CRETE - A Year in Review

2008​

WEEK NINETEEN​

Monday, May 5th through Sunday, May 11th ​

Monday has me looking at just over 700mi to my destination with 11¾ hrs left of my 70. This is going to be tight, but doable. I have a very light load and its interstate driving the whole way, I should have no problem averaging close to 65mph. The problem will be with a PTI and a Fuel stop I will be arriving at the customer with little time left on my 70hr clock and the closest truckstop was close to 30 miles away. If the customer won’t unload me that night or doesn’t have overnight parking I will have a problem because I won’t have any drive time left. My only option will be to find a nearby hotel with truck parking. After being in this truck for over a month, a hotel sounds like a dandy idea anyway.

I had started my day as early as possible in anticipation of making it to the customer during business hours late Monday afternoon in the hopes of an early unload. When I got close enough to know when I was going to arrive I called up the customer and asked about their receiving hours and was informed that they stopped receiving at 4:30pm. I was set to be there at 4:15 and asked if they had overnight parking available. They did. That’s all I needed to know. I would be able to show up, and even if they couldn’t unload me tonight I would be there waiting in the morning.

When I pulled in I let them know that I was early for my morning delivery and would spend the night in their yard, but was told that they had another truck coming in the morning and it would be better for them to unload me tonight. “If you insist!” He also told me I could spend the night after unloading if I needed too. I love it when things work out like this.

Two forklift drivers went to work on my load and I was MT within 15mins. I pulled out the computer and set to work finding a nearby hotel. I found one that was about 8 miles away but I was completely out of driving hours. We are allowed to drive the truck within a 15mi radius or so for personal use during our down time, but I called safety just to confirm my plans and was given the OK to drive to the hotel.

So, instead of driving in to the customer tomorrow morning to make my delivery and starting my reset then I am now MT and will be ready to start my next 70hrs early Wednesday morning and in effect only costing my one day of work. Much better than waiting until Thursday for my next load. And I will get to spend a couple of nights in a real bed for a change. When I made the hotel reservation I was told to park in the Home Depot parking lot, not feeling too good about this, I hunted down the store manager to get his personal permission, checked in and headed over to the Texas Roadhouse for a nice steak.

That was an awesome 6 days. Even though the miles were broken up by the weekend, I put in just under 4000 paid miles since my last reset in Pittsburgh.

We’ll, it’s 5am Wednesday and my reset has come to an end. I head out to the truck to let dispatch know I’m ready for my next load and wait to see what they throw at me.

It’s a very nice D/H PU just outside of town that has a D/H delivery in Dunkirk, NY (659mi) as soon as I can get it there. I optimistically hope to get it there by tonight so I can get a load offer out the following morning. This turned out to be impossible due to an extended trip on a slow two lane highway going into Chicago at the height of rush hour and some very heavy rain along the way that brought traffic to a near stop and I came up short of my destination, but I got close.

I was able to make a 5am drop delivery on Thursday morning and was ready to go after my MT call. Unfortunately the freight wasn’t cooperating and I was informed that there was no freight available. “Sit tight, we are calling customers trying to line something up, we will let you know”. Not what I wanted to hear after a resent reset. The customer had parking available so I decided to take a nap and see what shows up later. Hopefully I won’t be here all night.

The wait ended up being 6hrs before the Qcom finally coughed up yet another single load offer. It appeared to be a D/H PU 90 miles away, but not until after noon tomorrow. Holy crap! It was going to TN (528mi) and delivered anytime on the 11th. This just isn’t real. That’s 3 days away. I can only assume this is a D/H delivery and an early arrival would be acceptable. I accept the load and await the details.

Sure enough, the consignee is a Wal-Mart and they will take my drop any time. That’s one obstacle out of the way. Next was to work on picking up the load early. The PU wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow from 12:00-23:00. This is an almost certain sign that it will be a preloaded trailer. Although if I show up today there is a very good chance that it wont be ready yet, but I’m determined to head that way and see what happens.

At this point I had been sitting for 6½ hrs and not being in any great hurry I decided to sit for another 1½ hrs so I can do an 8hr extended sleeper berth. That way I can put the breaks on my 14hr clock and turn some miles tonight if I am lucky enough to get my load today.

Once I had my 8hrs sleeper berth time I headed down the road to see what I could do about getting my load. As I drove through town I noted a large vacant parking lot with trucks parked on it. Looks like I have a parking spot if things don’t go my way. As it worked out, I didn’t need to worry about that. When I arrived at the shipper I let them know that I was early but hoped my trailer would be ready to go. After some paper shuffling I was informed that it wasn’t loaded, but if I backed into dock 1 they would get me loaded. Out standing! Another saved run. Time didn’t exactly fly because it took a little over three hours to get loaded, but I wasn’t about to complain.

I was now in a position where I could drive until 3am or so because of my use of the extended sleeper berth provision, but wasn’t really in the mood to run that long. I did run until midnight, which is far past my normal work day, but was sitting good to make a Friday afternoon delivery (as opposed to Sunday) with a fair amount of hours available to get a good start on my next load. This is good because there is a 90% chance that I will be picking up a preloaded trailer from a nearby customer that I have been to many times.

Friday goes just as planed and once I make my drop at Wal-Mart I am sent a two load offer along with a message “I have no loads to get you to PHX (I had put in a hometime request for Wednesday, not imperative, just a general target), but these will get you going in that direction”. Load one is to TX(950mi) and the other is to IA(1068mi). Again, these are Friday pickups that deliver Monday and have me sitting when I don’t want too. Looks like a 3000mi week. I had anticipated this and as it turns out the IA load works out just peachy for me. It just so happens that this load is going to a small town that is 45 miles from the town I grew up in. This is also the weekend that my grandmother is returning from AZ to spend her summer in IA and my father will be driving her car up there. So with the slightest alteration of my routing I will be able to spend Sunday with them and have just enough spare time to put in a reset while I’m at it.

With that in mind I head off to get my preloaded trailer. I will have just enough hours to drive far enough down the road so that I can make home town IA the following day and still have time for a reset. This little plan is shot to hell shortly after hooking to my trailer. I managed to make it 30 miles and caught a glimpse of one of my retreads flying off into the ditch (tire stayed inflated). At least I was only 3 miles away from a truckstop with a tire shop. I had about one hour to spare before my reset window was blow and was thrilled to be directed to a bay door right away. This excitement slowly faded as time passed, however, and I ended up sitting there for over two hours. So much for the reset and any hope of strong miles next week. Well, now I know I don’t have to be in any great hurry.


Saturday was a slow paced day because I was in no real hurry. No matter how laid back or hard I drove I wouldn’t be able to make it to IA until Sunday late morning so I took the opportunity to stop by our Indy yard and see what I could do about getting a B service. The truck was just due for one and if I could get it into the shop now it would be one less thing to worry about later. I was very surprised to be directed to a bay as soon as I got there. I took a short walk down the road to get lunch and was absolutely floored when I returned just over an hour later to find that it was done. I will make a point of stopping at the Indy yard more often. At most of our shops it is not uncommon to wait 4-6hrs after the truck goes into the shop.

I actually ended up driving out most of my hours on Saturday because I wanted to make it to Walcott, “The world’s biggest truckstop”. My CB hasn’t been transmitting for about a month now and it’s getting to be a pain. Especially when I’m at a customer that wants to use it to communicate. I know there is a decent CB shop next to the Pilot and now that I have a little extra time I can get that taken care of and check out all the toys while I’m there.

Sunday is basically a short 300mi hop to home town IA and my week comes to a close.


Time to spend some time with some old friends and family.




WEEK EIGHTTEEN RESULTS
Monday, May 5th through Sunday, May 11th
Miles include deadhead


Matfield Green, KS to Menomonee Falls, WI(last leg)........................705mi
Jefferson, WI to Dunkirk, NY........................................................659mi
Meadville, PA to Midway, TN........................................................616mi
Newport, TN to Small town, IA(first leg).......................................1038mi


Paid Miles..........................................................................3018 miles

Actual Miles…………………………..3087 miles


3018 x .42 = $1267.56

Not the greatest miles for the week, but this tends to be the case when they start heading you home. You are dispatched on trips that get you home (or some attempt at getting you close) as opposed to ones that optimize your miles verses hours. When I picked up my last load there were actually 3 other Crete drivers there that where getting trailers that delivered the next day but going in the wrong direction for my needs. The loads offered to me were both actually scheduled to pickup the next day, but because they were going in the general direction I wanted they were made available to me early.

 

longbed wrote:

I've been fueling at TAs, Petros and Loves much more regularly lately, even when there is a pilot next door.

The odd thing is that I often see other Crete and Shaffer drivers fueling at other truckstops across the road at the same time. Like yesterday, I was fueling at the Loves in N. Little Rock, AR. I dove across the road to park at the Pilot and there was a Crete driver fueling there and at the Petro across the street there was a Crete and Shaffer driver at the pumps. It doesn't seem to make much sense.

They will also have me fill my tanks when I have over half a tank in a state where the fuel price is $4.60 and I drive 150 miles into another state where the fuel is 30+ cents cheaper and just drive by. I can only assume they know something I don't, or they need a new fueling program.

 

Elusive wrote:

Very good point!


RBPC wrote:

The new "No pet" policy has really stirred things up at Crete. A large number of drivers are quiting because of it and from what I've been hearing in the rumor mill Crete is thinking about changing it to allow current pet owner to keep their pets on board. Just a rumor and you know how that is. However new hires will not be able to have pets. I think the primary reasoning is that trucks with pets have a much hire idle percentage along with the pet damage and odor issue.

Well, it looks like Crete reduced their starting pay 2cpm for one year drivers and 1cpm for two year drivers. I'm not too surprised by this. Everyone is trying to cut back costs and the powers to be at Crete are probably regretting the 3cpm across the board pay raise they implemented close to two years ago. Even with the cut, Crete pay is still exceptional for newer drivers.

Here's the info from Crete's website

"The company offers one of the most comprehensive pay packages in the truckload industry for its qualified drivers. National Divers with one or two years verifiable OTR experience start at $.39 per mile. Drivers with three or less jobs and five years of driving experience in the last five years start at $.42 per mile. In addition, drivers are eligible for a one cent ($.01) per mile annual pay increase. Maximum base pay in the National and other Long Haul Fleets is $.47 per mile based on practical route miles, which would equal $.49 per mile based on short route miles paid by most companies. Crete Carrier pays practical route miles instead of short route miles to our drivers."

Note that practical miles are very important to the pay check. If a driver is being payed by HHG (short miles) you are in effect making about 2cpm less due to the ridiculous amount of uncompensated miles you are expected to drive.


DaddyMoJo wrote:

The reduced freight availability means that the driver demand is not what it once was. Companies can now afford to be far more selective on who they hire. So if you are a driver with a job hopping history, have a questionable driving record, live too far outside of freight lanes (too much deadheading to get you home) or are new to the industry it is going to be a little harder to find a good job. That good old supply and demand thing.

As far as PDX freight goes, it has been a rough area for Crete. There are so many companies with a strong hold on outgoing freight up there(May, Gordon, Market, Swift) that it makes it difficult to get drivers out of that area. I was actually stuck in Yakima for over two days this winter and have talked to a number of drivers that had similar experiences.

 

I like to throw a pic or two in when I run across something interesting, problem is now that the weather has calmed down there really hasn't been anything to compel me to snap a shot. I'll keep my eyes open for you. Until then heres a couple of interesting shots from the past.

Two trucks, one lane:


Extreme boating:


Still looking for that pot of gold:


Casket that flew out of the back of a Hearst in front of me up in Seattle: