2200 miles a week as a newbie?

Hometime. I rather do my 34 hour reset at the house than at truckstop or shipper.
Depending on the freight lanes your company runs. Work for company that has loads in and out of your area then its easy to get hometime and make money.

 

Toomanybikes and I have had a lively exchange in this thread. I'd like to follow up with some facts, based on my experience with Swift as a trainer.

Swift trainers receive a monthly bonus for all miles driven by trainees that have upgraded to solo for six months after their upgrade. During my year as a trainer I upgraded 10 trainees. One was a complete failure, did a grand total of 4,500 miles his first month and quit. Three had prior years experience and we're getting back in the industry, they averaged 10,000 to 11,400 miles per month. Six were brand new graduates of CDL schools, they averaged from 8,600 to 11,100 miles per month. Other than the wash out that had serious issues with poor work ethic, all graduates averaged at least 2000 miles per week.

Fleet average miles per week is closely tracked. Depending on the fleet manager, who will have a mix of new and veteran drivers, fleet average for OTR hovers around 1,900 to 2,000 miles per week. That figure is dragged down by a number of drivers that have difficulty adjusting to life on the road, need lots of home time, won't drive at night, etc.

Why were my trainees well above average? I like to think it's from fundamentals I taught them for maximizing miles:

1. If you have available miles and hours to run today, run them.

2. Untether yourself from having to take a 30 or a 10 at a truck stop. Learn to take showers or shop at Walmart on a 30 minute break. This allows you to take advantage of taking 10's at small parking areas in the middle of nowhere and will maximize use of your available hours to drive.

3. Play "work up". Don't take 14 hours to complete your driving if all you have to do today is drive. Try to finish 11 hours driving in 12 hours, including pretrip, 30 minute break, fuel stops, etc. That way your next day driving will start two hours earlier.

4. If you have an appointment for a live unload or live load, call the customer to ask if you can be early. Ask them if you can park for a 10 on their property (I've had several occasions when small customers will ask me to go ahead and back into a dock after hours, I take a 10 and would be woken up when the forklift starts loading or unloading).

5. You are selling your 70, so make it count. Log two on duty tasks at the same time, like fueling or making a pickup or delivery while also doing a pretrip or post trip.

 

I do not agree. If a driver proves they can run miles, they will get them. I averaged around 2800 a week at Stevens, and did a lot of 33 or 3400 mile weeks. Sure, had some bad 2000 mile weeks, but any week I could run all week, I ran more than 2000

 

Yeh, everybody likes to believe they and they alone run the big miles. Most are diluted on the promise the recruiter gave them and have no sense of time and the mathematics of it all.

The recruiters, dispatchers, planners and all the office staff like to install this notion into drivers that the only ones that don't succeed are the one that don't try. Well that makes everybody at the Mega-crap trucking company because they are all out the door within one year: 100% turnover.

"Prove they can run the miles, they will get them" is one of the phrases like, "your one in a million baby, ""your not like the other girls," " the other girls mean nothing to me," "your the bottom #####," "play one ho against the next;" all that means means is your getting played by the freight pimp. The freight pimp always tells you what you want to hear, and for a freight hoe, what you want to hear your hard work is paying off.

See they set up this framework of BS that they get drivers to believe. First they get drivers to think in terms of "miles" not money. Like, they are working for miles. Like they can take miles to the bank. That makes them forget about all the money they aren't earning for all the work they are doing. So when they are working hard and the money isn't coming in like it should, they can all sit back and brag about the miles they get. You know to save a little face.

 

You make me laugh, haha I like your analogy.

But, some people make the megas work for years and years. My trainer at stevens had done 16 years with stevens.

Now, I know how much bs is at all the megas. But on the flip side, I had a great first year experience at stevens. Sure, some bs, but all in all a great year. How do you explain that?

 

You know the guy just down the road from me should be on his 29th year at Swift. You know what he got for his 25th year at Swift. Nothing, nada. Not even an attaboy over the Qualcom. He even sent his DM, home terminal, fleet manager, and terminal manager a PM over the Qualcom to remind them. Not one of them responded.

But, he likes what he does. I too, loved driving OTR even at a mega like Swift. Although, the funny part he and his wife have the same opinion of Swift as I do. I just wasn't going to wait around for 25years to find I am not appreciated.

You can't ignore the fact almost all jump ship before a year is up and long before their truck training loans are paid off. McDonalds does not have a turnover that bad. Obviously, some are delusional, incompetent, lazy ##### that couldn't keep a job at the local 7-11. But, I have met plenty that aren't. Most people that are on this forum have worked for a mega. - past tense. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

 

That's sad about that swifty.Goes to show what companies think of their drivers.

 

Both @Toomanybikes and @TheRipper are correct. Toomanybikes is correct because he notes that mega carriers tend to give short loads with full days on them to drivers. TheRipper is correct because he notes that if you PROVE you can run more miles you will be given longer runs and JIT (Just In Time aka Just In Trouble) loads.

Think about it from the point of view of a planner at a mega. It follows the old 80/20 rule. 20% of your drivers are solid gold. They can and are willing to take any load, anytime, to anywhere. The other 80% may be recent CDL graduates or established drivers that have "put down their foot" and refuse to run at night, or if a single snowflake MIGHT fall, or just plain and simple can't seem to drive more than 500 miles if they have nothing to do today but drive.

Who are YOU going to give the JIT 1000 mile run to? Mr. Give-Me-A-Load-Anywhere or Mr. Jeez-But-I-Need-To-Stop-And-Top-Off-My-Sippy-Bucket?

Especially at mega carriers you can have a job and do VERY little. About 20% of the driver's in a typical Driver Manager's fleet are getting half the miles.

It is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you want more miles (income) then RUN more miles.

Do well in this first job, learn how to run, then work up to a better opportunity.