I used to love empty miles; but no more

When I drove for my previous two employers, I used to love empty miles because I got paid for them just like loaded miles and without the stress of loading or unloading short trips to get me back to the yard.

After working for a year at my third employer, I have come to hate empty miles. Why? Because I get paid % of load revenue and my company practices load balancing between drivers because we are guaranteed a minimum cents per mile floor. Here is what results.

If driver A is averaging 65 cpm and driver B is averaging 42 cpm, guess who gets the empty miles to go pick up the crazy load a zillion empty miles away. Yep, the guy who is averaging 65 cpm. Why? Because if the other guy drove those empty miles the owner would have to come up with real cash to gross him up to our minimum cpm pay.

In our line of work the truck almost always gets paid for miles both ways so our company has an incentive to make us drive huge empty miles if no other loads exist. But as a driver, I'd rather just sit and keep my 65 cpm than drive an extra 2500 miles 2000 empty and 500 loaded to earn the company a couple hundred dollars of marginal net revenue all while reducing my effective mean average cpm down to our floor pay.

Be careful what you wish for, you might just get too much of it in your next job.

BRI