a quick question about driver turnover

I still say the problem is the drivers don't do their research before changing jobs. I stayed at the last job for 9 years and only left when poor management nearly bankrupted the company. I've been with my current company 6 1/2 years. It's trucking. Sometimes I have good weeks and sometimes I don't. The overnight runs are probably the hardest part to deal with. In the end though the reasonable insurance cost, 401K, and 59 cpm avg year to date keeps me here. Is it hard work? He'll yes it is! Is it worth it? Absolutely!!!

 

To combine with that philosophy the other thing is if the wheels are not turning you are likely not making any money. Now there are exceptions to that. Figure out stuff in real terms. I would get more miles going west but I would get premium mileage pay for going east which at the time was an extra .02 cents a mile. If I touched any of the 5 boroughs of new york I would get an extra $50.00 for the stop. We had a progressive drop rate $30 for first 35 for second and 45 after that. I could do the run twice per week and the money was better then some other things that I have been doing because the stuff for just doing your job and showing added up quickly. After I bought a good map and went with some experienced drivers on these routes a couple of times I found doing New York not that bad. I could have went to New York or Chicago downtown. Both places have the same issues traffic, low clearances and ###### places to back into.

Difference with all of the extra items by going to New York by the time both runs were said and done I would make almost double the money doing new york. Accessorials and places that pay detention can make the difference on a lot of runs.

 

At every truck stop there is another ad telling you about the 1% of every company. Like I just recently saw our company's new ad showing off our 1% drivers that are making 70k+ a year. What the ad doesn't tell you. These drivers are running team and they spend 360 days out a year in their truck they do rolling resets and are basically available anytime to go anywhere.

At lot of what you make is based on what type of life you want to live if you want to see your family you are going to make less. If you want time off you are going to make less. The typical driver at our company makes 45k - 55k and that is based on a typical 3 weeks on the road per months give or take 21 days. If you take a local job with our company if you want to have something of a typical life the salary is around 35k - 40k a year. If you need the income of OTR local you are going to be putting in 14 hrs a day and if you are doing that you are almost better staying OTR because you will get more sleep.

I have worked at 3 different company's over time and it is all how your company slices the pie of trucking the rates are all about the same and it is split between different area's and some company's are getting accessorial charges for their drivers some are not. But in a lot of way if you have a flashy truck you are likely getting less in salary and benefits. If CPM is high you are likely driver a more modest truck. Most trucking outfits can't afford to pay out on all 3. The only place this changes is with private fleets but they use trucks but they are not a trucking business as such but those company's due to the higher pay and benefits and excellent trucks and be very choosy in who they employ and a lot of time they have very strict requirements for staying employed.

 

Hired on with my present company as a company schmuck. Had to ride with a trainer for 3 weeks. Got put with a DM who was always on the job. I made sure I kept in constant communication with him. He liked my work. He was the DM for all the rookies. I was his first driver that got suspended for high miles. After some months, they would put you on with another DM that was suited to your style of driving.

My new DM was a criminal. Mean, aggressive, load stealing, underhanded criminal. Every office has oneIf you ran, you made money. If you didn't, you got the left overs until you "fired" him. We got along great. He'd throw, and I'd never drop the pass. Everything was fine until he went on vacation.

"Hello, this is Six. I am an hour from my final drop. Where do I go from there?"

<CLICK>

(He hung up on me. Now I am ticked. I will be his new best friend.)

"Hello, this is Six. I am empty. Where do we go from here?"

"No sir, there is no stand by. That's why I called you an hour ago. I have started my day and I have a limited amount of time to make something happen, and get parked. You should have taken care of this an hour ago. This is why I called you, because I knew that the replacement desk jockey would only be able to think in slow motion!"

"Why do they have you answering the phone? You don't know anything. You can't do the job. Why did you answer this phone? You have two choices: Laredo or Houston. Pick one now.[/quote]

So, I went to Laredo, and they send me a load assignment going from Houston to Alberta. "Idiot. As long as I got paid for driving to Laredo, that's fine."

December 24th. In Houston picking up 40000lbs of pipe on a 53 ft step, axles closed, 10 ft trailer overhang past the tandem. The loader put one pipe on and it's sticking past the end of the trailer by 2 ft. The loader wants to know if I can haul it. Nope. I need a flatbed. DM2 couldn't understand why I couldn't haul the load on a step, and I tell him how marvelous his brain capacity is. He sends me to this customer where we have lots of trailers to find a flat.no flats. I go to another place on the other side of Houston. No flats.

"Are you dense? We still don't have a flatbed. Is this your idea of a joke? Find me another load."

"I empty out on a Tuesday, and now I have to sit til Monday because you did not do your job. This is why I called you before I was empty. I did my job, finished a 5 stop run starting in Decatur,Tx and finishing in Lytle,Tex and you can't connect the dots on your computer screen."

"Yessir. I'll make it work. Thanks"

So, I waited for the driver to bring me the flat from 350 miles away.

So I tell him what happened. While on the phone, the driver with the flat finally shows up. My DM was ticked. They paid me detention from Tuesday afternoon til Friday morning, mileage from Lytle to Laredo to Houston, and he got me a load that picked up Saturday from Blytheville,Ar and delivered Monday. It is amazing what an aggressive dispatcher can accomplish.

Pleaders Digest version: If you're going to make noise, be sure to be good at your job.

 

Reasons for high turnover:

1. Poor working conditions.
2. Not enough pay for the hours worked.
3. Weeks and weeks away from the house. Number 3 is a killer. While your friends and loved ones are having a great time on the July 4th holiday, you are sitting at a truckstop for 2 or 3 days, 1000 miles from home.

 

Study on driver retention published in 1997, commissioned by the American Trucking Associations.

http://www.atri-online.org/research/results/musical_chairs.pdf

There's really nothing new under the sun.

 

this is such a late response to your question and I do hope you made a good choice in finding a good company that is keeping you busy ...

remember this ... the squeaky wheel gets the miles ... you have got to say something to a driver manager or higher if you are not getting the miles you think you should

 

it's all of what you mentioned combined .... and so much more

meaning ...
drivers first getting into the business and finding out it's not a glamorous life ... quit
new drivers that can't make money ... quit
new drivers that have accidents ... serious accidents fired
new drivers that don't cover their ### and get too many csa violations ... fired ..
new drivers that don't pass the medical ... dot is making every effort to
get all drivers with any medical issues off the road........................................termed for no med card

 

OK, Some of the turnover, not ALL, before I get tore up here, the thing I notice from some newer drivers that are from a younger generation than mine, is what I call the "this sucks" attitude. There are a lot of people that have not had to deal with a lot of serious adversity in their lives. Not anyones fault really since each generation trys to make sure our kids have life better than we had. a lot of newer drivers are not only in for a major in life style being stuck in a truck for weeks on end, they have not ever had real pressure, the responsibility of large heavy truck, dealing with traffic, REAL deadlines, shippers and recievers, dispatch pushing, safty on you, rules, rulr\es, rules, d.o.t. and the list goes on and on. Now, a lot of us have experience in life that allows us to say to ourselves, "ya know, this aint so bad, Ive been through worse" but for someone without examples of how much worse it be it becomes easyer to say, "THIS SUCKS" and decide that they have had enough. what percentage of turnover is due to this who knows, but its gotta be some.
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