I was wrong. E-logs save lives

Maybe they should make the 10 hour break a 14 hour break and reduce the 14 hour day to a 10 hour day.
Any one of us could work 10 hours without snuggling up with our Teddy Bear and taking a nap.

 

Here’s a crazy fact. When I drove OTR for Ashley, we had over 500 trucks. We ran multi stop loads. Your first load might be an 8 stop 1000 mile round trip. Second load might be a 14 stop 1300 mile round trip. I averaged 2400 miles a week, sometimes 25 stops a week (a majority of furniture pieces were tailgated by the driver)

We didn’t have any safety technology (onguard crap, lane departure, etc), we didn’t have headsets even though they provided a company phone, we ran 70 mph and we ran paper logs (very liberally). How was our safety score so high? Why were we not all dead from falling asleep at the wheel or having heart attacks from being overworked?

 

Everyone was too scared to run legal. I wonder why ? Why not stand up to the boss and tell them no ?

 

Actually you couldn’t be more wrong. When you emptied out, you told them when you would be back and how many hours you had available. (Rarely backhauled) How hard you worked was up to you. I never turned a trip when I came back in, I always went home and took my break. Made very good money.

Home several days a week and off weekends back then. Ashley was a very good job to get and you were very lucky if you got hired on there. The company owner is a driver friendly guy. Truck washes at terminals, truck wash vouchers at Blue Beacon, paid per stop, pay for a hotel room once a week, pay hub miles all miles travelled, provided cell phone, owner op spec’d trucks, excellent maintenance etc.

 

Ashley had a good reputation but driving 2400 miles and doing 25 deliveries of tailgating furniture. You could make it work on paper logs. I'm not sure people could to that on ELDs. My guess is you made it work because if you logged you real times the money would no be so great

 

You are assuming so much. 25 deliveries was a very busy week, many times it would be 15 or less, I might have three stops in the same strip mall. I could get 10 stops delivered in a day due to proximity and routing.

The money was good because of hub miles and stop pay and you never waited for a reload, 95% of the time you were coming back empty. A 10 stop load paid an extra $220, 14 was $280. A single stop was $80, regardless of tailgating. You could easily make $500 in extra pay a week.

The reason Ashley had a good safety record is they paid well and people wanted to keep their job. ($75-80k and home often was normal).

 

I for one can't wait for autonomous trucks to get here. 20% of us will make one hell of a good living. Won't be anything left in it's wake but fingerless gloves, flip flops and old Qualcomm boxes as a reminder of a despicable past.

 

Wont happen in our lifetime nor our children's lifetime..
Why? Big Oil won't Allow it to happen is 1 big reason

Same with cars- Internal combustion engine running on gasoline will be here another 50 years at least.

You take out Big Oil- You might as well expect a nuclear holocaust- And they have the money to end the earth.

 

your recruiters were picky and did their due diligence.