wa8yxm
Davison Michigan (East of Flint)
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BackOfThePack wrote:
The sinkhole gets worse from there. .
Beware of speaking the truth in a forum that's owned by corporate America. (One way of saying I agree with your entire post).
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RedRollingRoadblock
Oregon
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BackOfThePack wrote:There’s not a driver shortage and never has been. That’s the mega carriers collaborating to flood every region with THEIR drivers in order to cut rates further.
In turn, that gets them permission to hire foreigners and expedite the green card.
The sinkhole gets worse from there.
The game is to undercut every system of support.
Couldn't said it better! Spent 45 1/2 years staring out of a windshield, mostly at night, took early retirement 6 years ago at 63. Ran (mostly) legal with paper logs and made a good living because I chose to work for companies that (mostly) treated their employees well and always paid well. I miss the job about like I miss a hemorrhoid, Doan's pills, and Rolaids. For those that don't get the joke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx_Mnbpt79I
WalMart making a big production about raising pay, fails to say about them screwing over their drivers a few years ago.
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JRscooby
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You walk into a ice cream shop, order a sundae. The worker tells you "That will be $4.50" but you only want to pay $3.90. Do we declare it a ice cream shortage?
Due to a public health issue, where many people could stay home do their jobs, and get paid a lot of other workers, who can't take their job home, learned they deserve a larger share of what the business produces.
And a trucking company can pay well, treat drivers good, but if what is often the case, the trucking company's customers treat the driver like something need to scrape off their shoe, it is hard to keep drivers.
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BackOfThePack
Fort Worth
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JRscooby wrote:You walk into a ice cream shop, order a sundae. The worker tells you "That will be $4.50" but you only want to pay $3.90. Do we declare it a ice cream shortage?
Due to a public health issue, where many people could stay home do their jobs, and get paid a lot of other workers, who can't take their job home, learned they deserve a larger share of what the business produces.
And a trucking company can pay well, treat drivers good, but if what is often the case, the trucking company's customers treat the driver like something need to scrape off their shoe, it is hard to keep drivers.
The “trick” to a good truck-driving job is one where skill adjunctive to driving is required.
Tanker
Flatbed
Oversize
— Are starting points to then find the niche in each which itself requires more than average skill for these categories.
Not a great deal is involved driving dock-door to dock-door. LTL or TL. Dry van or reefer. Exceptions exist, but this is the basic starter job and is the majority of truck drivers.
The three noted are where an assumption of basic skills have been learned (call it, time management + clean driving record) so a man with 2+ years experience can be assumed competent not to damage equipment/freight in any notable way as he acquires what is needed for loading/unloading and/or moving large, difficult loads.
— This is where other companies might try to poach drivers from other firms. One becomes known by his reputation. In general, this is the grade to ascend to have a decent life as a truck driver. Shippers & Receivers are glad to see you arrive. Won’t tolerate their own bad employees if it upsets the civility of loads shipped and delivered.
For the most part all job moves are lateral. But it’s best to get up the few steps available.
.
2004 555 CTD QC LB NV-5600
1990 35’ Silver Streak
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JRscooby
Indepmo
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BackOfThePack wrote:.
The “trick” to a good truck-driving job is one where skill adjunctive to driving is required.
Tanker
Flatbed
Oversize
— Are starting points to then find the niche in each which itself requires more than average skill for these categories.
Not a great deal is involved driving dock-door to dock-door. LTL or TL. Dry van or reefer. Exceptions exist, but this is the basic starter job and is the majority of truck drivers.
The three noted are where an assumption of basic skills have been learned (call it, time management + clean driving record) so a man with 2+ years experience can be assumed competent not to damage equipment/freight in any notable way as he acquires what is needed for loading/unloading and/or moving large, difficult loads.
— This is where other companies might try to poach drivers from other firms. One becomes known by his reputation. In general, this is the grade to ascend to have a decent life as a truck driver. Shippers & Receivers are glad to see you arrive. Won’t tolerate their own bad employees if it upsets the civility of loads shipped and delivered.
For the most part all job moves are lateral. But it’s best to get up the few steps available.
.
What you say is true. When I retired I sold a tractor, 2 end-dumps (1 long enough to bridge 80,000 gross, the other designed for local rough haul. Also got rid of old flatbed with chains binders and straps. (40 ft, not worth much) The company kept a blanket permit 2 states 100,000lbs 10 feet wide. I could make more money paying the lease on a company RGN, but much preferred end-dump. Drop stuff in top. 30 seconds cranking the tarp. Get where going, stuff falls out the back. (Local, cab control for tarp/tailgate, never get out of cab until go home)
But the point is most trucks pull vans or reefers. The last year I worked, I was bouncing home with RGN. Dispatch called, had a tractor broke down. I dropped RGN, picked up reefer and load of eggs. Got to warehouse belonging to company A on time, had to wait over 2 hours, then pay company B to pull pallets of eggs belonging to company A off the trailer. And at a large grocery warehouse I asked if I could use the restroom near the dock. No, the driver's restroom is on other side of building, probably near a mile walk. (When I chocked trailer wheels I noticed it smelled like piss)
Now I was getting well paid, because the company I was leased to wanted to keep shipper as customer, and I was only way to make on time delivery. Imagine a new driver treated like that, not paid for the time waiting?
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BackOfThePack
Fort Worth
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Not getting paid is a norm.
The driver game is maximum miles against accessory pay
The companies play a shell-game with their job offers.
In the end, it’s that one needs to be out 2-3/weeks to cover enough miles (with what little accessory pay applies) to consider truck driving “decent” in terms of income.
3-weeks is where income plus time-off can work out the best. Xtra-low personal overhead cost plus higher gross weekly income means more money saved than average Joes. (Get this right and the rest is easy).
If you’re awake, you’re at work. That becomes (over time) an okay proposition, then it’s a better job than what many have to put up with back home.
The one thing I’m a stickler about is time off at home. If I want 4/days, that’s how it is (more than that not much good). 3-nights is a minimum I’ve been gone 3-weeks. (“Time off” overrated as most do nothing past TV watching or social media time-wasting anyway. Can do that in truck). Three full days (4-nights) I can rest, see friends and keep a personalproject moving along. If home weather too hot or cold, stay out more. If nice, get thru house more often. Etc.
Bottom line is simple: truck ain’t moving then no one makes money. Too many days off it’s too hard to keep 365-Days Average Income high. Trucking pays by the load, not by the day or hour. A driver isn’t in the mix OF LOADS everyone’s losing money. If the number of loads decline then just sitting kills the thing. (The weak link for driver: higher-expense spending and not earning).
Live along major truck lanes and near manufacturing the options and money Is better. Live far off lanes, incomes fall drastically.
Pull up a map of CONTAINER PORTS (inland).Too far from these isn’t good for any American. The railroad’s have put their money into this model. The Federal fuel tax hasn’t been raised in thirty years BUT the big boys needed those roads rebuilt for NEW big truck didtribution pattern from outlying new warehouse districts and DC. NOT business to business as traditionally. But didn’t want you moaning about higher personal transportation costs. So it was taken from General Fund (SS take raised earlier). Shell game.
Trucking is now the other end where mainly finished goods are moved to a few giant retailers. Containers are how all but bulk commodity is moved (for what you need in day to day life). The “stuff” needed to make the goods arrives that way from overseas.
Food is a little different, but not much. Women don’t cook, so “food” became processed (manufactured). Hauling 24-tons of “Italian” pasta from Texas (winter wheat) to NJ a familiar load I’ve carried, bagged, boxed and palletized to a DC (distribution center) in eastern PA and thence portioned to little straight trucks with smiling Luigi painted on the sides to head into metro NYC.
Rural food-related trucking is just giant carts moving goods along the open air factory floor from one work station to another.
The difference between AVERAGE jobs a driver could get in his area is how well he likes one versus another, otherwise. Less money with less headaches worth it to me. I prefer long-haul.
Hauling “animal proteins” (slurry) on the Plains (beef) or rural south (poultry) to metro regional jobs with multiple stops daily (fast food and C-store delivery) are where my hats off to those willing to do them. The home every night jobs (No thanks).
I’ve hauled dairy, but it’s very high hard miles (your Arkansas purchased milk may have come from New Mexico). Wall Street “financialized” every bit of the American economy it could. **** the consequences to average men if that has any weak points in the chain.
FUEL PRICE CRISIS will bake out to who has loyal drivers past political crookedness (where most stuff happens). Not clear yet.
The other part is where the fuel price (even after adjustment as pump price doesn’t reflect actual cost, etc) goes higher than value of goods shipped. That last part is where far rural homeowners will have screwed themselves. If the drive inbound to The Big City doesn’t have goods being delivered for sale, then the outbound trip can’t pay for itself. Relying on 401k and/or transfer payments are a dead-end. A visible end. (Spending and not earning)
4-5 major railroads the bankers hide behind call the shots for Americas economy of goods. Put thumb down on choke points. Trucking just follows along that as no goods by rail = no truck loads (raw materials on up in sophistication) to do final manufacture or assembly steps where trucks then finish the chain.
Trucks are the final miles. Not any longer the intermediate step WHERE VALUE WAS ADDED. (Ronnie Raygun kept you distracted with Commie Scares as leveraged buyouts started and bankruptcies accelerated took it apart peaking in the 90s as Billy & The Blue Dress was just more Theater of Distraction from what really mattered).
The New Service
What’s upstream flows down. Or doesn’t.
1). Seaports by rail to interior rail ports. Containers outbound (less so by truck from seaports)
2). Truck volume shifts some stuff around.
USA extends east to IH35. Ends.
3). Truck volume majority is ready-for-delivery to DC.
The USA as Economic Activity
Roughly the areas “stuff happens”. Income sucked into these from surrounding. Population aggregates which MAY be self-supporting; or as with Gulf Coast petro-chem goes to owners elsewhere. (Ha! Or Florida. Which couldn’t make do past three days as the whole state “survives” on transfer payments).
— Trucking serves populations (retail), but that doesn’t add value to an economy any more than do hospitals. Separate wheat from chaff.
.
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BackOfThePack
Fort Worth
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Truck
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BackOfThePack
Fort Worth
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Rail
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BackOfThePack
Fort Worth
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Ports
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JRscooby
Indepmo
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From '72 to '12 there where a lot of names on the door, but if I was driving it near sure bet the same name was on the title and insurance bill; Mine. And at times I had trucks running that I was not driving. And in that time I have fired 3 drivers. I owner-financed several trucks, when I was near sure I could give driver enough work to pay for it. And at least 4 are driving their own rigs, (much better than what I sold) and a few others own other business.
You say you don't care for the "home every night" type work. Often I have found I can make more per hour, and a lot more per mile than the fleet average of OTR trucks of the company I was leased to, And problems easier to deal with. (Rear end showing hot on 4th what planned to be 10 30 mile round trips? When unload, check for leaks, and axle end temps. Call parts store, put a set of bearings in will-call, work late rebuilding a rearend. Now the rear end shows hot half way across Pa, eastbound with a load of meat. Them people talk faster than I can listen, and somebody in trouble they turn into vultures
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