mercer transportation

It's to save fuel mileage. A dummy axle saves energy by having a lot less parasitic drag than a normal drive axle.

 

They cost a lot in tow bills though from the trucks getting stuck on jobsites. I've seen it a bunch. Not worth it to me.

 

If I was running a dedicated run I would consider a pusher or a tag. But never hauling freight into the unknown, just to big a risk of tow bills.

I wouldn't even do it with a dedicated run because the odds are to great that the shipper/receiver goes broke, moves to Mexico or some body cuts your rates and your back out here hauling freight into the unknown.

 

That's a bit more clear. In Mondays example did you attempt to expand parameters with the coordinator on Monday since another option was available? Or did you wait til Tuesday to load? Is this the same loss reason for other times besides the two end of quarter weeks? Hopefully someone else can give feedback from there point of view.

 

We have quite a few of them leased here. And they say they have no problems. Just gotta pay attention and lift before you go into a muddy or sandy lot.

 

Of course i tried to express to my coordinator what i was looking for. And of course i only matched to loads very near me. As explained the coordinators similar don't have time to kill hundred of miles out, nor do they have experience knowing which customers will open up the check book. But they shouldn't be expected to, they are not salesmen.

 

All coordinators aren't created equal. Some actually do know those things, I would venture that not all drivers on a board would ask to look that far out. You would think that would enable a little extra time for at least a couple of people.

But another question I asked was when folks were notified by their coordinators of the outage , or if they found out on their own. I found out at 8:03 am with an email,. But I was booked out til July 10 already so I had no effect personally from Mondays outage . But there a few coordinators that will actually suggest asking for a bit money on a load, I will also tell my coordinator to put us on 3 way with agent to tell em I will pull a load for x more dollars, it works quite often. I feel I have a far better than average coordinator.

 

I ran michelin XZE on my drives and trailer spreads (best spread tire you can buy) for 20 years when I lived in Mt and ran the west. Like you said pay attention. I liked them cause I rotated them, they were extremely quiet and very easy to throw chains on because of no aggressive tread and smooth shoulders and great fuel mileage. I always paid attention and never had any real issues.

After I moved to Tn. and the last set of drive tires I bought, I thought to myself, I just don't want to pay that much attention to not getting stuck this winter so I bought a real set of tires and life that winter was much easier. I don't regret running "steer" tires all those years.

Had a lot of interesting conversations about them, but I grew up out west and threw a lot iron my whole life. My canned answer was; on a road truck, the difference between me chaining up and you chaining up is about 25 feet.

As far as tags and pushers, I know there are a few at Mercer and when you weigh the pros and cons. If somebody wants to give it a try, then go for it.

But this tired old man, been broke down -30 to many times, tarped in 100 deg to many times. At my age if my tag axle got stuck at a job site, something would snap in my head and I would get my 4 foot cheater bar and start beating the heck out of my truck, then the receiver would call Mercer and say don't ever send truck number xyz here again. Then Mercer would fire me, I would go broke, then my wife would leave me and take my house.

I would be be homeless at the truck stop, begging money from the Mercer drivers, cause you guys got money!

So Spyder hope you understand why I can't fully endorse tag/pusher axles

 

Tripping over dollars to pick up dimes.

 

Unloaded on Monday, not booked after. Why, no loads getting me to where I needed to get to prior to Monday, and Monday the board was down!

Communication would help, having the board stay up would be better. Having a actual plan that's communicated to the 30 people would be ideal. The plan you quoted as being in place was not communicated to everyone, and was not accurate. For example, the coordinator doesn't go into "coordinator mode", she has access to everything already & and can see and adjust preferences like any other coordinator every day. Like you stated a good coordinator goes a long way, well on the 30 board, the person has never been a seasoned coordinator, so I wouldn't expect her to be able to run 70 plus trucks, neither should Mercer! Also, there was never a need in the past for such a contingency plan, because the board would typically go down for hour or so at a time, not like it did Monday.

This isn't a attack rather a observation! You have pointed this out several times on here, & majority of those that have had on going issues with the board did the same thing as you did. So the issues are not from lack of experience with the new board! The issue was releasing something that was never ready, as evidenced by the ongoing changes to it! Yes it has improved, and the terminology is slowly going back to what it was, but there are still issues, and still a slow to respond IT department. I emailed them about issues on the 28th in the morning, still waiting! I didn't call because it's still usable.

I'm pretty sure you're a Mentor, correct? If you really want to help start with the board! Some specifics; 1. Logging in I still get - "Invalid parameter: redirect_uri" - "Back to Application". Doesn't matter what device or browser 2. Since the last June update, I believe on the 17th, refreshing while in matched loads while on any PC doesn't actually refresh. It works on the mobile version, not on a PC(windows). 3. After refreshing the matched loads on the mobile version, the columns don't stay sorted. Why that's important to me is simple, I want the newest loads that have not been refuse to come to the top. We set wide preferences, having the newest loads come to the top helps. BTW, they have known about this issue, it has yet to be fixed!
Again, this isn't a attack, so don't take it as one! If you have a solution post it, I'll try it! If you're going to post that you or no one else is having these issues, save it! This you can pass along, their communication with the 30 board people sucks, not the coordinator's communication she's awesome, but their communication! Their IT departments response to emails, sucks, a simple "we're working on it", or "call us" to let someone know they got the email takes seconds! I got a email on Thursday from Mercer, from someone requesting that I send in a DOT inspection I had previously sent, I sent it ASAP!