Calculating Miles Driven

Post office to post office... or Household movers guide, as it's commonly refered to. The shortest route possible....in a car.

You'll find many trips that exceed dispatch miles by up to 10% or more

IE You get paid 500 miles. But had to drive 550 miles.

 

When I teamed with Tri-State Motor Transit in the late 1960s, they accepted odometer miles. I have seen trucks with hub miles devices attached to one of the drive wheels, and have seen drivers taking a reading from the hub. It is more common for carriers to use one of the books such as the Household Movers Guide. At Key Line Freight, we were paid percentage but the safety department occasionally checked a route with a bicycle wheel device attached to the car's rear bumper. The said that they were "wheeling it", and they were probably trying to substantiate a new freight rate.

http://www.randmcnally.com/rmc/company/cmpNewsRelease.jsp?oid=1073855385&year=2007&cmty=0

 

These miles are generally closest to the way a bird fly's

 

There are very few companies that pay by actual miles driven. There are some, but they are rare. I drove for one years ago, and a friend of mine currently drives for one.

A lot of companies use Opti-Router for the routing, which can put you on some very interesting roads at times. PC Miler is where most get the miles to pay the trip on and go with Practical miles.

You definitely will average 10% more miles than you are getting paid for.

 

And then some pay zip code to zip code. Anything within certain zip codes would be considered "local" work and payed an hourly (substandard) rate. For most runs though, it is from the outside edge of the zip code where you pick up, to the outside edge of the zip code where you drop.

As others have said, you can be sure you will be driving unpaid miles, any way they cut it.

 

Mileage pay. That is my biggest complaint next to not being compensated for all "on duty-not driving" time.

Mileage pay is fine for OTR drivers. The problem I have is, how they calculate those miles. Some pay HHG, others practical while the rare ones pay actual. I don't know about the rest of you but I would expect to be paid for every mile that truck turns. Not zip code to zip code or post office to post office.

Can you imagine answering a company add that stated;

Now hiring, truck driver, mileage pay at $.40 per mile. But we only pay you 90% of the actual miles you drive. The other 10% is your way of thanking us for giving you this job. See ya later would be my answer. Who, in their right mind, would want to work for free?

I even heard an advertisement on Sirius Radio from Trans Am Trucking. They state that they now pay practical miles and that equals more money in your pocket. Isn't that nice of them! They finally are paying their drivers better. Not actual miles but better than before. If Trans Am would have paid their people properly from the beginning, maybe their turnover would not be so high. That goes for the rest of the industry as well.

Companies, pay the drivers for all of the miles they drive. After all, they do deserve it.

Drive safe

 

Yes this is right and others mentioned the same things...HHG has been used for years and we all knew they were abt 10% off the actual mile and accepted that fact.......
BUT here lately the company I am with now I have noticed that there are many times the actual miles may be less than what they have stated sometimes we got a few more....I usually try to run the trip on my computer and get the shortest route on the preferred roads and am pretty well on the money with the stated miles........don't know what they are using to determine the miles but at least the rate/mile is closer to being accurate than the HHG formulas used in the past.

 

My dispatch told me the dead head was only 26 miles. I ran it on the gps and it was 43 miles. I ran on the computer it was 41 miles.

I asked them about it and they said that is what their program came up with. I asked for the route it gave and got no answer.

 

sometimes ya just can't win for loosing....