Swift Average Miles Per Week

you will get good miles with your mentor. then once you go solo, swift will start you a little slow to get you comfortable with being by yourself. the quicker you get aclumated and get the loads picked up and delivered on time, you'll see a quick improvement on your miles.imo....if you can legally do a trip.. then do it, no matter how short or long it is. if you get to a terminal and have no load, go to dispatch window and ask for work. they'll most likely give you a local delivery, but alot of times they'll stack you with a nice run. good luck and be safe. just an addittion to what houstank said

 

Yeah, 77, exactly. Work smart, and take it easy, PeeWee. Flog your truck, rush around, you'll find some bad things waiting to happen.

 

Hous, I am probably not the only one interested in learning your driving and lots philosophy. Why you take, what you take, if and when you deny loads to help you get consistent high mileage weeks. If you'd care to share.

 

Hey all...I don't really have any secrets. I'm just a Company driver so there are very few times I can outright decline a load.

I think one of the key things where I saw I was getting better and more consistent loads (from planners) was reaching and maintaining Platinum ranking and always being on time. I have a negative RA score and no accidents. I also have all the endorsements. Many times I got some sweet hazmat loads just because no one else in the area had the endorsement. Week before last I got a hazmat tank load from NYC to Victorville outside of LA because I had the "X" endorsement. I was told there were a couple other drivers in eastern PA (where I was at the time) with hazmat but I was the only one that had tanks too. The load was tote bins of flammable liquids. An easy 3000 mile trip, plus I did a 50 mile local job the same day I delivered, $50 for less than an hour of work. Was given a 1700 mile run after that to TX to start off this past week which I finished at 3200 miles.

Not all runs are great as you know. I get my share of sub-500 mile loads. Another important factor to running good miles is to take every load I can get my hands on and get it finished ASAP so I can do another. I hate sitting and with the help of mac30 I always have another load to go do as soon as I finish the one I'm on. For instance, today I picked up a load in northern OK, 200 mile DH and 300 to final south of Dallas. I had till Friday @ 08:30 to deliver. Why take a 10 and loaf around?? Instead I ran it straight through and delivered tonight then went to Lancaster to set my 10 to start another 500 mile load from Paris TX to south of Houston that I'll pick up and deliver tomorrow. These 2 loads give me 1000 miles completed in just the first 2 days of the pay week while using just enough on duty time to generate good hours for next week. Long or short doesn't really matter to me as long as I'm turning 500 a day.

Keeping your Line4 time to a minimum is important as well. I combine as many tasks as I can for each entry so my other minutes are available for Line3. I only log the bare minimums on line4. I never log more than 15 mins for pretrip, 10 for post, 5 mins for fuel, 5 mins for scales, 15 mins for bumping a dock or doing a D/H if each is done separate. BUT if I combine say pretrip, fuel and scaling at the start of my day I only log 15 mins for all. That's 10 mins saved for driving and if you only run recaps every minute counts. Many times I've ended my shift with only a few mins left on my 70. I also try to always time my 10 hr break so that my hours roll over during the break so I don't have to wait. I've been audited several times and never had a violation.

Another little timesaver doing a drop is I don't drop my loaded trailer then go find an mty. I go find the mty first and get my ecall going with the new trailer number. So I log my delivery and ecall together. It takes a few mins for the system to process the ecall, do the next dispatch and update the fuel route and nav system. While all that's going on I go drop my load THEN go back for my mty. This also "reserves" my mty till I get back to it because often at bigger DCs there'll be other Swifties hunting trailers too.

My DM sends me a note every day on where freight is good and bad around the country. I'll pass on mac30 offers that are going to low freight areas. I've often taken shorter miles to a solid area like the Great Lakes region vs longer runs to the middle of nowhere. You don't want to sit.

I also keep a list of D/H locations that have empty trailers. I use a Rand McNally 720 GPS. I keep a folder of locations grouped by city and state. I also add notes regarding their security proceedures, if they're a 24/7 operation etc etc. I have a pretty extensive list for cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Houston, DFW, Memphis and others. Why let some planner send you on wild goose chases when you can just go get your own. Planners are just too slow and unreliable in that regard.

Theres tons of other stuff but it simply comes down to don't waste time and get as much done with each minute that you can. Leaves more time for driving and making money. You can't make money if you're doing 34 hour resets. That's 22 hours of lost drive time.

 

HousTank nailed it. I'd like to cover the opposite end of the spectrum, the reasons why you hear grumbling from drivers at terminals that they aren't getting the miles. More than once I've heard drivers grumbling, then almost in the same sentence explain exactly WHY they aren't getting the miles. These are true follow up statements I've heard as examples:

"I can't seem to get any miles....

... but I sure showed them, I refuse to take any loads east of the Mississippi."

... but I finally got my DM trained. I never run at night."

... but I always give up my truck when I take home time because what's the point of having toys and not being able to use them? I always take at least five days home time every time I come home."

... and I only had three service failures this year."

... and why is my DM on my case about running more miles today? The load doesn't deliver until 07:00 tomorrow. Why can't I relax a little today and run the rest of the 300 miles tomorrow?"

... but I need to stop at a truck stop for my 10. I HAVE to have a shower before I can drive."

Every limitation you place on your ability to run miles today limits your usefulness to the planners. Untether yourself from your limitations. My point is that if you have available hours TODAY and miles you could run TODAY, then why are you sitting in a terminal milking the load?

Untethering means being self sufficient enough that you can park for a 10 ANYWHERE. If you HAVE to park at a truck stop and refuse to park for a 10 on an off ramp way in between available amenities, then you limit your ability to run miles TODAY. One example was a trainee I had a few months ago. We had a run from Dallas to LA when he was solo. The first night we could have stopped in Van Horn at a truck stop, but didn't have enough hours to make it to the truck stops in El Paso. Instead we elected to run his clock right down to the last four minutes and found an off ramp with great parking for the night. The next night we were faced with a similar choice, stop short Blythe because we didn't have enough hours to get to Coachella or run out his clock and found a great spot out in the middle of the desert with minutes to go. Because he was willing to untether himself, taking showers during 30 minute breaks during the day, we managed to beat rush hour in LA and get our next load outbound early.

If you ever have an opportunity to watch a load planner at work I recommend you do so. They pull of Google maps with available drivers pinned in the map. Clicking on a driver they can pull up that driver's profile. They can see your average miles per week, RA score, on time percentage, load refusal rate, and general notes. You can bet if they have a hot load that requires someone that can drive 600+ miles in a day they are going to find a driver that is highly productive and on time. They AREN'T going to risk giving it to someone with low miles per week and service failures. That's a recipe for disappointing a customer.

Many's the time I've driven to park for a 10 at a customer. That way I can log On Duty pre trip inspection and delivery at the same time and I've made sure I've driven as many miles yesterday as possible so that ALL available hours today can be applied to the NEXT load. Sometimes the customer will wake me up BEFORE the appointment and ask me to get in a dock, getting my day started earlier. I've even pulled into a one dock operation and opened the doors, backed into the dock, and been woken by the rocking of the truck as they are unloading.

If you can only survive by being within three steps of a toilet and a restaurant then you will always be within three steps of a toilet and a restaurant. Stock your truck with food and learn to live life on the road. Learn to stay clean and healthy as a "camper". You'll extend your ability to run miles by at least 300-600 miles per week. That works out to giving yourself a raise in the thousands of dollars per year.

What other job allows you to give yourself a raise?

 

Both Hous Tank and Lepton (Lepton with an "e" DP) posted some of the absolute best advice for a new driver that I have seen in about forever. ANY new driver who wants to succeed should print these and tape them up in a place where it becomes a ritual to read them everyday.

I would add one additional note. Make a point of meeting your new DM face to face as soon as possible after you solo and make a point of going in to chat every time you are at your home terminal. Develop a personal relationship with your DM and you will find the bumps in the road of your trucking career become practically unnoticeable.

Best luck, driver. Done right this job really is a piece of cake!

Frank

 

thanks frank....sorry lepton.

 

Leptons correct about all the excuses you hear!!

thats one of the reasons I try to steer clear of terminals in general but especially the lounge areas. There is just so much negativity it makes me gag!! I just shake my head and walk away. A lot of those folks bring their poor miles on themselves.