Detention Pay

I suggest paying the driver 100% of the detention. You need to take care of your employees. Do this, and it will come back to you a hundred-fold. Make the employee feel like it's their company and they will take better care of the equipment and work harder with more forgiveness for hiccups.

I also suggest you create an addendum to your contracts that clearly spells out your fees for detention, layover, etc. You might also want to incorporate an "idle fee" for running your refer over a set amount of time.

You absolutely need to be compensated for your operation, but you need to establish the fees ahead of time so there's no arguing or begging for charity after the fact.