What’s better hourly rate or by mile

Restaurant delivery is a freezer, cooler, and dry divided by walls in trailer. It's hand stacked in order of stops. So box of chicken is a piece, box of potatos is a piece, and so on.

 

Piece work in trucking usually means you get paid by the mile or by the load.

Which is the key to why piece work does not pay off for the truck driver. If a driver could just help himself to more freight right after completing a load, piece work might have some merit. Say if all your doing is running dump truck between to gravel pits, and the more efficient driver can just help himself to another load, paying by the load or mile might be of benefit to a driver. But the fact is all of those jobs pay by the hour.

Jobs that pay by the piece, only have the illusion of benefiting the driver. Those jobs are only using the piece rate pay scheme to hide the real hourly wage because it is pathetically low. So low, that if you did not hide it with a complicated pay scheme, you would get no one to apply for it.

 

"Piece work" or "percentage" definitely have merit IF the company is billing a high rate and a good chunk of the wealth to the driver. Then it doesn't matter if you are beholden to your company to get another dispatch if you already made coin today. If you can also find your own loads that's icing on the cake. But that kind of opportunity doesn't fall in the lap of the average new driver.

 

I think it is best differentiate piece work from percentage.

Percentage can be great if you know the business. It is more of a partnership with the truck's owner. However, you don't know the business, it is easy for your partner to cheat you. Unfortunately that happens.

 

I've never made more money hourly than I have
Being paid by the mile.
Only time I ever came close was working in the oilfield.
Other than that it's 2 to 3 hundred bucks a week less.

Why,because the money is in the overtime and most
Places will do anything not to pay it.

 

This question is probably one of the most frequently asked by all of us drivers at some point in our career. It really comes down to the hourly rate v the mile rate as some have suggested hourly is better because when your idle your still getting paid v mileage rate your only earning while your moving. I've been paid both over the years i've driven and i would have to agree with the debate that an hourly rate is much better for your pocket or bank account. especially if your employer pays all the penaltiy rates like time, time + 1/2 and double time thats where the big bucks are earned when you work 12 - 14 hr days. The big companies can't afford to pay an hourly rate for OTR cause they wouldn't make any money so they pay you a mileage rate.

 

It all depends on your situation. For me, hourly + overtime works great because my employer feels the pain when they're paying me time-and-a-half so they want me off that clock pronto. Which means more time at home with my family and less in the truck. I've got a buddy who quit where I work to go haul steel coils. He's on percentage pay now but he's making money hand over fist out there on the highpay highway. Of course, he's working 60+ hours per week and sleeping in the truck....but he's happy and it works for him.

The point is I guess that everyone's situation is different. It's not an hourly vs other pay deal because there's just way too many variables involved.