, AR to Montgomery, AL..................703mi


Total Paid Miles...................................................3990mi
Actual Miles...........................3892mi

3990 X .42 = $1675.80 plus $45 detention pay
Yes, I did get paid for more miles than I ran. Crete pays practical miles. If you can find a shorter way, it's your option. I ran some back roads through Colorado instead of Interstates. This isn't common, but it does happen.


In closing, I have shown that these kinds of miles are possible, but everything must work out perfectly. You can't waist any time and you need to be proactive in your thinking. I don't eat much, so I don't need to stop 3 times a day for meals. I tend to eat one good meal a day and I take my showers, do my laundry and food shopping, etc during my 10hrs breaks.

I can't recall having two weeks like this in a row in a long time. I'm sure I'll run into a kink or two soon. In almost every case in the past two weeks I have been able to deliver my load a day early and almost every PU and DEL has been a Drop and Hook. This is the exception, not the norm. D/H usually run in the 70% range at best.

Wow, what an endless rambling that was.

Catch ya next week.

 

Yes, Shaffer is part of the Crete family, but running refer is much different. As a general rule you will get less miles with Shaffer because of the nature of refer work. Many more live loads/unloads that seem to take so much longer than dry loads (you will get detention pay after 2hrs, and you don't have to fight the company to get it) and middle of the night appointments that mess up you 14hr clock. Shaffer does pay an extra penny per mile though. I just talked to a Shaffer driver who runs 48 and he said he grossed $58,000 last year, but he is also at 46 cpm. New drivers with 1-3 exp get 42cpm(I think). Dedicated drivers get less per mile, on the Crete side you start at 38cpm, I am assuming Shaffer would be 39cpm. Dedicated drivers also seem to get less miles, but get home more often. It really depends on where you live and what account you might be able to line yourself up with.

Shaffer is going through a shakeup at the moment, and you know how truckers love change, so you will probably hear some rumblings. Shaffer used to basically be run as a separate company with dedicated dispatchers and they had their own operation centers. That is in the process of changing. The operation centers are being consolidated and Shaffer will now be dispatch on a regional basis like we are at Crete. No favoritism, first unloaded, first dispatch. It seems to be ruffling the feathers of the Shaffer drivers.

I pulled a refer for over 3yrs with other companies and to this day can figure out why I did it so long. What a pain in the butt. Dry van work has far fewer headaches involved with it.

Concerning the starting with Shaffer and switching to Crete at a later date. That used to be common practice, but from what I've heard in the driver lounges they tend to frown on that these days. But that is just what I've hear from other drivers. We all know how solid that kind of info can be.

Car hauling, considered it myself. Spent some time on the phone with Precision and talked to a few of the drivers. Seemed like a good gig once you get the hang of things. But you're looking at a step learning curve and allot of hard work. That part didn't worry me but that was just before I started with Crete and I could see the economy slipping then. It doesn't take a genius to know what happens to auto sales when it hits the fan. Crete/Shaffer concentrates on hauling "necessary consumables", the kind of things people need to buy, even when things aren't going so well. I felt I might be better off here. So far, so good. Who knows after the way the market acted today.