Can a receiver make you leave without BOL?

That's a good question.

As a company driver, I never felt like I had much of a choice to drop the trailer and leave. I would wait a couple of hours in the street, then check back on the progress of the load. If I was in danger of running up against my 14 hours I would leave and come back the next day or after my ten hour break, whichever was convenient to me. Most times I wouldn't ask the customer, I would just leave. If everybody did that the shippers would find a way to load the trucks faster.

Laredo: The first 15 years I worked for companies that had drop yards there, so it was a drop and hook situation. In and out within an hour with friendly treatment by the Mexican guys in the office. I loved going there.

The last ten years of my career I worked for a company that delivered their own product to a small Walmart DC and then we went and picked up a brokered load. It was a nightmare. Long wating times, little room to manuever, overweight outbound loads and rude people that acted like they had no idea what my pickup number was for.

 

Kind of between a rock and a hard place. Argue too much and they could tell you to just take your loaded trailer and your unsigned BOL and then you’re back to square one.

In my opinion, being bobtail and waiting for a call for bills off property is kind of a nice thing. Sounds like a perfect time for Walmart and lunch, which if done off duty/PC, would count towards a 2-3 hour split.

We do a lot of Tyson loads and other meat packers, so I guess I’m used to bills and trailers being held hostage for hours while I’m off property lol. I’m no lawyer, but lots of facilities follow the same procedures, so I’d assume it’s some sort of legal, as long as they’re not holding your bills and trailer for an obscene time

 

I was at a shipper in Champaign, IL that had warnings for being fined 150 dollars if a driver simply entered the back of their trailer. It was to cut down on people sweeping debris into their lot.

National Beef had me held hostage for 40 hours a month or so ago, but still couldn’t get my bills without signing a paper that had a bunch of rules and had “driver is still responsible for making timely delivery”. 10 minutes to spare and loaded 5 hours past window lol, but it did make it there.

Had to relay a late load from another driver to Miami, and the receiver had a 350 dollar no appointment fee, or pay 200 reschedule fee and deliver 2 days later. They don’t tell you this until you’ve already broken your seal and backed into the door.

There’s the other weird legal situation of having to pay lumpers at facilities that don’t allow driver unloads of any sort.

Grocery warehouses love requiring street parking and walking to check in, even when it’s not legal to park there and the nearest truck stop is 10+ miles away.

Doesn’t really answer your question, but there’s a lot of shady practices going on in trucking. That’s why I like company driving — can just let dispatcher know the situation and they can make the call lol

 

Back in the day I would carry blank BOL’s just for this. Put the address where your at, where the loads going. Rough estimate of case count and weight.

Put it in the wind and go trucking!!

 

I'd do as they ask, and just check periodically. Nobody wants a ticket, but what can you do? I've been to a number of places where I had to drop the trailer in the door and wait for a call. If it's going to take a while, just go to the truck stop. Laredo has a few.

 

I only approach this from the perspective of running open deck, so I'm not sure if it's the same thing or not. But alot of times if u hauling equipment from a jobsite and it's going to another jobsite or to a lay down yard or whatever . There ain't gonna be no paperwork. I have some blank ones with me at all times...

 

Sometimes there isn’t anyone there. You load and haul ###. Or unload, take a picture and sign your own bills. Completely different world than grocery getters

 

most of y'all missed the part about him waiting on an UNLOADED trailer.

call your company and ask them, maybe they will say the company can send the signed BOL to office.

 

Under the circumstances. I do understand, but at no point should you leave without BOL. Unnnnnless.. it's been communicated to whomever.. I know it's probably been resolved and time paid for, but future. Yeah know.