Chain Pay?

Some guys think it takes all day to throw a set of chains. Like u said, a couple minutes get over the hill and couple mins to take them off...

 

You do get paid to chain. It's just not itemized on your paycheck... but you are hired as a truck driver in the northwest. Chaining is part of the job description... it's like if u were a garbage truck driver and complain about the stink at the landfill and the downtime you spend there trying to dump... "I should get paid extra for this" .. No it's part of the job and what you signed up for when you hired on this gig...obviously the root problem here is you don't think you're making enough money with your carrier and that problem should be taken up with management to pay you what you think you are worth... next time ur in the chain up area next to a mixer driver and dump truck driver, ask them if they get paid to chain... let me know what they say... it's going to be somewhere along the lines of "it's part of the job"

 

Obviously ot depends on the conditions, if it's a blizzard and you can't see 20ft in front or the truck or the wind is blowing like a mad mother yeah I'd probably park it if I could. But if it's just snow covered roads? Yeah throw chains. All that crap you said? It's not that big of a deal to throw chains. Unsafe conditions you said? Again with chains traction is amazing.

 

Like a lot of the folks here I just can't get past believing that a truck driver does not consider chaining up as part of their job. If you run freight over one of the passes every day, and you are a company driver, I bet the pay rate that you get whether it be CPM, hourly, flat rate, whatever compensates you for your time and effort spent to do your job.

If you are a company driver that does not run the northwest often, and occasionally you have to chain, it still seems to me to be part of the job. The incentive is that you get over the hill, get your load off, and get on to the next. I have seen it time and again that drivers don't want to chain for whatever reason and shut down waiting for better conditions, only to end up sitting for two days because now the hill is closed. Personally, I'd rather jump out and throw chains on and get on with it so I don't risk losing two days of income.

As an owner operator some folks feel that it is hard on tires, equipment, whatever and choose not to chain up. That is their choice, and more power to them, but the person paying the freight is not likely to volunteer to pay $1500 per day while their truck is sitting waiting for better roads. I am sure there are exceptions like permit loads or perhaps hazmat, but in general when one signs a rate con there probably isn't any fine print that states "if you shut down because you would have had to chain we will pay you $xxxxx dollars for every hour you are shut down". The world just doesn't work that way. Does Fed Ex or UPS charge more to deliver your package when the weather is bad?

That said, I could see a company that does run the northwest a lot paying more for drivers who are willing to take those runs, or making an arrangement with the drivers to pay x number of dollars if they have to chain, but as a standard practice for occasional trips it seems awfully petty to worry about an hour of your time once in a while.

People with my attitude are probably what is wrong with the industry, but I'd sooner chain 10 times rather than to ever have to go to the produce market in L.A. again. Different strokes for different folks.

 

For what it's worth , anybody who think they don't get paid enough to chain... the dump truck drivers that run in and out of the quarry I go to. They make 17 an hour.. And they are making 10 -15 trips up that mountain every single day.. Chain up every single time.. Off-road mountain driving... Those guys have no fear.

 

I'm old and I do have fear - so I chain, preferably before I have to!

 

if you own your trailer or pull a dedicated trailer hanging chains like this makes it 100 times easier. And it took me 15 minutes and about 5$ to drill some holes and install some J-bolts

 

The real problem is that you don't agree with what you are being paid in the first place... how much money would it take for you to feel that chaining was just part of the job? Also detention and layover are different then chaining... chaining takes a couple minutes then u get on with your day. Most times the roads are plowed beyond the mountain passes and ur more likely to get held up in a traffic jam because somebody wrecked then u are to spend that amount of time chaining... so would u say you should get extra pay for sitting in traffic because it's a massive time suck? Most drivers would say sitting traffic is part of the job... like I said, the problem is the money ur company is paying is not enough to make u wanna chain... I think everybody has a pricetag to b.s. ratio... how much is it gonna cost for me to put up with this and go find a company that's willing to pay you that number..