RE: Your mention of going over the qualcomm messages sent by the trucks old driver The first truck I was assigned was an '06 Volvo 670. Had 390,000 miles on it. It was nice and clean on the inside. Spotless, actually. Went through the messages just as you did and saw some gripes about mechanical problems. Didn't concern me much really. That truck wound up leaving me stuck in a pretty nasty snowstorm out in Utah back in March. Got out to chain up, and the auto idle shut off killed the engine. No big deal, I finished chaining up.. Got in, turned the key.. Nothing but an awful clacking noise. Long of it short.. 10 hours later I get plucked off of the mountain side by a wrecker. Just me.. Not the truck. They had to go back to get it the next day.... (well... actually the Highway Patrol ended up having it towed by another company.. had to wait an extra day to get the stupid truck back). Had to be pull started, and when I got that beast to SLC they couldn't diagnose what exactly was wrong with it. They had an idea (ECU). It wouldn't even pull start after it was shut down in the shop. In my case.. the qualcomm messages had some truth to them and were a bit of an omen. I have an '05 Freightliner Colombia now. Love it. If they try to take that truck from me and assign me another Volvo.. Imma start shooting!
I got started Tuesday morning to complete my trip to NC and had a vert uneventful day. Just before arriving at the final I had a text message informing me of a preplan. Great! I checked it out while I was at the reciever and saw that it picked up the next morning. I quickly finished up at the reciever and found a spot to park at a gas station a few miles up the road. I got up in the morning and my DM immediately started buggin me about picking up the next load. I explained that I still had several hours in the pickup window and couldn't start my clock for another 1/2 hour. As soon as possible I drove the 10 miles to the shipper and got loaded. 4000 lbs worth of trash cans going to OH. Another day of driving without incident. I stopped for the night at a truckstop within a mile of the reciever and made the delivery first thing the following morning. I was quickly given another load that picked up at a recycling center about 20 miles away with a delivery in GA the fowllowing day. I made it there and found my pre-loaded trailer full of loose paper and old phone books. Made it to Georgia and all was going well until they went "unload" me. They have you back onto a ramp that titls the entire trailer and truck backwords at a rather steep angle so that all the paper just falls out. That was the idea anyway between their conveyor breaking and the paper getting jammed up in my trailer when they tried to empty it I ended up being their for 5 hours. When I finally was finished I headed up towards Atlanta to pick up my next load. I picked up another pre-loaded trailer and stopped at a Petro for the night. I knew this was a pay lot but I had no choice since my clock was about to expire. I knew when I took this load that I was going to be tight on time. I had plenty of time on the delivery window but at this point I was going to be cutting it close on my 70. I headed out this morning with no plans to stop except for fuel. I managed to average 59 mph and made my delivery. Unfortunately they did not have any empty trailers. Oh well, I will have to worry about that on Monday. I headed over to the nearest truck stop and parked it with 1 hour left on my 70 hours. I will get a reset in and be ready to go with a fresh set of hours first thing Monday morning. This brings an end to my first real week of being solo. Sure I had a breakdown and got held up at a customer but I really can't complain too much. I drove a total of about 2600 miles and never spent much time if any waiting for a load. I know I used a lot of hours for those miles but. I am willing to accept it. I have been making sure that my logs are completely legal and I have been taking my time doing pre-trip and post-trip inspections along with my drop and hooks. As I get more experience and develop a good routine I am sure I will become more efficient and leave myself with more hours to drive. That's it for this week. I will update more next week when I start rolling again.
Yonder, do you know what the real deal is about company driver CPM, Eastern/Western divisions? I'm not as concerned about it as some because my income requirements do not include wife, kids, house payment, etc., but there are some wannabes here that need straight up info.
The pay rate starts 25 CPM. At 3 months it moves to 26 CPM. These numbers are for east or west. 4 months, east is 29 cpm west is 28 cpm. 6 months, east is 32 cpm west is 30 cpm. 9 months, east is 33 cpm west is 31 cpm. 1 year, east is 34 cpm west is 32 cpm. This is the information that was on the pay sheet given to me by my DM. This is also the pay rate for loads with 300 or more paid miles. If the trip is less than 300 miles pay increases based on the number of miles. Hope this helps.
So, if I can hang with Swift for a year running East and then get 120,000+/- miles # $0.34/mile, I've got decent money. I can live with that. Any extras would be just that....extras! Thanks!!!
http://www.swifttruckingjobs.com/documents/Sliding Scale.pdf This is a link I was given a while back. Subtract a penny for cutbacks.
This week started out nice and easy. I picked up a load from the Columbus, OH terminal headed for PA. This trip was just short of 400 miles and I delivered it Monday evening. While being unloaded I received a pre-plan that was a 2 stop pick up in PA and delivered in OK anytime on Thursday or Friday. I got started early on Tuesday with plans to deliver on Thursday afternoon. On my way to the second pick up i was surprised to see that the rain was turning to snow! Not exactly what I had planned on in May. After getting loaded I sat back and started to drive. This load was over 1400 miles which meant i would be able to just drive for a while. Everything went smoothly the rest of the day and Wednesday as well. That night however I woke up at about 2am to a knocking on my door. Not really thinking about it I looked outside to see one of the often talked about lot lizards asking if I wanted a "date". I quickly and firmly said NO and retreated to the sleeper. She must have gotten the idea and moved on to other trucks. During my training time I never encountered one, probably because we kept moving as much as possible so this was a new experience. I made my delivery as planned on Thursday afternoon and found a place to park for the night. Friday morning I had a new load going from Oklahoma City over to IN for a total of almost 900 miles. This load could deliver anytime up to Monday night. I decided to hurry on over and deliver Saturday night. The trip was uneventful except for getting fuel. This load was heavy and just couldn't take on any more fuel without becoming overweight so I had to bypass the planned fuel stop and have them authorize I different one further down the road. This only became an issue when the qualcomm refused to update my location. The last place it had me listed was over 50 miles away and it wanted me to backtrack those 50 miles to get fuel at a nearby Pilot. A quick phone call however got me authorized to pick up fuel and I went on my way. I delivered this evening as planned and am now sitting at a truck stop for the weekend since I am once again in need of a reset. This week I drove a total of almost 2700 miles and actually have a few more hours left over on my 70 hour clock. Just not enough hours to take any loads over 200 miles or so. Since I wouldn't be getting any hours back on Sunday I opted for another reset. this week went a bit smoother with no breakdowns and not being stuck at any customers. I still can't complain about Swift. They may have their problems but they are doing right by me.
Yonder, sounds like you are getting some pretty good runs there. That is always a good thing. I've been given some good runs as well, but there have also been times when I really have to wonder what the planners are smoking. On one occassion, I'm sitting in Provo, UT and given a pre-plan for a load with two drops ending in Montana. Sounds good. Multiple stops means more money. But there was 2 problems. The first is that it picked up 100 miles away and I only had an hour to get there. Even with the new math, there is no way I could pull that off, especially with these trucks! Secondly, it was a 750 mile run due by 23:59 that night. Again, even the new math doesn't add up. Turned that load down, then got a good load going to Washington that allowed me to visit with family as well as fit in a reset. So that all worked out well. But after I dropped that load, I sat for 5 hours (!!!!!) waiting for another load! Finally get a load going back to SLC, UT to be t-called at the terminal and just before my arrival, I get another pre-plan picking up a t-call and going to Chicago (1350 miles) in an attempt to get me home. Problem was my hometime was set for friday and that was the day of delivery. I was still 300+ miles from home. Doing some quick math, I could tell it was going to take every minute of my available drive time just to make this load on time. I knew there was no way I could make my hometime so I took the load and actually made it an hour early even with a traffic jam in Chi-town. The thing is, if they hadn't waited 5 hours to give me a load in Seattle, I would have had more time to make this run perhaps a little more relaxed. As it was, I drove 11 hours straight, 2 days in a row, with only maybe a 1/2 hour break each day to make this run. Talk about exhausting! But like you said, I can't complain about Swift either. So far, they've done me pretty good as well. I did have one question for you. you mention your weekly miles. Are you figuring like monday thru sunday, or by pay period, going from thursday to wednesday (or is it wednesday to tuesday?)? My last check included over 4000 miles, but that also included the trip that I had gotten sick on and was unable to scan the paperwork at the time and a 150 mile run that had been missed from the week before.
