Hate your trucking job? You could be dumpster diving…

Hate your truck driving job? Don’t like the working conditions and think you are not paid enough?

Watch what I watched a few minutes ago and you might change your mind.

These days, I have read, it has become a status symbol just to have a job – any job.

I was getting something out of my car in the apartment complex where I now live (we had to downsize from a house to an apartment – we like it though). A young couple was dumpster diving, gathering all the recyclables they could in plastic bags. The guy said hi and told me “it’s a rough way to make a living”. I had seen an older man and a younger man a few days ago while I was out for my morning walk doing the same thing.

You could say, oh well, people make their own life choices. But really, especially in this economy, it is only by the grace of God, yes and maybe some decisions you made along the way, and luck that you are where you are now.

I truly think that as a nation (a world?) we are in another Great Depression. It may not be as bad as the last one or, in fact, it may be worse. But a lot of people whose lives have not been terribly affected yet, and especially that insulated class we call our leaders, don’t realize the misery much of society is going through.

On a happier note and related to all of this, I am back at work again truck driving. Unfortunately I am not at my last job – I had to go back to a previous job and am making half or even less than half as much as I made at my last job. But I’m not complaining. In fact, I am hopeful that I can keep working, and that will depend on two things: the economy, and my health.

I noticed a lot of businesses along the road boarded up. I was going to stop at a café I used to stop at out on Highway 97 in eastern Oregon, but it was no longer in business.

But maybe truck driving is still a good skill to have. I recall reading The Grapes of Wrath, a book set in the Great Depression. As I recall, it begins with a guy hitching a ride with a truck driver. When a lot of other people were out of work in those days there were truckers out on the road making money.

Big trucks block interstates in the race of snails…

Do you find it annoying when two big trucks occupy the lanes in front of you on the interstate and you can’t get around them?

Well, so do I.

And I spent 12 years over the road behind the wheel of a big truck.

While I cannot say that I know the complete solution for this problem, I can say that what causes it is pretty obvious. One truck is usually going about one mile per hour faster than the one ahead of it, so the driver goes to pass, but that takes quite awhile. And if the driver in the slower truck inadvertently or on purpose speeds up, it takes a lot longer and may never happen at all.

This subject came to my mind when I read what appears to be a new regular column in my local newspaper by a local Highway Patrol officer. He began his column by laying out the scenario: “You’re traveling down a two-lane freeway in the fast lane (known to law enforcement as the no. 1 lane) with your cruise control set at 70 mph. Approximately a quarter mile ahead of you are two commercial big rigs in the right lane (no. 2 lane). The big rig that had been following the other moves into the no. 1 lane. Now for the next few miles you sit there and simmer as the big rig slowly passes the other truck.”

So far, so good. He described the phenomenon we all have experienced. But that is just about where he left it. Oh, he went on to note that in California the speed limit for big rigs and other vehicles towing trailers is 55 mph (compared with 70 mph for other vehicles on most freeways). He also went on to say that in California the law is that regardless of what the speed limit is, slower vehicles, even if they are traveling the speed limit, have an obligation to go to the right and let faster traffic pass.

Well that might answer the question of where the law is for the so-called “speed monitors” who travel the posted speed limit but refuse to get over for cars going a little (or a lot) faster, but it does not address that first situation he described about the trucks.

Well here it is: on relatively flat ground, most truckers are going to be going as fast as they can or as fast as they can get away with (kind of like most other drivers). In California and other states with a split speed limit, 55 for trucks and 70 for cars (in California), there is a built-in problem in that no matter where a truck is, it is going to be holding someone up.

But the problem we were looking at originally and I will zero in on is those two trucks in front of you hogging the lanes in what looks kind of like a race of two snails. While in California the truck speed limit is 55, the average big rig is probably traveling about 60 mph – I don’t care what anyone says, that is the de facto speed limit for big rigs. Some truckers are in a hurry because they are paid by the mile and my experience tells me that 5 mph difference can make a big difference in pay over a pay period. They may be also pressured by dispatchers to get a load delivered or picked up by a certain time (you could ignore the pressure, but who wants to lose his or her job or get a short pay check?). And then 55 is really awful slow.

But while I have waited this long to get it out, the real problem here is some kind of physics or traffic science problem I can’t explain, but I can describe. I used to think how foolish it was of me to pass another truck when I was only going a tad faster than it was, and I also knew that I risked getting a citation. So, sometimes I would slow down a little and drop back with the intention of resuming at least a speed of 55 mph (not 60 – didn’t want to catch up with that slower truck again). But what will happen every time is this: after everything settles down I’m going 45 mph, maybe behind some partially disabled car. If I speed up, I’m back behind another big truck. That does not work and is not good for fuel mileage (constantly changing speeds) or even safety.

The only solution is to do one’s best to keep running at a steady, but safe (and legal) speed and pass when one must and one thinks the job can be done in a relatively short length of time.

I think split speed limits amount to accidents waiting to happen, but except out on the open desert, 70 is probably a bit fast for big rigs (and I know some will do it and faster even so), but 55 is a tad slow when the rest of the traffic is going at least 70. As far as one truck passing the other, even if all the truckers tried to do the posted speed limit, such as 55, not all speedometers agree with each other (you’d be surprised at the variation), so there would still be the situation of one truck going a tad faster or slower than the other. Yes you can drop back, but then that causes a chain reaction in all the traffic and the truck driver winds up going not just 55, but 45, like I said (and I don’t quite know why).

The only answers are common courtesy and obeying the law on the part of all drivers no matter what type of vehicle they are driving.

P.s.

Speed limits vary by state. Some trucks go extremely fast. But most big rigs owned by companies, as opposed to independent drivers, are electronically governed anywhere between 59 mph and 65 (especially on the West Coast). Why not 55? Don’t know if it is true, but the old story is that at least one company did cut its trucks down to 55, but the Highway Patrol complained they were going too slow, holding up traffic (I think that may have been in another state, not California, if it’s even true).

Note: this same text, along with a host of other subjects is posted on my general commentary blog at: http://tonywalther.wordpress.com

Germans paid to junk old cars; Americans try to sell them on their own…

Note: This is a slightly revised version of a blog I posted some time ago on my Tony Walther’s Weblog.

————- 

German carmakers and auto dealers have been facing the same problem as their counterparts here in the USA, a major downturn in the car market resulting from the worldwide financial crisis. But In Germany now the government is paying car owners to junk their older cars (9 years or older) and in the process buyers can reportedly save the equivalent of as much as$3,300 to buy a new car. Dealers have reported an upsurge in sales. And there is hope that it will get older polluting vehicles off the road. Meanwhile the used car market has sunk further.

And here in the United States:

As I take my daily walk down the street I often see cars and pickup trucks with for sale signs on them parked along the curb or in vacant lots.

I wonder why our government has seen fit to get into the business of selling new cars (the auto bailouts and the Treasury Department guarateeing warranties off all things) when so many are shedding the ones they have, but can no longer afford.

I am not at all sure there is much of a market for new cars. We may well have an over supply already. Of course a lot of people would likely prefer to have a new car but cannot afford one now with the recession (or depression).

It seems like the market place should determine the fate of the auto business.

As to all the new incentives, such as offers by the auto companies to make your payments should you lose your job, extended warranties, and equity protection, well that is maybe a good deal, but the buyer surely pays a hefty price at the other end of the contract. It is a big insurance policy. I would say that if you expect you might be losing your job, now is not the time to be purchasing a new car. As to the warranties and equity protection, if the American manufacturers had been making superior products, they would not be necessary. Maybe the era of planned obsolescence and making the big money in parts and repairs is coming to an end, hopefully.

And don’t get me started on the repair con jobs. I went to my foreign car dealer to get my door fixed and found out the guy wanted me to sign on the dotted line to just look at the problem (minimum half hour labor) and at the same time he is telling me that they likely would not be able to fix it. I refused to sign, so he looked at it for free and told me he could not fix it. I took it to a body shop and they fixed it in five minutes for free (I had done business with them previously). I’m no mechanic, but I was a truck driver and knew from experience that adjusting a door that won’t open and close properly is usually about a five-minute job (unless there has been major damage). What I am trying to say here is that many of us go into auto repair places and get ripped off because we have little idea of what they are doing (to us).

But even though I have a negative attitude toward the car business – oh and one more story: many years ago I haggled with a car salesman who claimed he was going to give me a super deal on my trade in that no one else was willing to give. But when I suggested that he was simply tacking more dollars on to the other end of my contract he sheepishly admitted to it.

However, back to the auto business itself: it is important and I have no doubt it will survive. I think it could have done so without government help. It might mean different people running it, but where there is a demand for a product, certainly there is a viable business opportunity. As I have written previously, one of the big mistakes of the domestic manufacturers was to not be flexible enough to meet changing demands in the market place.

….Just read a blog by a respected economist – Pulitzer Prize winning one – who said what I and so many others have suggested. The bank bailouts are not working because the bankers have been just taking the money and paying themselves. I am referring to the big banks that took the bailouts. Okay, you want a source for that. I’ll break here and look it back up. Here it is: American economist Joseph Stiglitz, interviewed by the German magazine Der Spiegel. 

Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and many others, to include Warren Buffet, contend that simply letting the major institutions go bankrupt would have been a disaster. On the other hand, many, many economists differ, saying that bankruptcy would be the answer.

My contention would be that governments should stay out of directly funding and/or running businesses, although providing some incentives might be wise.

Taxes are always the big problem. Almost no one wants to pay higher taxes or pay taxes at all for that matter. But all who benefit from living in the United States must expect to pay their fair share, be they individuals or businesses. Equity is what it is all about. And few agree on how to get there.

Owner-operators may disappear; long haul in for a big shift…

Owner-operators in long haul trucking may become a thing of the past.

That’s what one trucking industry official predicted recently.

You can read about that in the 4-27-09 online issue of Transport Topics. I did (there’s also a link at the end of this post that may or may not work).

On the heels of my last post in which I predicted the possibility that long haul trucking will see its demise, that and other things he said were interesting to me.

James Hebe, of truck maker Navistar, said that rising fuel and equipment prices and the increase of electronic log books and their possible requirement on all trucks is the big threat to owner-operators.

“This is the death knell of the owner-operators. They can’t survive by running legal.” That’s what Hebe was quoted as saying in an article by Jonathan S. Reiskin, associate news editor for Transport Topics.

I thought that was both candid and profound.

Be they company drivers or owner-operators, most long haul drivers are likely to admit to cheating on log books (if the police are not in earshot). It is not so much greed as it is more a matter of survival. You can’t always get there from here legal. And most drivers experience the reality that the first to get to his or her destination for unloading is the one who gets re-loaded the quickest (although dispatchers and companies sometimes play favorites with some drivers for various reasons).

Drivers will also tell you that if they try to drive legal they find that dispatch is slow in giving them a re-load. Sometimes drivers are not fired, they just find themselves without loads or with fewer miles.

Also, it is not uncommon for trucking companies to speak with forked tongues. On the one side of their mouth the safety department says drive legal. On the other side of their mouth the dispatcher says “do the best you can; we need that load there as fast as you can get it there” (if you know what I mean, wink and a nod).

No one that has never hauled freight, especially the kind with multiple pickups and/or drops, can understand the obstacles long haul drivers go through and the waits and then the unrealistic delivery times and so on.

I know a safety director for a trucking company who is fond of saying about log books: “there are the kind that are legal and there are the kind that will pass audit. I prefer the kind that will pass audit.”

When it is all said in done, though, I have to question why drivers want to let themselves be run ragged (ruin their health), going on four or less hours of real sleep, working for free on loading docks or sitting in a truck waiting because they only get paid per mile (or a waiting time wage or loading/unloading wage that is only sometimes paid and that does not compute to even minimum wage), and working six or seven days per week. The answer is usually that it is the reality you have to face if you want to keep your job. And now with the job shortages and the freight shortages, there is more pressure than ever, I suppose.

Anyway, that article I read (and I suggest you read too) says that long haul will transition into regional and dedicated hauls and more coordination with the railroads via intermodal.

I personally see another variation. Some companies might seek more owner-operators by offering improved pay or settlement packages in order to maitain lower overhead in equipment costs.

Actually, all this might be good news for experienced drivers. I would think it would portend better paying jobs and better working conditions.

I spent 12 years out on the road (that’s not much being as I met a lot of drivers who had been out there for 30, 40, 50 years or more). The last job I had was for a large LTL type carrier (consolidated freight picked up locally and then hauled by line haul between terminals) as a line driver. Their hours were often long, but the pay was excellent (and I was paid for all the time logged in – no reason to cheat on the log book; in fact doing so when you are paid for all work would be counter productive) and working conditions were good, and the company people treated me well.

P.s.

If this link works, you can get that article I referred to by clicking here: http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=21792

If that does not work, just Google Transport Topics.

Could long haul trucking be on its way out???

I’m going to go out on the line a little here and predict that long haul trucking as we have known it for the past several decades is on its way out and it could lose ground rather rapidly. I don’t think it will disappear altogether anytime soon. But I think the combined forces of unpredictable energy costs, the global recession (that is a lot like a depression), and the move toward more energy efficiency and environmentally-friendly ways of doing things is hastening long haul’s demise.

Until or unless we find some drastically different way of moving goods trucks will of course be needed for local and even regional delivery and I imagine long haul of some goods will continue for practical reasons.

But during last summer’s diesel spike that saw per gallon prices move toward $5 many shippers started looking more seriously at using alternative means of transport, namely the railroad. Also I read one story that said that some goods coming to America from Asia that had heretofore been unloaded at Pacific Coast ports to be trucked across the nation were instead being shipped via the Panama Canal to the East Coast. The trip was somewhat longer, but the savings in fuel costs made it worth it.

Also during that fuel crisis it was reported that the produce industry in Salinas, Ca. was looking seriously at refurbishing the spur lines into the packing sheds. One packer said he recalled shipping by rail back in the 70s.

Today a freight forwarder called Railex is shipping produce via a unit train each week (and is set to add one more) from Delano, Ca. To Rotterdam, N.Y., just west of that state’s capital city of Albany. Railex also has a shipping facility at Wallula, Wa. that loads produce rail shipments destined for New York state.

The price of fuel came down, but the economy crashed in what has become the nation’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Freight levels continue to drop. The major trucking companies are reporting losses. And one small trucking company official told me that everyone is undercutting each other in rates. Good for shippers if they have anything to ship.

Of course you still see the freeways heavy with truck traffic. But ask any long haul driver lucky enough to be out there with a load and he or she will likely tell you that the wait for a return load once the destination is reached is often long.

While railroad freight, especially intermodel (truck trailers and often double-stacked containers), is down considerably, I notice from the vantage point where I live that the Union Pacific trains are hauling a steady stream of truck trailers and containers (that might otherwise be going up and down the highways).

I just read a recent article that noted that the Norfolk Southern Railroad has received financing from the state of Virginia to help it rebuild its infrastructure, the idea being to unclog the I-81 corridor through the Shenandoah Valley (and I suppose be green by reducing truck traffic too). The state estimated that within 10 to 12 years truck traffic on that stretch could be reduced by 30 percent.

And that same article (possibly planted by the railroad lobby – I don’t know) suggested that with an investment of $500 billion 85 percent of the big truck traffic on the nation’s highways could be eliminated by 2030.

One the one hand, knowing what I know from working in trucking (I am not now) for more than a decade, it is kind of hard to imagine all freight going via rail (save for local delivery), especially with the model of  ” just on-time delivery” that shippers and receivers have worked with for so long.

The whole industry has been used to being able to ship relatively small orders rapidly straight through from shipping door to receiving door and of being able to place shipping orders at the last minute (no need for time-consuming train or ship reservations).

But the pressures of environmental concerns and fuel efficiency and availability is pushing the freight shipping industry toward railroads at the moment. The continued economic decline is raising havoc as well.

I am not at all against trucks. I was a truck driver for some 12 years. Trucks certainly have an edge on speed of delivery. I note that unit train only promises five-day delivery from California to New York state. I don’t know why that is, but I do know that I hauled a load of oranges along with a team driver from Porterville, Ca. to Massachusetts in about two and a half days.

No one can accurately predict the future, but I do think that long haul trucking will not continue the way it has been operating for the past several decades and will likely lose ground for many types of freight.

If the economy were to surge back though it would be interesting to see if the railroads could really handle the volume. They certainly could not at first because the infrastructure is not there. And if the economy was booming they might continue to be more selective and not be so excited to handle such a variety of freight.

I was worried about miles as tragedy unfolded elsewhere…

(Note: I’m kind of cheating here since I posted the following already on another blogsite I run, but it does deal with trucking and I think many drivers might identify with it in some way… Tony Walther)

 

Sometimes when things are not going right and the whole world seems to be falling apart around you, what you may not realize is that somewhere else people have it a lot worse. And once you are made aware of that you may feel kind of foolish or small (but maybe not better).

I think such was the case ten years ago, April 20, 1999.

It was a hot day in Los Angeles. That’s the way detective Joe Friday of the old Dragnet show might have put it.

I was a long haul truck driver. Among other things that day, I had a tough time backing in at a super crowded and narrow dock with all kinds of obstacles, such as a fire hydrant. No damage and no one hurt, but it took awhile. And then I had to wait a long time to simply pick up one pallet of organic bananas that had been sitting out on a hot loading dock (they were rejected at the other end). Finally I got out of there (and technically this was in Fullerton, but the whole LA basin, which is virtually all paved over, is all LA to me) but something was wrong. My refrigeration unit on my trailer was not working and I had much more produce to pick up (Oxnard and Salinas, probably, I don’t recall that for sure). So, the powers that be sent me to Vernon (still LA to me) to a refer repair shop. Glad I wasn’t paying the bill. At the time is was $100 just to have them look at it (wonder why your food costs so much?). I was there for a couple of hours at least (I don’t remember what the total bill was, but it was big). They tore apart the whole refer motor, literally. The guy had it in small pieces all neatly laid out. Now the computer built into the unit tells them what is wrong before they do anything. I can read the computer. It said a switch was defective. The switch was on the outside of the unit. When I swung by my home terminal in Northern California later, a refer mechanic there shook his head. He said the job should have taken all of but five minutes (breaking down on the road is costly).

While I was waiting at the LA refer repair place I could not help but think, being a long-haul trucker I was not making any money. I only got paid by the mile.

The customer waiting room was a cubby hole with a ratty chair and a TV set and, as I recall, it did not have air conditioning. It was at least in the high 90s outside. A truck driver was sitting in the chair and seemed to be mesmerized by what was on the television screen. I asked him what it was. He said there was some kind of shooting incident or attack on a high school.

Well of course that turned out to be the infamous Columbine High School shootings at Littleton, Colorado, where two teenage boys went on a rampage and shot 12 of their classmates and one teacher and wounded 23 others.

The thing that stuck out in my mind out of all of that was how long the police waited to go in. I know this ground has been covered by me and others, but that still bothers me. According to reports I have read it took more than an hour and a half for police to move in. The perpetrators had already killed themselves sometime earlier.

Of course had the police rushed in like the Russians do in hostage situations and killed innocent people in the process they would have become the villains.

But there has to be some type of compromise and tactic worked out to save innocent lives. In light of recent incidents, it does not seem that has been worked out.

But the theme of this post is when you think you have it bad, others have it far worse. Certainly in my case what I was going through that day was trivial.

And knowing that someone has it worse than you do may not always make you feel better. I was just making an observation.

P.s.

I just read an article that says there were many myths built up by various news reports. It claimed that there was no evidence that the Columbine murderers were outcasts or that they were picked on at school. It said that actually no one really knows why they did what they did. I have no real idea myself. I can only conclude that the two were psychopaths and did not separate the make believe world of things like video games and and cartoons and TV dramas from real life. Unfortunately on that dark day back in 1999 they made an unbelievable horror come painfully true.

Truck driver pay is all over the board and some has gone down…

Truck driver pay is all over the board, but as far as I know the top pay is for LTL type carriers and some other specialized types of trucking.

We’re talking big trucks here, and the lowest pay is for general long haul, and I am referring primarily to company drivers, not owner operators.

The last job I had before going out sick with cancer was for an LTL operator and I was making something like 53 cents per mile, plus hourly pay that was more than $20 per hour (I was paid for miles of the run, and for any additional work I did I received the hourly rate. I was not at the top of the pay scale yet).

LTL means less than a load. LTL carriers usually pull doubles (triples where legal) and often divide their drivers into pickup and delivery (or P&D) and line haul. Freight is picked up locally and consolidated at a terminal and then hauled by line drivers between terminals. Drivers are usually paid by the hour or a combination of hours and miles. And drivers are usually paid for each minute on the job, as opposed to long haul where it is quite possible to put in many hours of work (which might include simply being with the truck) and not be paid for it.

But I looked into going back to work, and there was none available at my last employer, so I checked out my previous long haul employer. I was only offered 30 cents per mile, the same pay rate I was receiving some four years ago when I left them for a better paying job after putting in almost a decade with them. When I started with them in 1996 experienced drivers for other companies said they were making as much as 30 cents per mile or more and they said I should be making that too. I stuck with my company, and it took me several years to work up to 30 cents per mile.

Why did I stay with that company so long? Lots of reasons. The pay was dependable. I lived near the terminal so I could park my work car and come back to it after my road trips. And for long haul, the working conditions were relatively good. And the people were easy to work for, even if all the customers were not.

(I think customer abuse of truck drivers would be worth a separate essay.)

Recently I have seen long haul companies advertise as much as 44 cents (and I imagine someone out there is quoting more).

But jobs are hard to come by now. And you have to remember that just quoting per mile pay is highly misleading. You have no idea how many miles you will get. In the current economic climate, you are not likely to get anywhere near as many as you would have, say about two or three years ago. Don’t believe recruiters or dispatchers or other company reps about mileage. They often stretch the truth. They primarily want available drivers for when they do have freight.

And for those not familiar with long haul, in good times drivers often go at least 3,000 miles per week. You have to average at least 2,500 miles to even make it pay and the reality usually is that you’re out there  six or seven days per week. Many coast-to-coast drivers stay out three weeks at a time and more.

The most I ever made per year in long haul was somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000, maybe slightly more.

Some companies, including the long haul outfit I worked for, take 10 cents of that mileage pay and call it per diem. The good part is that you do not pay income taxes on that per diem. The bad part is come Social Security time all that per diem pay does not count as wages earned, so your check may be smaller than someone who was not paid a per diem. 

In LTL, I was up to $65,000 per year and had I not got sick, I was going for $70,000 or more. And I had Sunday and Monday off most weeks. If not, I just made more money – cha ching (the sound of a cash register).

Many owner-operators have told me they make as much as $100,000 to $200,000 per year, but many do not seem to differentiate between gross and net. An owner-operator, of course, has to pay truck expenses, often including hefty truck payments. I knew one single guy who threw his gains into getting his truck paid for as quickly as he could. Then he was in position to make a lot more on his net. And he saved money by not buying a brand new truck.

With all the new environmental requirements the feds are putting on trucks, it has to be tough for those who own their own rigs. Don’t feel too sorry for the companies, though. Many are getting federal tax breaks or other incentives to upgrade their vehicles. But then that may be a good thing for God’s Earth.

But back to company driver pay: a funny or not-so-funny thing happened while I was doing the high-paid LTL work. I got cancer, but for those who were still on the job, many got laid off and some took pay cuts, due to the economic disaster you may have heard about. Freight levels have fallen drastically.

Much of the freight I ever hauled was tied to the consumer-driven economy. When consumers don’t have money because they lost their jobs and their homes and their life savings (if they had any) and their confidence, they don’t spend money at stores any more than they have to or can and the stores don’t order nearly as much freight.

Another thing I learned. When I was doing long haul I carried refrigerated food products (mostly produce) more than anything else. I always thought since I was hauling food I was hauling something that the economists would say had an inelastic demand. People have to eat, so they would tend to have to have the same amount of stuff. Wrong! People cut back in eating during times like these. So there are fewer loads (fewer miles for drivers/fewer drivers needed). Also they don’t eat as expensively as they did so the loads do not pay as much. The more expensive the product, the more the load pays. That means that trucking companies are not going to be as generous with their pay.

And I almost forgot, I’ve known two different truckers working for different companies, small ones, who paid them a percentage of the load, even though they were company drivers, not owner-operators. I don’t think they got other benefits. And really, when you think about it, that is just a variation on mileage pay. In mileage pay you get a percentage of the load, just a small one.

Having said all of this, a lot of people are happy to just have a job these days. No one says a driver has to stay at a poor pay outfit once times are better.

My advice for anyone getting into trucking is to get your experience where you can and decide what type you would really like to do and then go for it.

In bad times and good, those who like what they do and are good at it are the most likely to be employed at good wages.

P.s.

I didn’t address union work. Union work in trucking is confined primarily to some LTL terminals and some auto haulers and some other specialized types of trucking. Long haul is not unionized. I was not union when I did LTL, but I was paid at basically the same rate as union drivers at other terminals in my own company.

Some things to consider about a long haul job…

(Blogger’s note: I took a long hiatus from this blog due to other pressing matters but I’m starting it up again. While the following post might seem negative, I’m just trying to tell it like it is, based on my own experiences, for anyone new to trucking.) 

People out of jobs are going to truck driving school, an article in my local newspaper said. Been there done that. In fact, a newspaper article is what led me to my more than a decade odyssey out on the road.

Things are not as bright out there today – while there has been a big demand for truck drivers for years, with the downturn in the economy freight movement has fallen off sharply.

But I just wanted to get something in here for anyone who might be considering going the truck driving route.

Most of the entry level jobs for big truck driving are in what is called long haul. You need to realize that the rules of employment are different in that field than most others. The normal laws of pay and working conditions do not apply.

Typically, long haul drivers find themselves waiting a lot, far from home, baby sitting a truck, as I call it.  For the most part, as a long haul driver you will only be paid when your wheels are rolling. Long haul pays by the mile, not by the hour or fixed salary. Some companies do pay a little something for layover or even wait time (but usually not total wait time and such pay is usually not much, often not even minimum wage). And layovers can last for several days. I was once laid over for nearly a week, some 2,500 miles from home.

And if you don’t like wait time, I’d advise staying away from hauling refrigerated or temperature controlled freight (such as produce).  I once logged in 40 hours of wait time in one month, not counting sleeper birth or meal breaks. And I was not paid for any of it, as I recall (and if  I was it was only a few dollars).

I would discuss that issue upfront with a prospective employer (they may string you on, though).

Employers often quote cents per mile, but what they either lie about or do not tell you is that you may well not get in enough miles to make a living. It costs the employer very little to let you sit out there at a truck stop, because the employer does not have to pay you. It costs you a lot. When I began truck driving I found that a lot of drivers really were not making any money. They were simply drawing on their pay for subsistence and when it was time to get their paycheck they had little to nothing left. In fact, some of them owed the company.

Now this all sounds kind of negative. But long haul driving conditions, I believe, have improved somewhat since I got into it and got out of it.

(And for those of you who have not read my blog before, I drove truck for more than a decade. I worked in long haul for most of that time. My last job was what you might call short haul LTL (Less than a load) and paid well, but I came down with cancer, and am not able to work now.)

But I just wanted to point out some things folks not familiar with over-the-road trucking need to know. Another thing you might not have thought of is your schedule. No such thing. While some long haul drivers may have dedicated runs (going to the same place each time), most do not. In the course of a week, you will work around the clock; your hours will vary each day. That’s because pickups and deliveries are made at any hour of the day or night.

I won’t go over hours of service and log book rules in total detail, but basically under the current rules, you have 11 hours driving ahead of you before you are required to take a 10-hour break. There’s no limit to the time you can do non-driving work, but once you have reached 14 hours in one tour, you can no longer drive until you have that 10-hour break (remember, you could get to 14 hours with less than 11 hours driving, due to wait times and even loading and unloading, which you might be called upon to do or assist in, and don’t forget mechanical breakdowns and flat tires – they happen).

If you were to drive solo across the United States (and I have done that) you will find that your start and stop times roll around the clock. It would be like working at a factory but doing a different shift each day. Remember, somewhere in there you have to eat and let nature call and maybe even take a shower (maybe).

Under current rules, if you have 34 consecutive hours off, you start a week again with 70 hours available on your log book.

Some companies or dispatchers or your own greed or all three may goad you into cheating on your log book.  Or you might feel compelled to because you notice that the first to get his or her load delivered is often the first to get a reload. Do not do it! You, not anyone else, are liable if caught or anything goes wrong. The most likely scenario besides you falling asleep at the wheel and killing folks is that someone will run into you. If this happens and your log book is not up to date and/or legal, you may well get the blame under the law, no matter who was really at fault.

Then there is loading and unloading. I will say for most of time I did not touch freight. But if you do not touch the freight, you or someone (your employer) will have to pay someone to do it. It is not uncommon for drivers to end up loading and unloading on their own time and not get paid for it.

Finally, there is weather. If you will be driving over the mountains, particularly on the West Coast, you have to be prepared to handle snow chains. If you are not up to that, you have no business on the road, because you will be a danger to yourself and everyone else (there’s no shame in not being up to it, but there is in getting yourself out there and not being up to it).

I only touched the surface of this road. Most of what I wrote was negative. Ironically, I enjoyed the work immensely (although not every minute or day of it). A lot depends upon your employer and yourself and the type of freight you haul. And some feel a sense of independence out there. It certainly is not like most jobs. You are not highly supervised.

And in this time of high unemployment to have any job has become a status symbol. Just ask any unemployed investment banker (right after you ask him what the hell he did with that bonus check paid by your taxes).

Oh, and one more thing, long haul is not for anyone who wants a home life (that’s why I did not enjoy it all the time). I don’t care what employers promise you, from my experience, long haul drivers have no home life. I have heard many a long haul driver lament: “I didn’t get to see my kids grow up”.

Good luck!

(Copyright 2009)