How do you treat you drivers?

The larger Non Union companies have a bonus plan. Damages come out of this bonus plan on a percentage basis and the driver gets what is left. It gives a driver an incentive to prevent damages knowing that a safe year will provide a nice bonus check at the end of the year. As an owner operator I pay for all damages up to the deductible as I feel is right. I don't think an employee should be 100% responsible for damages if they are doing their job correctly. You can go over a car with a fine tooth comb and find nothing, but when you get to the dealer their is a scratch or small ding. Stuff happens in carhaul that sometimes is not preventable and life still goes on. Just my opinion and yours may very well be different than mine.

 

I just go ahead and pay any damages and don't charge anything to the driver.
I don't even yell at the driver and sometimes the driver gets a bonus for the damage done.
Of course I am an owner and the driver........
The bonus is for me so I feel better after I damaged a car....
Although I haven't got a bonus in the last five years.....
This bussiness model dosnt work for everyone but it works for me.

 

31 days claim free give a bonus Driver gets a claim no bonus .. if he's not getting any bonuses replace driver or live with the claims

 

Not following training is grounds for charging them the amount for the claim.

Example: Driver improperly off loaded a vehicle and it fell off the ramp and damaged around the tire and under the front passenger door.

Example: We order them to do a proper inspection of vehicle with photos and an inspection report and call us if the vehicle is convertible (we have had bad luck with those so we no longer transport convertibles). Driver arrived to destination without the convertible top...that's not exactly his fault but he wouldn't have transported it if he told us what the vehicle was and sent pictures as instructed.

Now mind you, no one is unhappy here and no one quits. It's like they know they did not follow their training or any other instructions after their training so they're responsible from that point on. If he had called and told us it was convertible and we said go ahead and load it, it would've been my problem.

 

Convertibles get hauled on a daily basis. If you know how to haul one, where to place it on the truck and what to look at before you load it no problems.

 

Like sx said.

The convertible is not the issue, it is the lack of driver training that destroys them. If the car got to destintion with the top blown off, your driver backed it on.
Driving a convertible on is a cardinal rule of carhaul. Every third Mustang off the line is a ragtop, how do you think they all get to the dealer?

 

Soft top, I don't mind.
The older hard top convertibles though kill me. 2 claims about it later and I'm done with them.
I still haul soft tops which is one of the reasons the drivers MUST send pictures to us at pick up. Sometimes customers aren't always truthful and neither are the freakin brokers.

 

I have read online extensively about this issue, and talked with my lawyer (a cheap one for sure) and we decide to put into a policy letter and on the employment contract that any damages under the amount of the deductible is the drivers responsibility, they need to read, have a copy and sign the policy letter and the contract. We had almost no issues so far. They been taking care to fix before I notice.

 

We have always paid everything out of our pocket, driver has never been charged, however, we have been experiencing some brain farts here lately that I am getting tired of paying for, I am seriously thinking of paying an hourly rate with a bonus program starting the 1st of the year, this business is just getting to thin on profit to be paying for someone else's stupid mistakes.

As I understand it, paying hourly and docking the bonus IS legal, bottom line is, I don't want my hand in the drivers pocket, BUT I do want the driver to be more responsible, and for some it seems the only way that hits home is if it hits their take home.