High Cost Of Fuel & Effects

Personally I don't care how much fuel I burn. If they want their deliveries on time I just drive. Not my job to worry about the cost of fuel.. Besides our trucks only do 60 so their saving fuel that way.. Not to sound insensitive, but that is just the way it is..

 

Your argument is lacking...I'm sorry.

I have a horse in this race. My idle time was 2 hours total last week. My fuel economy averaged 7.4 miles per gallon....BUT

Yes, companies know the difference between idling at a red light, and idling in a parking lot. Do they keep them separate? Some do, most of the complete turds of the industry (like Covenant) don't, or at least didn't.

Hunt's Point is a City violation. The tickets start at $300. The $1000 fine is a state violation. You get those when it's issued by a State Trooper.

The "no idle" law, has a cut off point. At 25 degrees and below, you ARE allowed to idle your truck in NY, city location or not.

Staying in a motel? Fine...show me the money. This industry has thrived on the backs of drivers sleeping in their trucks. Otherwise, we all would be driving day cabs with a storage compartment.

WE as drivers made ALL the hard sacrifices to sustain our cheap ### companies and our families. It's time the company bore some of that.

6 million dollar CEO salaries can buy 120,000 motel rooms annually. Fire that worthless SOB and pony up that money for drivers, motels, and fuel.

Don't like the smell of your neighborhood....Move to the country, and teach your grandkids where corn really comes from.

Truck speed for me has nothing to do with delivery times. It has EVERYTHING to do with lost wages. Sure, I can get them back. By driving additional hours every week. But that same sorry ### CEO won't be working extra hours....will he?

The words "We all have to make sacrifices" usually translates into drivers taking it up the ### without vasoline...and nobody else.

 

Look at it this way:

Driver A wastes fuel by idling all night, and wakes up fresh and ready to roll. Cost to the company, 20 bucks.

Driver B tries to save the planet by shutting down at night. He sweats or freezes all night, and wakes up tired and cranky. Cost the the company, zero.

Which driver is more likely to cause an accident? Companies don't like accidents. Especially the kind that kill people. Because those are the expensive ones. Grieving people are harder to buy off, and juries tend to sympathize with them. If they manage to settle out of court, a company might take a $10,000,000 hit.

That twenty bucks is looking pretty good right now, huh?

 

I know it's not funny...it bites.

But here's a funny for you...Hunts point. I heard an on air interview with someone associated with Hunts Point market. The guy was whinning about carriers "padding" the cost of the freight bill, by $300, to cover the cost of the ticket

 

AND not only that, you remember a few weeks/months ago, the government of this great country, <slight giggle> said they wanted to tax the outlandish profits of the oil companies, saying it wasnt right for the speculators to help drive up the cost, putting more profit into pockets of big oil, while the civilians pay out the nose. (off subject, you really think anybody in big oil actually pays for their gas?) You really think that big oil would actually PAY those taxes?? If you think so, you are stoooopid. Big oil will pass along those taxes to the consumer in some form or another. AND the price of gas/oil will just go up to cover that cost increase.

Same holds true for how much gas prices are. I work at a truck stop, and 1 out of every 20 trucks that come thru b!tch and complain about the price of gas, saying "if they dont go down, i just wont buy anymore", or something along those lines. REALLY ?? I hardly doubt that. Besides, I want to walk up to them and say, "YOU AREN'T THE ONE PAYING FOR THE GAS GOING IN YOUR TRUCK ANYWAYS, THE COMPANY YOU DRIVE FOR DOES !!!" Even if you're an O/O, if the price of gas goes up 50 cents in the next week, you really going to pay for that? or pass that increase on to the shipper asking for your service, and just charge them more in the fuel surcharge. What does a truck burn per hour to idle?? a gallon an hour?? so if you sleep/idle for 8 hrs, you are going to burn close to $30-35 in gas. If your company cannot figure in idle time to keep the driver comfortable, they really dont care about the driver, WHICH THEY SHOULD seeing how that is the guy (or lady) getting their job done.

Sorry, if i NEED to idle, i am going to idle. Until they come up with a new way to move as much freight with a 'clean' vehicle, the planet will just have to put up with the polution. Trucks are ALOT more 'green' now than they were in the 70s and 80s.

 

Let's cut the bull #### right here.

First off, there are 168 hours in a week.

We are allowed to "work" 70 of those.

Leaving the other 98 as "idle" hours.

VERY Few drivers are actually driving 70 hours per week. Most are averaging around 50-60.

That tells me immediately the driver is turning his truck off. The driver IS taking care of his company, as best he can. Simply because his truck has idled only about 64 hours for the entire week (IE 6 complete sleep cycles plus 4 hours). There are still 44-54 hours that have not been counted..... as idle time or driving time.

So the actual idle time for an OTR driver is about 40% for the entire week, if he idles the truck only during sleeper berth periods.

The holy grail for companies, is 30%. This puts the driver at a severe risk for an accident.

The company is looking at an 8 hour sleep cycle, with 2 hours spent in the truck stop or someplace else. That's how they get the 30% figure that they want.

8 hours sleep or rest in the truck per day....period.

This is the ideal working model of a trucking company working at peak efficiency and minimum expenditures. The other side of that model, is the truck would be moving constantly, when it is not stopped for a 10 break.

Which again...the company fails miserably.

 

Ive said it before and Ill say it again. If my company has a problem with my idle percentage, they need to look at WHY Im idling so much...not the fact that I am idling. Do they think we idle just to piss them off?
Nope, we idle to keep warm or cool, to keep the batteries charged, to keep the engine from freezing up(cold weather), ect. What other reason is there to idle?
Hey CEO of xxxx trucking, want a low idle percentage from me? Give me 3000+ miles a week and Ill keep it around 20% or less. Some companies like to sit their drivers for days on end, then wonder why their idle percentage is 50%. Well, that should be pretty easy to figure out. After all, if you can run a trucking company, Im sure you can figure out why your drivers are idling so much(or so little).
When I was with Crete, I tried my best to keep my idle time low. (lowest was 9%)
1) I tried to run during the day and shutdown at night so...I wouldnt have to idle
2) Shut my truck off anytime when it didnt need to be running
Mind you, I NEVER got a fuel bonus, I never got a call saying good job on the low idle time, I never heard a peep from anyone about anything. I did it because it made me feel good to be saving my company money(whether they aknowledged it or not). However, there were times when I simpily wouldnt put myself in jeopardy and ended up with a sky high idle time for the week.