CRETE - A Year in Review

2008​

WEEK FIFTEEN​

Monday, April 7th through Sunday, April 13th​

This week started out with a quick drop/hook delivery. I had spent the night in their yard and was ready for my next load first thing. I was only offered one load, but it was a good run that picked up in Richmond going to Minneapolis (1323mi). Once again, my suggested routing had me taking the outer loop around DC and I was looking at rush hour traffic. I opted to backtrack a little and run Hwy 15 south down to I-95. This was about 40 miles out of the way but I'm sure it saved me some time if not the frustration of dealing with that DC traffic.

I was thankful to be getting a load that wasn't going to the north east and also happy to get a load that will get me back through Columbus. I had left my truck there during my time off and put the truck in the shop for an A service and to address a couple of minor issues, but when I left Sunday I had forgotten to pickup my spare key from the shop.

My pickup was a live load and only took about and hour and I was off and running. I spent the rest of the day driving and shut down for the night in our Columbus terminal. I had another hour of drive time left, but wasn't in the mood to run out the rest of the day. This would mean that I wouldn't be able to make it to the customer by the end of the next days driving, but it wasn't scheduled to deliver until Wednesday morning and it appeared to be a live unload anyway. No chance of an early delivery on this one.

Tuesday was a bit of a pain as far as roads went. Because I had to go through Columbus to get my key I was forced to take local highways all the way through OH, IN and IL to avoid excess out of route miles. I wasn't exactly making great time, but I was able to get through Chicago between rush hours and other than a fairly heavy snow storm outside of the Dells in Wisconsin, I didn't have anything else to complain about.

I can't help remembering when I got this load one of the first things that crossed my mind was "at least I won't have to worry about snow storms anymore". I should have known better. The one positive, even though it was a heavy snow, it was warm enough that the snow wasn't sticking to the road. That must have change during the night though, because when I started driving the next morning there was a lot of snow and ice chunks on the road that had fallen off of trucks.

Wednesday found me about 100 miles from my delivery and an early start of 3:30 had me there by 5 for a 6am appointment. I was a little disappointed to find no one there yet and I had to wait until 6 to get a door assignment. This was a live unload and was a rare lumper unload. At least I didn't have to unload it, the breakdown was ridiculous. I had a load of Maruchan noodles with 20+ flavors that had to be separated.

The unload took a couple of hours, not bad considering the breakdown and before I left I was presented with 3 refused cases that were slightly damaged. I placed a call to OS&D, but was informed that they were not in the office yet. We are suppose to stay where we are at until an OK is received, but there was no real resolve other than signing for the damage anyway, so I left and figured I could deal with it in the future. I called later in the day while being loaded at my next pickup and OS&D took the info and told me to either toss them out or keep them, it was up to me. So now I have enough Roasted Chicken instant noodle cups to last me for some time.

After my MT call, which I put in 30mins before being unloaded, bad me (an effort in dealing with the Qcom delay in getting load info that tends to slow me down at times). I received a nice three load offer. While I was trying to decide which one would best suit me I got another message informing me to disregard the previous load offers along with another single load offer. Apparently this load was missed on the previous day and they needed it picked up as ASAP.

Not a problem, it was a nice 570mi trip that was a drop/hook delivery anytime the next day to Rockford, IL. Turn and burn works for me. I accepted the load and received my load info within a few minutes (no delay today).

Once I was unloaded I headed north to Duluth, MN to get my load. I was thankful to be heading out of town instead of in. That rush hour traffic around Minneapolis is a nightmare; traffic into town was crawling and must have been backed up 10 miles.

I arrived at the shipper and was informed that I was a day late. I apologized and let them know that I had actually been pulled off another load to come get this one (in some attempt at garnishing some sympathy) and was told they would fit me in. I only had to wait for an hour or so and was loaded in 45mins.

I only had another 400 miles to make my delivery, but I had lost too much time at my previous delivery and this PU to make it within my 14hrs, so I headed down the road and got as far as I could, managing to get within 50 miles. No big deal, I would have liked to drop this trailer tonight, but I'm close enough that I can put in my MT call by 6am and get an early start on my next load.

Thursday started with a quick run down to Rockford to drop my trailer. Bad news, no MT trailers available. I'm informed that they need to keep 37 empty trailers on hand, Ugh! After a short little conversation with the shipping clerk, I'm able to talk her out of one and put in my MT call. This is answered in short order by a single load offer going to Omaha (424mi). It's a short run but I've already put in 50mi today and it makes for a respectable 475mi day. The aggravating part of this load is that it is a preloaded trailer at the very same customer I just spent a fair amount of effort into talking them out of an MT trailer.

So back to the shipping office I go with my tail between my legs and an apology for my company's short sightedness. She takes it well with a smile and hands me the paperwork for my next load.

I make it to our Council Bluffs yard by 1:30pm and climb in the back of the truck for some sleep. I'm having a hell of a time catching up on sleep. The stress from my sudden move seems to be getting the best of me.

Friday is another early day; I'm scheduled for a 4am delivery at a local Lowes store and get there a little early. The receiver is under the impression that this is a drop load, but since there is no empty trailer there and I have an actual delivery appointment time instead of a delivery window I'm not convinced this is the case.

A message to night dispatch (oh no, this could be a problem) is actually answered within 15 minutes. It is defiantly a live unload and I head back inside to inform them of this fact. He's not very pleased, but unloading started soon thereafter and a short 3hrs later (grrr )I was empty. At least it was still early in the day and left me with the hope of a good load.

My next load offer consisted of two choices. One to Chicago and one to Columbus. I went with the Columbus load (792mi). It was D/H PU 3 miles away and was an appointment delivery Sunday morning at 7am. I am familiar with this customer, and although it is an appointment delivery time, it is a D/H customer. If I get lucky I will be able to deliver it Saturday morning when I get into town, if not I should be able to Tcall the load and put in a 34hr reset. I'll be down to 6-7hrs on my 70hrs by then anyway. I got as far as I could with the load on Friday and shut down about 200mi from Columbus.

I started Saturday early again, around 3:30 so that I could get to the customer as close to 7am as possible. The load was to be delivered 7am on Sunday, but if I showed up Saturday I might be able to get away with telling them I thought it delivered today. Sure enough, I presented my paperwork to the receiver and after shuffling papers for awhile he informed me that I was a day early. I put on my best poker face and told my well rehearsed story. I also apologized for my misunderstanding and offered to return the next day if it was an inconvenience. He said since I was here he would let me drop the trailer, but he didn't have an empty available. "Not a problem", I said. I dropped the trailer and headed off to our terminal with the expectation of doing a 34hr reset.

Once back to the yard, I sent in an MT call and immediately received a 3 load offer, all of which needed to go now and I had no hours to do any of them. Looks like freight is picking up in Ohio. I really needed a 34 reset, but if I started it now I would be ready to go around 6pm Sunday night. Not ideal because I would be in a situation where I've been sitting around all day and would be looking at either having to drive all night or getting a load Monday morning, which would actually have me looking at two full days off.

With that in mind I then sent a message off to dispatch informing them that I could not accept any of the load offers because of hours of service restrictions. However, I have 6.5hrs available for the next two days and if you have a load that has some down time on it that delivers Monday morning I could take it and do a 34 reset somewhere along the way.

While I waited for an answer I hooked to an empty trailer and swept it out, if they had that many loads that need to go today I was sure they would come up with a load for me that would work with my hours.

Sure enough, by the time I got back in the cab I had another 3 loads to choose from. All of which delivered at various times Monday morning. Load one was going to Greensboro (that figures, that is the exact load I needed last week to get me home). This was a good load as far as it related to my available hours and the delivery time was agreeable, but it would leave me empty in a part of the country where I stood a good chance of getting a short load to the northeast Monday morning, icky poo. Load two going to Massachusetts (I don't think so), and the third load was going to Atlanta which has a very strong freight base for us and many of those loads go in a westerly direction, or at the very least to the Midwest. Atlanta it is.

Once again the Qcom is backed up and the load info is slow in arriving. The load was to PU in Cincinnati 100 miles away, so I headed that way and when I heard the Qcom chirping about an hour later I stopped at a Loves to get the pertinent information for my load. It was a very quick D/H PU and I was in and out in 15mins and headed on down the road to get as far as I could before running out of hours. I made it to Knoxville with 15mins left on my 70hrs and shut down for 34hr reset. I think I'll have a nice steak for dinner tonight at the local Texas Roadhouse.




WEEK FIFTEEN RESULTS
Monday, April 7th through Sunday, April 13th
Miles include deadhead



Richmond, VA to Maple Grove, MN.................................1323mi
Cromwell, MN to Rockford, IL...........................................570mi
Rockford, IL to Omaha, NE................................................424mi
Omaha, NE to Columbus, OH.............................................792mi
Mariemont, OH to Knoxville, TN(fist leg)..........................377mi

Total Paid Miles..............................................................3486 Miles
Actual Miles...........................3564 Miles

3486mi x .42 = $1464.12

First off I'd like to point out that the final paid mileage for this week was 3486 miles. My actual week after home time really started last Sunday. But since I started tracking my weeks Monday through Sunday I will continue to do so. This in effect split my last week by putting my first day of running in last weeks total. OK, I'm rambling. What I wanted to point out is that after finally getting a fresh 70hr clock I was able to run 3910 paid miles (3486 + 420) miles in the last 7 days.

In regards to the "practical miles" question I raised earlier, it does seem that it was just a strange week or two and things are back to normalcy. However, this inconsistency with suggested routing did come up again on my trip from Minneapolis to Cromwell, MN to Rockford, IL. My suggested routing took me on only interstates in order to run me through a TA for fuel outside of Minneapolis whereas I took a shorter route across Wisconsin. I was able to do this because I had enough fuel in my tanks to bypass the fueling route and in doing so I made the trip in 580 miles as opposed to the 620 miles that would have resulted in the computer generated route. The paid miles for this trip were 570 miles. There are still some inconsistencies, but nothing too outrageous. I will bring it up to my fleet manager and get his take on it.

 

Well, I don't know who Scott Hartz is and I haven't read the article so I can't comment on it, but I will be keeping a close eye on the out of route miles in the future and make my determination later.


UPDATE:

OK, I just read it.

Please note, this article is based on miles run over the last year or more. The out of route miles I referred to in some of my previous posts have only become and issue to me in the last 3 weeks at most. And at the moment seem to be back to normal. Prior to that my miles are almost dead on for almost every run. Currently I'm under 2% out of route mile since the beginning of the year. The article is really aimed at drivers that take unwarranted liberties with Crete's leniency towards a drivers discretion in choosing their own route when it is deemed necessary or prudent. (my opinion only)

It's available on our website to anyone that looks for it, so I'm going to assume it is OK to post it here for reference purposes.

"It was recently brought to my attention that both Crete and Shaffer have had significant increases in out of route miles compared with the prior year. As someone who is in charge of routing and minimizing fuel expenses, I was disturbed to hear this and begun to comb through the numbers. Crete has always quantified out of route miles as the actual miles driven versus the miles paid to the driver (Rand McNally practical miles). The actual miles driven are computed based on the latitude/longitude transmissions made at least once per hour by each tractor's Qualcomm unit. In January 2007, Crete and Shaffer company trucks recorded 1,774,362 miles driven over the paid miles, or 3.38% out of route miles. 1,774,362 miles is an astonishing number, but in January 2008 out of route miles increased to 2,277,995 miles or 4.2% out of route miles. That is a year over year increase of 503,633 miles or 28.4%. An analysis of the numbers using average fuel prices and miles per gallon puts that increase in fuel expense alone at over $260,000.

I believe that a misconception has been communicated to many in the fleet that is partly responsible for this increase. Many drivers I talk with believe that any trip is allowed to be re-routed as long as the new route does not exceed the original route by ten percent. This is not the company policy. Under that scenario, a 2,000 mile length of haul load could be re-routed an additional 200 miles. That would be an unnecessary 200 miles of additional fuel and maintenance expense that are unrecoverable.

Lastly, out of route miles are very detrimental to a driver's time and earning capability. Due to the current hours of service regulations, time is a precious commodity that is unable to be "made up" an a later date or time. Driving additional miles, particularly large amounts of additional miles, are miles that are unpaid and delay the acceptance of a driver's next load. As long as the drivers are paid by each mile run, any extra time spent under a load will impact what the driver is able to earn. Maximizing paid miles is what is best for the bottom line, both the company's and the driver's."





My take on Mr. Hartz's (director of fuel purchases) article is that it was basically a polite way of blaming the routing choices of certain drivers for driving excess miles. And I agree fully with him. Many drivers do operate under this so called assumption and really need to be mindful of the extreme price of fuel these days.

What I would like to know is if Mr. Hartz is aware of the recent routing discrepancies that I have referred to in some of my previous post. Of late, following some "suggested routing" has resulted in unacceptable out of route miles, often due to being forced to fuel at a particular fuel stop. Perhapses a revamp of the fuel routing software is necessary. I believe I will actually place a call to this fine gentleman an share some of my concerns with him. Who knows, maybe he will be interested in what I have to say. I will let you know what happens.

The article is basically a gentle reminder to our drivers that excessive out of route miles hurt all of use. And I suspect a warning, that if things don't change actions will have to be taken.

At $4+ per gallon, who can blame them.

Concerning Denver, we do have a drop yard there and I do run through on somewhat of a regular basis. I would think that it wouldn't be to difficult to get home if you live there. Hopefully someone who lives up there can answer that question better than I.

 

I have never been required to unload a trailer. However I have done it a few times at my option because I felt I could do it in less time than waiting around for a lumper to get around to my trailer. I used to have a driving job in which I had to unload my trailer every time, so I don't mind doing it every once in a while for a little extra money, again, at my option.

There are some insulation loads where you might have to tailgate a load, that means pushing the bundles to the end of the trailer, but I have never been asked to do this by a customer.