Do most companies Throttle miles?

Not 15 a week but 2 a day is normal. Usually my first trip when I leave the house at 8am is 250 miles. That’s drop and hook at pickup. Then drop and hook at delivery.

Then I go get second load for the day. That drop and hook at Pickup. If I get there by 5pm I can get another 150-200 miles for the day. That load usually is live unload in the morning.

so the second day driving I start out with 2 hour live unload. Then I could get live reload for 2 hours with same day delivery and hopefully drop and hook. That would be 5 hours just loading and unload and drop and hook and probably only 350 miles the second day. So they pay us for every live load and unload plus drop and hook plus detention after 1 hour. If all else fails we still have our guaranteed minimum pay for the week.

 

I just got my 4 loads for the week so far . First load is 153 miles drop and hook both ends. 2 is 200 miles drop and hook both ends. 3 is 376 miles drop and hook for pickup with live unload at delivery at 7am. So the only 3 trip with 7 am is the only one I have worry about being on time for because the fist 2 loads are 24/7 hour shippers and delivery.

That last trip number 4 is live load 8am-2pm the same day I live unload at 7am on trip 3. Then it’s 406 miles to deliver that is 24/7 drop and hook. So I probably deliver that load the next day in the morning sometime.

That’s 1250 miles for 3.5 days. I could maybe push it more and do it in 3 days. That’s leave the company 1.5 or 2 day to get me close to 2100 miles or more would be better. I can already see I will probably just get 1900 or maybe 2100 miles for the 5 days.

 

Oh I agree. But what really frustrates me is sitting for 6 hours waiting to be unloaded when I was given an appointment time that if I was 5 minutes late it would have to be rescheduled on a different day.

 

If your detention time was say $500.00 an hour after the first hour do you think you would still be their waiting ?
Make them pay and this problem will go away overnight.

 

Yeah that pisses me off.

 

Have you tried staying out more than 5 days at a time to see if you get longer runs? Even if freight wasn't slow right now, the frequency of your hometime limits how far they can send you and still get you back on time. Add the two things together and it makes sense why you're getting mostly shags.

 

Yes it did longer runs before for current company. It did 7 days a week runs and we did longer runs. Many we don’t do anymore, we had trips to Texas and back. They had runs to Oklahoma and back. They don’t go to Oklahoma anymore. The Texas loads got cut back from shipper and the problem they had was they hired some drivers from Texas. When the shipper cut the load they were shipping they basically gave them to the Texas drivers because that’s the only way they could get them home. The main reason is with to the 5 day a week fleet was because they never got me high miles for a week once they stopped going to texes and Oklahoma.

 

Probably not much you can do then on your current account. It doesn't sound like they're throttling you, they just can't get you the miles you need and guarantee weekly hometime.

Before I switched to local from OTR at the end of last year, I was having a similar issue. I was out for 12 days and coming home for 2. If I didn't get 2/3 to 3/4 of the total miles I needed for that whole period in the first week, I knew it wasn't happening. Planning had to spend the second week focussed on getting me home.

Towards the end, I was falling short on my miles regularly. I quit after I sat at a terminal for 4 days with no load on my first week out after hometime. I don't blame planning, I was far from the only driver sitting, but I realized that my hometime was keeping me from making the money I needed to even justify being out in the first place. That's just how the market is right now.

Fortunately, I pretty much stumbled blindly into my current gig, which has turned out to be pretty sweet. I make close to what I made doing OTR, and I go home every night. You'll land something good too if you keep at it. Just do yourself a favor and think hard on whether the money or the hometime is more important right now.

If it were me, and I could live on the minimum you're getting, I'd hang on to it for now. Getting home every week ain't bad for 6 months experience. Lots of guys have no choice but OTR for the first year, and that's why so many of them quit. You're 6 months from reaching Gold Status in trucking. Why not cruise into ito it spending your weekends at home?

 

Well said.