Whats the MOST miles a driver can do in a month as a single?

I think alot depends on how fast you're truck is and where you are running and how strict your logs dept is or if you even have one. If you log at 65 mph and drive 10 hours you have 650 miles a day ok that is a given but you cant run 650 a day for 7 days because you have inspections etc... that you have to log..... I think the most I ever logged was 12000 one month and I know I was dead tired half the time

 

Driver some one is blowing something up your behind that is about the same color and consistancy of what comes out of the stack when you have your foot in an old turned up B model Cat.

To Legally run 16,000 miles as a solo, you would have to be dropping and hooking and everything would have to be going perfectly. And I do mean perfectly. Sure you can write a legal log for that many miles, but in reality what you do and what the log says would be two very different things.

If you are doing 11,000 a month you are doing just fine. You are logging it as you drove it as you should.

A lot of these guys who are obsessed with miles do nothing more than move a whole bunch of cheap freight as fast as they can, and they are obsessed with keeping the wheels turning under a load.

The question is who is the better driver, a guy who can put down 4000 miles in a week and make 4200.00 gross, or a guy who will move 2500-3000 miles and make 6 grand?

This is also the trap that a company driver being paid by the mile falls into. your getting .31 a mile, and you know the more miles you make the more money you make, so you are inclined to run run run run run run run and then run.

But you will burn yourself out doing it trying to make a living.

 

IF your truck will run 70mph+

IF you don't run in split limit states like Cali.

IF you have the loads available to run constantly.

If your work is all drop and hook.

IF you can keep the left door closed.

If you can stay out of city traffic.

You CAN run 700 miles per day, every day, legally and, do it 6 days a week. That's 4200 miles.

There's your 16k (actually a little more) per month.

I know it's doable but, not many drivers are in a position to do it.


................ Jim

 

Well, break it down. If you want to continually roll without a 34, you have to average 8 hrs, 45 min each day. We can give up 30 minutes of that for PTI, fuel and loading/unloading. The assumption is you are running decent long runs and carry 300 g of fuel. We are left with 8 hrs 15 min. If your truck is not governed and you are running midwest to Wyoming through Kansas and can stay inside the 70-75 mph states and you never hit heavy traffic, 8 hours at 70 mph, you can log 560 each day. Times 30 days, this adds up to 16,800 miles in a month. This math leaves that extra 15 minutes each day off the clock. Which means you still have 1 hr, 45 min at your disposal for....extra stops, DOT inspections, etc.

8 hrs a day is really not working very hard. But this is on paper. Real world? Not very realistic.

 

I will say there have been a couple of occasions where I have run 16,000 miles, One was doing multiple stop loads, and it wore me down so dead tired that I slept for a couple of days straight when it was over, and it made me crazy trying to make it all work.

The lesson I learned from it is why it is better to be your own dispatcher rather than have a company organ grinder feeding you calls.

I dont think that is the way to do it.

The other occasion where I did, it was running coast to coast, and it was just a fluke that it worked out that way. I ran hard, and it was just by chance the miles worked out that way, and it is where the good paying freight was going. It doesnt take too long when you get a load from Seattle to Jacksonville FL, then from Ga to CA, then from CA to Pa, Pa to FL, then Ga to OR&WA.

that is simply dumb luck when it works out like that, and when I did it both times I was driving a flat bed the first, and a step the second.

The second run around that I did everything that I loaded for the most part drove on or drove on or off of my trailer, or it was loaded in 1 or 2 picks by a crane or forklift.

I can tell you a lot of that too relied on customer service, Id call ahead and get the person on the phone I was delivering to. On occasion I have been able to get some one to stay as late as 8 PM so I could drop a machine at a dealer or rental shop, and I have also been able to work with project managers and get into thier jobsites and have my truck where they want it when they want it with all the securement pulled ready and waiting when the crane showed up, and they like this because cranes are not cheap. Most have a 3 or 4 hour minum and many run 300.00 an hour +. Thus being early and communicating with them will do wonders for how they work with you.

 

Driver, believe half of what you see and none of what you hear when it comes to truck drivers. Hell, I wouldn't even believe this!

 

Forget most of what you hear on the redneck internet..channel 19.