Tired, not earning as much as they said you would?

The FIRST thing you should all know about owning a trucking company is that every piece of equipment that I own must earn a minimum amount of money everyday. For discussion sake lets say the tractor needs to gross $700 per day including days days off.
I don't care if you (the driver) work 2 hours to earn that $700 or if you have to work 20 hours. The first thing I will do is turn the truck speed way down (again I dont care if you have to drive an extra 3 hours today to make up for the 15 MPH below the speed limit because Im saving fuel).
Here is where it gets complicated. As I sit in my office trying to figure out the minimum amount of money I can give you to drive that truck, I realize that you are only concerned with the amount that you earn every mile. I have you fooled into believing that the amount you earn every hour is irrelevant. So I tell you "you can run as many hours as the law will allow". Lucky you! Now you are driving a truck that I set at 61 MPH so it takes you more hours to get to your destination, but you can drive 3 hours longer than the typical work day. Lucky You!

Now, since DOT "allows" you to work 70 hours a week, I want my truck rolling so I am making my $700 per day. What if HOS rules were changed to 8 hrs driving, 11 hrs on duty, 60 hrs per week? Guess what??? I STILL NEED TO EARN THE SAME AMOUNT TO SURVIVE AND SO DO YOU!!!

Rookies, stop complaining about ONLY being allowed to drive 11 hours per day. If trucking companies set the rules you would have to drive 18 hours per day for the same pay you get in a day now. If DOT changed HOS to 8 hours of driving you would earn the same amount that you do today but with LESS WORK! Freight rates would have to go up (drivers already earn less than minimum wage so cutting 20% off of driver pay is not an option) One of the dirty little secrets is that trucking companies already know that they cant lower the DAILY pay of drivers so they must get more productivity out of them in that same day (make them drive more hours). If HOS rules were changed YOU the driver could earn the SAME pay you do now with LESS work...

 

YES! How many companies already have retain issues? Most do. Its not cpm that drivers leave for. They know how many cpm they will earn when they sign up, its the daily pay that causes them to quit. New drivers dont consider things like detention, breakdowns, OOS, etc.

Drivers are earning $100 per day now, do you think that they would even consider trucking if they could only work enough hours to earn $80? No, cpm would have to go up and freight rate per mile would have to go up because the truck is sitting more hours.
Did you ever consider why a Heavy Tow Truck can get $20 per mile to drive out to a wreck? Its because they only drive 50 miles per day so they have to charge more for the miles they drive.

 

Spoken like a true "supertrucker".

First of all Im not talking about drivers with 20 years OTR who know how to massage a throttle to get the most power and mileage out of a 550 Cat. Im talking about newbies fresh out of driving school (Swift doesnt have many 379 large cars with 550 Cats and 18 speeds as company trucks).

Im not sure where you heard that driving 61 MPH doesnt save fuel. If you think 61 and 78 MPH burn the same amount of fuel you obviously never had to buy fuel.
You are correct that turning a truck down does mean it cant travel as far in a day but thats OK because the savings in fuel versus the lost productivity (especially @ $4 a gallon) are a net win for the person buying the fuel. The only person who loses in this equation is the driver. And that was my whole point.
Even if they keep the truck at 61 mph the one sure way for drivers to benefit is make them work less hours for the same pay. The only way for companies to raise freight rates is to force them to get more money per mile, the only way to do that is to lessen the amount of miles that truck will travel in a day. How do you do that? LOWER the number of hours a driver can drive.

 

**facepalm**
This is NOT about having faster trucks... Its about safety, keeping trucks at 61 mph IS safer. But driving a 61 mph truck @31 cpm for 11 hours is only $208 per day (less in the real world due to traffic, weather, inspections, detention,etc...).
Lowering the number of HOURS that you can drive in a day will force a truck owner to charge MORE money per mile to get the same profit in a day as he used to (remember they must earn a certain gross everyday to survive). The can not ask driver to earn less per day than they do now as they already earn poverty wages.

Would you rather drive 11 hours at .31cpm or 9 hours at .38cpm ? At the end of the day you have earned the same amount, but unfortunately many drivers will automatically say "What you will only let me drive 9 hours a day, I cant make any money like that!" Do the math driver, you would have exactly the same amount in 2 hours less work.