pay minimum wage

I'm not putting you down or personal attacking you, so hopefully your not thinking that.

I just think its insane that companies are paying less than I was making 10 years ago.

You never said your experience in truck driving, if you did I missed it.

I understand your doing what you gotta do to provide for your family.

 

No offense taken... I agree that wages for drivers have been stagnant for far too long.

As far as experience ive been around and worked on trucks much of my life. I learned to drive truck over 20 years ago when I was a kid on the ranch/farm. I drove for various local farmers on and off through my teenage years and into my 20s.

In my late 20s I went to work as a cowboy/ranchhand for a cattle broker who is also a family friend. I told him I knew how to drive when I saw his trucks, a few weeks later the truck boss took me out on a test drive. And I started hauling cattle, hay, and gravel for him under the ag exception, cause I still didnt have a CDL.

A few months later I propsed the idea of getting my CDL so I could help with some of the longer cattle hauls, if my boss would pay for it. He liked the idea, so I got the CDL manual from the DMV and studied for a couple weeks then went and took all the required tests related to CMV tractor-trailer (except HazMat) and got my CDL.

I parted ways with this cattle operation about 9 months later on good terms and started a seasonal local driving position with a fertilizer company. At this company I soon worked my way into a non driving full time position. Although I still did quite a bit of driving when my other job duties were slow. After 4 years and a managment change I decided it was time to move on.

So I looked to another family friend that owns a trucking company for some local work, but all he had available was OTR. My pregnant wife is actually the one that really encouraged me to do OTR, as she knew I really missed driving. This really surprised me cause her Dad was a Trucker for 44 years...

I had never run across country before so the first run I followed another driver nearly 2000 miles across the country, he and I parted ways at our receiver and I was on my own to get to my shipper for back haul and find my way back across the country.

I was a little nervous the first couple days and in heavy traffic but I did well. Once me and the other driver parted ways and I was on my own I really found my stride... I had fallen in love with The Big Road. That was a year ago...

Since then I have come to be one of the "Go-to" drivers for those loads that require special attention and excellent planning to make delivery on time. I have even been called on to run loads that are normally given to teams, when a team isnt available.

So not alot of verifiable experience. In the last 6 or 7 years Ive racked up somewhere in the neighborhood of 225k miles. Since I went full time OTR I've got about 90k miles... I would have a lot more but I took 3 months off from trucking when my son was born and did some other local work.

Sorry so long... But given what my experience is, I feel this is the best way to explain it.

 

Lol... I just looked back at that post and realised how long in really is... I'm starting to resemble @x1Heavy

 

Except they WON'T pay you for more than 14 hrs per day/70 hrs per week...not unless you can prove you were on-duty NOT driving during the time you were in excess of the HOS and the didn't drive again until you had time available.

$7.25 x 70 hrs is only $507.50...before taxes.

 

Wasn't this topic already been beaten to death? Cpm,percentage,per hour...It all depends on a work you do.For some jobs cpm is better ,for other pay per hour. I wouldn't switch to per hour pay because in what I do cpm + stop pay works better for me (mind I am not a truck stop queen,I get #### done). I recently had a $500 day (total 12h, my breaks and sitting included).Of course I don't make that much everyday I'm out but it would be hard for me to find hourly job where I could make that much if I put some effort into it.
So to sum up,different strokes for different folks-)

 

There is actually some legal precedent that could possibly require an carrier to pay at least minimum wage for every single hour that the driver is out on the road, minus 8 hours a day for sleep and 1 hour a day for eating. There are several lawsuits across the country currently that are based around this.

I personally dont care because I make good money on a cpm system.

 

If you are not making minimum wage for all your hours in a truck you're working at the wrong place.

 

Exactly, even if they chase minimum wage to 10 an hour you're still only going to max out at 700 a week gross.

 

The funny thing about this lawsuit is it’s for 16 hours a day, and I don’t get why 2 hours of your break time should be paid. Guess that’s why I’m not smart enough to be a lawyer.

 

I see Local Jobs near Me paying OT after 50 hrs.Overnite used to be all straight time. All city Drivers had Orientation out of State took Load home and were forever classified as OTR.