Team driving is a scam

3 people and 3 pets.

 

Does CRST still do 3 man teams? I remember a few years ago at the TA in Hurricane, WV, I seen 6 people get out of a Covenant truck.

 

Sounds like a party!

 

Three is perfect. Everyone does 8 hours a day and no one runs out of hours or has to stop. Ever. Just fuel and go. Hole in the floor of the sleeper for certain necessities.

 

The New Canadians do it.

Was at the Hook in Laredo years ago when a truck pulled on the fuel island. new Canadians. 4 of them got out and the last one turned around and put a leash on a little goat, and set the goat down on the ground and walked the goat. Drivers standing at the front of the Hook started rolling with laughter.

 

Four guys in a truck.... They're gonna get lonely.

 

What did I miss here? 4315 gross per week and you only grossed 65k each for the year, you should be well over 100k like our teams.

 

I sleep better in my truck than I do at hom,even if it's moving.
I hate getting stuck at shippers and receivers with no food or shower.
Getting a good team mate is the secret.

 

We only ran part time that year. Also many of our loads consisted of rescuing single drivers who sit around the casino or strip joints getting drunk and lazy being late on the accounts. Then the Company is told that they were risking being fired from being able to haul any more freight for these accounts unless they saw the load delivered that day at midnight or some such deadline hour.

85% of our runs were 300 miles or less in rescue mode USA nationally, some of those loads delivered after a 600 mile race empty to get them quick. Fuel was irrevelant, mileage did not matter and time was of the essence.

We got paid properly. But for every twice weekly cross country we did in that kind of wages in the thousands of dollars we probably spent 6 weeks in rescue mode for a few hundred per driver per week. But the rescues allowed the company to retain accounts worth millions. (And usually we see the lazy singles fired summarily and gone.) We had a trainer who was lazy with a trainee who did not know anything. Both sat for 10 hours in Sky City NM which is a casino making them late in Rolla MO for Chicago. We had left Chicago the previous night for Memphis and scheduled time off that week, but it became a emergency to go to Rolla Cross country and take their load from them. Which happened to be flowers from Mexico fresh cut. I don't know of any loads hotter and more time sensitive than fresh cut flowers. That was back in Chicago and delivered by midnight that same day. It was also drug dog searched end to end by the state police on the highway one hour prior to chicago when they realized what was on the trailer and where it had come from. (*An inspection, random roadside that turned into a complete full exercise hunting anything illegal in that load) so they removed every flower and pallet searching it all. That only took an hour. A hour we did not have.

When I talk about making huge wages some weeks and then say we only did 65K gross, you understand that was not the full picture of teaming. If we did nothing BUT cross country that whole year, the gross wages for us would be well over 100K probably even beyond 200K.

But that was not what happened. Not that year. Dispatchers did not use the team asset for what they are supposed to be used in round trips across the USA, but frittered it away in wasteful rescue missions that only paid 300 miles after deaheads twice that. Basically a thousand miles wasted that day. Several of those rescues per week you might see 400 gross for two people.

That is one of the biggest reasons we left FFE. It was not the actual work, but the losses financially in trying to rescue lazy drivers. That is not how you use a team. People did not talk about that much that year becuase it's somewhat of a secret back then. They had a company image that needed some polishing and when national accounts threatened to fire the entire company from hauling freight they cannot live without due to poor quality lazy singles or even worse trainers who sit around in New Mexico for a day... things are pretty bad.

Fast forward to after 9-11 we ran for McKesson going into Winter and only McKesson. That was where some good money was and it was worth our time and energy with these really good loads for a good purpose. There are People around the USA who are very sick and depend on this medicine. But it was not enough to rescue a poor year of "Only 65K gross." it should have been a loss from between 150K to 240K gross year.

I don't know about you but most people will not accept a loss year of that much money and stay in trucking.

 

Never did team, never wanted to...

Get stuck with some freak in a small fiberglass box 24/7? No thanks!

Prison sounds more appealing!

For some it seems to work (husband/wife teams?), but not for me.