Can I get a bit of advice?

OTR is bad this time of year at Swift, (and most other Megas) because most of Swift's customers are retail end businesses. If you have not noticed yourself, any good DL,DM will tell you that. Retail is dead after the big Christmas surge.

As such, this is the time of year that Swift culls the fleet. If you are due a safety or or service violation, this is the time or year you will get it. October, November, and December issues will just now become a issue with swift. Almost no one gets fired in November or December. People are forced out in February.

You need to know who your company's customers are in order to make good decisions. I have no intention of insulting anyone or their decisions. Advice was asked and that is what a gave.

If you get 500 miles a day at Swift consider yourself on of the few lucky ones; that is nowhere near the Swift average! What ever you hear the reason for that, it is not true! All kinds of excuses are made, but the basic fact is Swift only needs the man force they advertise to cover the Christmas retail shipping surge. After that, Swift looks hard to find a reason to fire drivers since they now have excess drivers and lack of freight.

If you are one of the few lucky ones that get 500 miles a day, do not assume anybody else at Swift is doing something wrong. That can be very insulting to your fellow drivers, and may just illustrate your lack of understanding of Swift and the trucking business in general. Swift's turnover hovers around 100% for a reason! Is 100% all wrong?

As an example, I knew one driver at swift with 20 years at Swift, and forty years in the industry. By all accounts he had a great safety and delivery record. He was deeply insulted when new Heavy Haul trucks were finally handed out and he did not get one in the first, second, or third round. He never had a new truck with the company and that bothered him. Yet I knew one driver that had 3 new trucks in her 18 months service to Swift. The first 60K truck was not "new enough." The next two she wreaked. Yet she got a third.

 

I just got in Denver this morning and delivered my load.
I needed to get to the terminal to turn in an accident kit, and I had 2 pplans before I got there.

Not very good loads, time wise, and I turned them down because I put my truck in the shop to repair a bumper piece.
Shortly after, I got another pplan because my truck still showed active status.

Loads are there. Sometimes not the best loads, but I could have had another 700 miles over the next couple days if I didn't go to the shop.

And yes, sometimes it is hard to maintain 500 miles per day - seven days a week. Many loads are simply shorter runs than that, and there is not always another load waiting right when you deliver.
Don't cry, it is the biz.

And all the loads that have kept me so busy this month have mostly been retail stuff.

 

+100 to that.

I was given a really sweet PP last night. The problem is that the pickup window was by noon today, and I really had to take a 34. Submitted a mac 9 for noon tomorrow, and it came back five minutes later with the pickup window changed to any time tomorrow (it's a D&H).

 

The freight is there. Keep your record clean, and maintain a 100% OTP. Don't turn down the 100 mile runs... that's 100 miles you didn't have before, and it's probably 100 miles closer to where the good freight is.

Work with the planners. You'll get a reputation with them after a while. Who's going to get that 2000 mile run... the driver that takes everything they send and gets it there 100%, or the driver who rejects half of the runs he's given?

 

That is fine as a company driver, but us L/O, we have to watch what the planners do. Many times they do not look and just try and throw anything at us. Have had times at this time of year that they will try and move me from one bad area to a area that is worse. I have even had them try and dh me 15 miles to pu a t-called load that is going 5 miles for a live unload, and take 1 day

 

I agree with parts of this, also some who dont get the miles are just lazy or too picky period. Yes its a slower part of the season but thats not just for Swift, i have talked to drivers from other companies who are a bit slow too. I noticed this past week I have seen a lot more trucks moving and filling up the truck stops in the area. I deliver to retail being Targets and it has slowed down, I have been averaging about 2200 miles for the past 2 weeks but my checks are still better than if I was otr doing 3k miles.

You just have to be willing to take what you can get, not too long it will pick back up again especially since tax returns are right around the corner so people will be out shopping.

 

All we can really do is take things as they come.
Everyone is slower this time of year, for the most part.

One reason for a high turnover rate is drivers that can't cope with how the industry works.
They get less miles for a few weeks and turn to another company for a quick fix.
Then when it happens again next year with that new company, they move on again... and again, and again.
To them, the grass is always greener on the other side. But too often that is not the case.

People have said that Swift has a 100% turnover rate.
If that were true, I would not be here after 3 years. Nor would other drivers that I know to have even many more years.

Numbers can reflect non-reality, on so many levels.

 

Would it suck less to come in on Friday and spend the same weekend off to get to the next Friday?