Good Night From II

Squeak was right, most of the Denver freight was CRAP! 4 stop K Mart loads ALL on/near I-25 in CO or similar in Wyoming-Montana. And of course there's the paper load to Prewitt.
I'm starting to think about boycotting Colorado. The planners here are competing with Lancaster for "worst in Swift" and the Friday afternoon traffic in/near Denver is WORSE than SoCal. Only reason I seem to come here is good paying Command loads. Problem is Command NEVER has any freight leaving Colorado.

 

pilot in rice hill oregon. stopped here for my 30 min breakand fuel. was trying for pilot in brooks or but didnt want to push it. less than 1/4 tank to go 115 miles. since i can put in about 50 gals due to drives being heavy, thought it better to get it here and burn the fuel b4 scalehouse north of salem or. have about 296 miles to go and 5h44m to do it in. hopefully i dont hit any traffic or it gonna be really close than it is now lol

 

Dropped my load from Phoenix this morning but as usual at this place no mtys. Eased back to the terminal and asked for a load out preferably north. DM messages planners but no response for six hours as my 14 wastes away. DM finally called them and magically a 500 miler got offered. Walmart DC in Baytown to another DC in Searcy AR...it was preloaded last night. It's really hard not to irritated when planners ignore you, waste your valuable time and then after pulling their hair give you something that's been ready to go for 24 hours.
Anyway I jumped on it then had to play the "I need an mty please" game. Doing a 10 in Lufkin TX. Will drop it in the morning.

 

IL along I-80 at a Road Ranger.
I stopped just short of where I wanted, which is just short of all the truck stops that fill up so quickly, which is just before Morris.
I could have gone another hour, but things get worse very quickly from here. I'll just start a bit earlier in the morning.

I must have really lucked out when I came back from home time in Denver with that load to (Omaha area) NE.
Either that or the O/O's are getting fed garbage. ?

Even coming out of Denver, this is going to be one of my best weeks. I'll have 2200 miles come Monday morning.
I'm just hoping for a quick (and decent) load to get me out of NJ.

Now I just have to decide whether or not to follow my fuel route. It has me bypassing most of the tolls on I-80 in favor of US and state roads.
Trouble is I only have an extra 2 hours of time to play with if I go I-80, and at least an hour will be taken up by those roads. I'll need an hour of it just for drive time breaks.
I could probably get permission from my DM, but he is off on weekends. The night/weekend people NEVER let me go off-route, so I won't even ask again.

 

"Gee! Was I supposed to ask???"

Screw it. Even the Swift training videos note that you should drive interstate whenever possible. Run the most efficient way over the weekend and let the chips fall where they may on Monday.

 

Yup.

'Sorry Larry, but if I wanted to be on time for my delivery I could not go the back roads'
And he'll say... 'Good job, but try to keep the out of route miles down if you can'.

 

I had a load from LA to Pueblo last winter, where the QC wanted to route me up I-15 to I-70 then take US-50. That was insane in the middle of winter and unwise in summer. The most efficient route for time and fuel was obvious. I called weekend dispatch and told them I was going east on I-40 then north on I-25. They said, "Fine, just reopt fuel when you need it."

One thing I teach my students is to always look at the most efficient route, then see what QC is suggesting. If you have to, then run the most efficient route and ask for a reopt.

 

My mentor told me that the only time I'm strictly required to follow the fuel route is if it's a Fed-Ex load. Otherwise, she said we're typically allowed up to 60 miles out of route. Any more than sixty miles requires DM approval.

So far, I think I've been pretty terrible about following the fuel routes. I've missed a few turns where it made more sense to just keep going and take a different route back around rather than search for a suitable turn around.

 

loves in tacma wa. dropped that load to quaker oats(pepsi) with 20 min on driveline. they had no mt available,so bobtailed over here. traffic wasnt bad except for a few miles thru porland or.

 

I started noticing a couple years ago that routing seemed to be evolving from most efficient to strictly shortest distance or in the case of tolls, avoidance. Shortest distance is not always most fuel efficient and toll avoidance was adding uncompensated miles. I talked to my DM about it and she tended to agree reluctantly. I politely told her that Swift could pay me the extra miles to avoid tolls, especially in Pennsylvania or the Chicago area OR they could pay the tolls but they couldn't have it both ways. Also, more often than not, the loaded miles matched the toll roads.

After running hundreds of loads with no service failures or accidents she simply told me to go the way I felt was best and I have ever since. I always look at the routing and many times follow it but other times I just go the way I want and reop for fuel when I need it I don't ask permission or discuss it with her anymore. That said, my out-of-route percentage still remains well below the 11% mark.