questions for brokers & owners with regards to detention pay

I usually "put it in my pocket" if it's a broker I am on good terms with. In other words I'll say "your $xx an hour on detention doesn't cover my opportunity cost (the money I didn't make because I was sitting) we'll make it up on the next load". Next time I work with them, when we reach a final negotiated number on a load, I pull the past detention issue out of my pocket and tell them another $100 or so will make up for the money I lost on the detention load. Usually works quite well.

 

I got a couple places I won't pull for anymore.

One for detention issues, one for wall damage from their forklift and refusing to even apologize for it.

 

Depends on the customer. We range from 35.00 to 90.00 on the reefers. We also do a lot of give and take with our customers(those that have definite load/unload times). The trucks are booked for the whole week so sometimes we are late and sometimes the shipper gets behind. Seldom do broker loads but the few we do we are up front on what we expect for detention,it they don't agree in writing we don't do the load.

 

On my steady contract customers I bite the bullet on the 1st hour and pay my drivers , O/O's equal to what they would have earned for that hour. After that I charge the customer our agreed upon mileage rate X 57 ( average speed that jobs are bid on ) and split it with the drivers and O/O's. Theres not much waiting after the first hour as the customer knows its costing them $.


On other loads same as everyone else try to charge it try to collect it 1 way or another.

 

$50/hr seems fair to me, if I net $500 on a 10 hour day I'm pretty happy so why would I charge more for sitting ?

I guess it comes down to a couple things, if I have another load booked and the detention screws my next customer then I should get more. That's the thing that bothers me the most, it is usually the customers that are most picky about appointment times are the same ones that will make you wait endlessly. Don't they understand that it is making us wait that causes us to miss appointments ? How can you demand trucks arrive 10 minutes prior to appointment, but then turn around and say, "wait in your truck, we'll come get you, might be 1/2 hour, might be 5 hours".

If your in that situation, heck ya, charge em $100/hr, can you get $200 ?? lol. The other situation is when I feel the broker or shipper was deceptive. I did a rigging move once, total PITA, was supposed to pickup on friday, deliver Saturday. The guy asked if I could come Saturday morning instead and indicated I would load and unload the same day. Wound up sitting until the following Tuesday. the guy that loaded me actually had to load two other trucks they didn't even have booked yet and then bring his forklift over to the unload site !! Why he couldn't be honest with me ?

I sent a request for reimbursement in with my invoice explaining 2-3 day detention. I only requested $250, thinking they would be overjoyed to settle the matter for that small of an amount. I got $0 ! Packard Logistics, shame on you ! I told the lady on the phone if I ever need something moved I am booking it through Packard Logistics so I can make the truck wait three days and I know they won't expect any money for it.

 

From a broker, we all sign yearly contracts with our customers that have their accessorial charges in place. Their set amount in detention usually ranges from $25 - $60 an hr. Regardless of what the driver says his time is worth, this is what we are paying. Hate to hear that ? Yeah, we don't like it either. But we are also not going to take a loss on a load due to detention. If we have a customer that does pay decent detention around the $60 range, then we may tell you $40-$50 an hr and pocket the rest. Let the truth be told.

 

The big problem when brokering and paying detention is that you have to deal with late trucks besides detention. Pretty hard to bill a customer for one trucks detention and not get charged for the late one. You hear every excuse there is why it is not their fault for being late. And then on the same day bill for anothers detention.

 

There is always hard feelings on this issue. I feel I have lost a good brokers because they paid me detention (they dropped me) and because they didn't pay me (I dropped them). Trouble is I also really hate waiting. Seems like the customer always waits for an hour and 45 minutes and then gets me unloaded in 15 minutes so I get no detention for the 2 hrs I was there. Why don't they just get it over with. Answer: lack of respect.

So now I just build it into the line haul...3 hrs at $75 for the PU and 1 or 2 hrs for the delivery. If it goes past that I tell the broker I usually get $75 after the first 2 hrs. We usually settle on $50. Everyone seems happier that way.

Except for Landstar....they refuse to even talk detention until the load is off. I guess they figure we are a warehouse. So I don't deal with those scumbags anymore.