Linehaul drivers. How many hours a night do you spend waiting?

I run a lot of blanket wrap office furniture, and kitchen cabinetry from Ontario, Canada to mainly NYC, NJ, MA, GA, FL. Some of those idiots in NYC need a 24 hr appt for a few chairs. I ve been held up 2 days in the past because of them. I prefer running FTL, less hassle, and less getting jerked around by morons

 

Must be nice to dictate when you're getting paid for waiting. I don't have the option to just go on the clock. Linehaul is cpm at ODFL. P&D is hourly.

Some runs have downtime. Those are the ones that fall to junior drivers at bid - the broken runs.

 

Hmm...OD doesn't pay overtime 'til 60hrs and doesn't pay wait time?

Yeah, they're sliding farther down my list of 'if I had to jump ship' LTL companies. FXF linehaul is cpm, but any delay time is paid hourly. Getting paid for all my time is one of the main reasons I'll never go back to OTR.

 

Yup FXF pays for delay, drop and hook plus fuel. The road runs that they give me are awful. For now city>>>>>>>>road runs

 

I know exactly what you mean. If I could turn and burn, I'd beat everyone back to my barn and I would just dock my trailers and head home.

But one of my meet drivers was notorious for taking his time. He'd have me waiting for hours on end and I would show up just in time for them to have me set up for a local P&D route. I think that was what pissed me off the most. Thinking you are done only to get flagged down to do some stupid last minute run that adds more hours.

 

Do team drivers for ODFL have this issue?

 

I think if a company does not offer waiting time compensation you are going to sit a lot. Up here if I am on duty company must pay me for every minute I log. I only log off duty once per shift for lunch. They find themselves up a creek if they say they won't pay then I won't log and then a facility audit would determine if I were on duty or not. Heap big doo doo for company.

 

The happiest 4 hours I ever spent, was get this Crisfield Maryland. Eastern shore. There is a facility there that ships Bay Blue Crab among other things.

I get to wait on the people processing and packing the crabs and loading into the container that morning. Laughter, food, drinks and general good music supportive of a very good morale and a productive workday filled the facility.

I was a little bit bad coming in with a bad attitude and overall Mr Grumpy type problems. But come out of there? I was sorry to leave.

One of these days I might have to find a home there if I need to. The people were great there.