The truth about trucking....

And...the game has not changed, it's June 21, 2017. As a matter of fact, the overall Trucking Industry practically has perfected the art of conning new drivers. New drivers fresh out trucking school are convinced to sign one year contracts. The trucking industry has become one of the top low wages workforce industries in the United States.

Walmart used to be on the top but since increasing its starting wages above Avg. nationally to $13.00 an hour compared to the average new truck driver weekly wages driver wages look like migrant worker wages. A truck driver that divides his weekly total hours on duty into his gross wages earned knows his true value to whichever trucking company he drives for.

The true bottom line of being a Professional Truck Driver is not the cent paid per mile or which company the driver works for but on duty hours worked divided by gross wages earned in a week or bi-weekly.[/QUOTE]

End qoute. Edited to emphasize this point.

The one year contracts remind me of indentured servitude offered to 16 year olds during the late 1700's time period in which 7 years was required of the young adult so that he will learn a new trade, prosper at that trade and gain his freedom at the end of that time period. In those days 7 years was a very small cost of your life to hand over when you consider a average aging of about 38 or so to 50 at most. People lived very shorter life spans compared to what is possible today in the USA. When I started trucking at 21, I was specifically told that the industry will not promise a good life span much greater than 56 years old should you survive. Well I survived and am coming up on 51. Ive got a body of a 80 year old medically and pay for the wear and tear that way (System wide osteo arthritis for one of several issues.) every day. I am not being negative when I say I had a good run in this life and frankly if I get past 60 it will be a miracle not seen since the days of John the Baptist to paraphrase and exaggerate.

Wife and I earned 65K with FFE and two other companies in all of 2001. Our average hourly earnings when you consider 140 hours a work week in total (70 x two drivers) at .48 to me and around 28 to 34 or so for her per mile, all paid to the truck averaged out to a hourly of 8.44 gross per hour for two people making for 4.22 per person per hour that year in 2001.

If trucking paid us actual wages for a professional driver each in that tractor, we would become very expensive. I think roughly 18 to 24 dollars an hour. call it a 22 dollar per hour per person per hour driving. It's still .50 cents a mile for 45 miles paid each hour (Actually 22.40 hourly on that mileage rate equivilant fleet average miles per hour) It should have been roughly $327,000 dollars gross paid to two fully endorsed etc truckers.

not 65K, buit actually 327,000 dollars gross for two. That's about what two ATP airline pilots with full certs would also make at a minimum for them.

I could make a case that we were carefully agreeing to a working situation that was feast one week, famine another week. You can eliminate that problem by becoming a trainer (Which I did for about 12 weeks that year and have been several times before in life without too much trouble with salary based at 1000 to almost 1600 when paid each week net after deductions between 1995 and 2001.

Anything after 1998 was notiable because I had enough experience in those days to literally go through the orientation and get assigned my own tractor without need for a trainer. It was however compensated by a rather high orientation pay because the first week or two is and was expected (And I was told it will be...) to be slow as a form of honeymoon to get used to the tractor, loading, unloading and learn the USA and get caught up.

While many people in the industry needs a couple hours to get off the floor after laughing at my theory that based on 22 dollars a hour for a husband wife team 327,000 gross should have been a average pay for that year in 2001. Or 153,000 for one driver. We did generate roughly 560,000 at a minimum revenue for FFE in 9 to 10 months and we generated another 6000 to 9000 miles per week in gross revenues as a team for a couple more months at most. I ran a few weeks by myself and our revenue was really good at a average of 2.40 a mile for my truck alone. Never mind the other 14000 drivers with me in JBH that year.

Most all companies with a power to sign a NDA (Non disclosure agreement) usually do so to protect whatever miles pay they gross to one truck with a given shipper and reciever. If you examine the CASS Industry Index for the United States in the year 2016 you will see a average miles revenue between 1.85 to 2.60 per mile depending on specific shipping region of the USA where the load is originated along with a understanding that about 12% of all tractors registered actively in 2016 were idle. With a fleet useage pecentage of at least 87% and probably a average potential miles of about 3150 given a company fleet average expectation of 45 miles per hour on a 65 mph governor and a 70 hour work week for one driver to that truck. You can easily double that to 6 to 8000 miles per week when you put two drivers into a truck. We have done it for months. Especially when FFE had us on the LA CA to Avenal NJ run that was completing a full round trip to LA each week every 6 days and so without fail. It's about 7200 miles roughly, give or take 20% paid miles difference vs actual ground miles run. In today's technology there is no reason to pay HHG miles zip to zip code when you can and do use GPS with the truck nailed down anywhere to 40 feet or slightly less anywhere in the USA at any time via satellite.

I think the coffee pot is about done, I'll pour a cup for everyone that made it to the end of this post. I tried to keep it somewhat simple using only what I know from first hand experience and leaving off too much spectulation etc.

 

[QUOTE="superflow, post: 6218979, member:
.... As for Owner operators i believe the lowest base rate for a semi is $50 an hr, don't try to tell us you can't run your equipment on $50 hourly minimum
.....they want e-logs
....we want hrly pay[/QUOTE]


That's a typical mindset of someone who has not a clue as to what this business consists of in order to operate and be profitable. You think $50 bucks an hour to run a truck is enough huh? Think again my misinformed friend.

In our area here, a normal drivers wage for a small, typical company is around $23.00 per hour. I'd like to say I'm worth that, especially with 35+ years of background in this mess. So if I pay myself that $23.00 per hour to be the owner/driver/mechanic/sales rep./coordinator/dispatcher/administrative person/and on and on and on...that only leaves $27.00/hour for operating expenses. Insurance based on a typical 50 hour work week runs approximately $5.00/hr. to insure my stuff anyway, and I don't run extravagant equipment, just older, extremely well-maintained equipment. Then ammortize fuel, the tires, maintenance, registration, UCR, 2290, blah blah blah, and that remaining $22.00/hr gets eaten up pretty stinking quickly my man. These figures are my best projection again, based on MY circumstances and my financials. Many of these guys nowadays are so deep in debt they need twice that per hour, but that's their choice, not the standard operating procedure.

Those who think $50/hr. is enough to run a truck these days are on a collision course for the bread line ,or headed back to being an employee.

 

From reading the last few posts, without going back and reading some 26 pages of posts, you have to sum it all up by saying that the only drivers who are actually making a fair wage are those who "meet and turn" or run each day or night to a "hub" and turn and right back home. If a driver spend days or even weeks out there on the road, he does good to even make minimum wages. I know the UPS drivers(feeder) out of the building here where I live, are paid by the hour, from the time they walk in until they walk off after a day's work.

Walmart drivers, when you divide the wages against the hours, ain't making "squat". Maybe $12.00 per hr. I made more per hour, when I was hauling fuel for Wilco .

 

It is truly sad that there are companies still paying under .45 cents per mile. On top of that to ad to insult a lot of otr companies don't pay for sleeping in the truck, dropping and hooking, pre trip, fueling, and post trips, hourly pay for break downs, safety meetings, or any classes. And some don't pay detention pay.

On the other hand there are some companies that pay some of what I named above. Then there are companies that pay all of the above mentioned. As for this industry most of us are over worked and under paid.

Now private carriers are suppose to be better than third party carriers. But it depends on what carrier it is. To work at .35 cpm and get 2800 miles p/wk is less than minimum wage. Example .35x2800=$980 $980/168 hrs= $5.83 p/hr= less than minimum wage. This is 3rd party carriers pay scale. Anywhere from. 42 cpm on down

OK know let's do a private carriers
Walmart paid me $3848.43 for 2 wks. And I worked 5/2 one wk then 6/1 another. So $3848.43/264=$14.58 p/hr= more than minimum wage. But to be called a professional driver and not make professional pay is what gets me.

Most professionals have a high income to lower hrs worked ratio. Let's say a lawyer for example. At 264 hrs (let's say there working on a big case) 264x$150 p/hr =$39600 this is professional pay! Now let's do a smaller case at $60 p/hr 168x$60=$10080 that's professional pay! And thes professionals go home every night eat home cooked meals etc etc.

I'm all for hourly pay for truck drivers. Since we are regulated at the driver level by the federal government, on HOS regulations. Why aren't the companies federal regulated on paying drivers. A full time worker in the U.S. has to earn $7.25 p/hr. Many so called professional truckers make less than that. If we all work making at least that for all time at work. Then that would make things a little better in this industry.

Instead to keep wages down, there's this falseness of a shortage of drivers. Don't be fooled by this talk. A lot of companies want less experienced drivers that they can pay less. Compared to someone like my self that has almost 15 years accident free. So I will want top pay for that.

But the outfits want to keep share holders and the top ppl within the company happy. So that results in new ways to cheap out on the ppl that do all the work to bring in the revenue for the company. Truckers are a dime a dozen, and they will go for anything. So that's why most companies do drivers like they do. At least these where the thoughts of a former ceo at a company I worked at.

 

Which is one reason I viewed an Automatic transmission as the instrument by which company may suddenly say yes to a massive percentage of students fresh from school who require further time with a manual under the eye of a trainer and even then, not all will master that manual.

We had a couple of very open discussions behind closed doors as I advocated for a manual in the new truck they were about to issue me and said that they don't care that my spouse has trouble with shifting, they made that problem go bye bye with buying a automatic (Or actually leasing, same thing for what we are about to do to that thing as a team...)

They indeed made that go away and wife did well. But I never was able to break her in to a manual until we changed companies and were presented with a 13 speed. Its not a suitable transmission for a newbie. She was still in her first year. We did finally get it worked out when a situation comes up, say on 40 east of Memphis on rising terrain that drags the road speed down and completely out of the gear she would be trying to get into. That gear would no longer be valid and has to go down two or god forbid three gears as the speed continued to drop. To add to the pressure, if you told her to change the range in any other instance on top of the currently bad problem getting worse as the radio lit up. HEY.. what you doing student driver? Oh she is a female and enter the usual stack of trash talking. I tell them to save it she is a student of manuals today and if you cannot deal with it get off the road. then turned off the radio as it was literally taking away my time and attention to shifting school.

To her credit she learned. Present to her Black Mountain westbound and she will hit the gears all the way down and all the way up once a balance was found to the load in that box upgrade. Over the top, jake goes in and we have her crawl up the gears even shifting outside of the tach to the 800 and 1200 range which is a form of what I consider to be very advanced mountain work not commonly taught to trainees.

(Sometimes a jake is too strong if you are trying to stay in a gear at 1400 or so which is above torque and below horse) and then your truck will snub or dip it's front end and buck because the jake will kill it and require a upshift where a speed at that new gear up will be too fast for the weight back there where it then opens a new chapter in downgrade thermal braking in which you applied about 8 pounds, 12 at most and hold her all the way down easing up where possible to improve airflow and cool. Otherwise it becomes snub braking (Or stab braking) or trailer trolley braking etc. which is a different kind of braking that works, but only as long you have air and you don't start to smoke or fade.

Once in a while a bucking jake will take a rpm between 800 and 1400 and maybe vary a little bit but not allow the speed to be too high, something of a inbetween. It's easier to ask a 10000 horse monster to turn over slow on the jake than it is to ask a 200 horse 60's era engine to try it against 40 tons shoving on it. It's inadequate. And up everything goes as you all fall down the mountain like right now.

 

I have heard some can get caught with the cheap software out there. There is about 20 different kinds that I know of. We do not need to worry about elogs and cheating anyway....I drive team dedicated and we run like 7 to 7 shifts...keeps it easy.

 

Yes, all types of software out there. Friend of mine doesn't buy cars, he leases them, then buys software for his laptop and basically soups up the lease car making it high performance. He leaves it that way when he turns the car in at the end of the lease. He also does something that makes it show 50% less than the actual miles he drives it. He changes that part back when he turns the car in, so that from the time he turns the car in and forward it shows the actual miles it's driven. He's a rich guy with lots of free time on his hands. He flies to China just to buy the software. Crazy guy to hang out with. One time he leased a Corvette, took it home to his garage, pulled the engine and rebuilt it with high performance racing engine stuff. Left all that stuff in it when he turned the car back in. He can afford to do all that and I have to buy used cars and make monthly payments!

 

How's things truckers we'll name is Lajuan I worked for roehl thought things was looking great first starting off my checks was 7-900 a week I'm like okay I can do this for a lil bit then slowly my miles start dropping me being a money hungry getting guy I thought I was doing something wrong nope they excuse was we don't have freight going out in a certain time frame or area we'll I got fed up with it after a few times getting a 2 or 300 dollar pay check I told them I was parking they truck they try getting me to stay but to drive a truck for that amount of money there out there rabbit mine not happening they thought and thing they have u by the balls and no not the case at all your a truck driver not a sitter I was in the flatbed fleet love flat bedding but stay away from ROEHL THEY WILL SCREW U ONE WAY OR THE OTHER AND MAKE U FALSE PROMISES NEW DRIVER BUT FAR FROM A DUMMY they run u good starting off then it just goes away NO CARE FOR THERE DRIVERS STAY AWAY FROM THEM

 

I'm dying to know, how did they screw you and what were the false promises? Please, do tell!

 

I try to tell these young drivers these days that the first rule is to never lease or buy a truck from someone that controls your dispatch.
The very best way to do it is to save up money fix your credit score and get a personal loan.
And I tell people that if you can't afford to put money away and save money and you can't get a good credit score then you're probably not a good businessman or a good candidate for coming up with the money every month owning your own truck.