Truck driver turnover - why so high?

really you need to be like that on my comment??????

 

Missed the sarcasm, huh?

 

Thats what I am talking about. I am retiring from the Army here shortly. Yes I have a family. I have been a trk driver for 15 yrs. When they took me off the road I was mad. They told me I had enough time behind the wheel. I loved being away from the flag pole. Out on the road I am my own boss. Be to Pt A to Pt B at a certain time accident and incident free. I m looking forward to getting on the road again to get paid to see America.

 

yumm maybe,maybe my panties were just to tight too.

 

Happens to all of us!

 

One of the main reasons that turnover is so high, is that drivers just quit and dont tell the management what the issue is.

Dispatchers rely on constructive dismissal to get rid of drivers without clearly abusing them.

A lot of companies are unaware that their drivers are being abused. The lower management will often interfere with drivers attempting to contact upper management... refuse to give out contact information, or attack them verbally... even attempt to fire them without authorization.

I recently had a dispatcher tell me that if I talked to OSHA, I would have to turn in my truck and they would bus me home. The issue was an illegal trailer with 22 tons of cargo... that had no brakes and was suffering structural failure. The trailer had failed inspection and was labeled "Do not load until repaired"... The DOT is currently investigating. I called OSHA, they sent me directly to a manager when I explained what was going on. I did not expect that.

All I had to do was call... and people refuse to. New drivers just get fed up and quit... and the dispatchers and load planners get away with their crimes. Like my OPS manager just committed a felony by trying to keep me from reporting to OSHA... a felony with up to a 10 year sentence and $250,000 fine.

So I called every department I could find with no luck, and finally got the upper management by reading the literature given to our customers...

The upper management was stunned...

The dispatchers had also tried to send my student driver into NYC while I was sleeping... I told them it was unsafe and they retaliated by sending me into every ultra-urban area on the east coast.... and on off hours. The worst thing isnt missing a load... its that we lose our parking spots and have to risk be ticketed and harassed by local authorities because our dispatchers sent us on a wild goose chase.

I never had issues on dedicated accounts, probably because the dispatchers are watched closely and the customers are not afraid to complain. Customers complain about everything, and they have a direct line to upper management in many cases.

The CEO of my company got involved when a dispatcher was messing up my account... and we are a $2 billion company!

So ya, a lot of the issues have to deal with non-dedicated dispatchers that get away with treating drivers badly because their is no big name customer to complain, and people dont know constructive dismissal is a crime...

 

yeah ... Google Translate sez this is gibberish ...

 

Believe it or not it's spam from Kiev, Ukraine. That one slipped by. Report garbage like that if you see it. Thanks.

 

Hey Liz,

Did you ever do the story that got this thread started? If so, could you post a link so we can take a look?

 

That's all good answers but that still doesn't answer my question as to how the system works with turnovers. Im thinking that it flows like water in with the new to get munipulated out with the old that know better an so on an so on. Their must be some kind of algorithm for the system that larger companies use that afects the smaller companies. Possibly some kind of tragetery that brings it all together into one working system. In that case most drivers suffer from the attributes of the system.