Great Wide
- Thread starter Enoch
- Start date
10
The Great Wide guys are all agents so a lot depends upon the truck you use. IMHO, if you're moving freight across the border you have a greater chance of getting a "good guy" unless you get an American that goes home and sits on your freight for the week. Insist on the driver's cell number and twice daily update calls from the driver not the agent.
30
While I agree with you in principle. remember that the more contact you have with the driver directly the more your liability can change. There have been some serious precedents set regarding broker liability when 'dispatching' drivers directly.
Keep well,
Mike
Keep well,
Mike
A1 Mike, I also agree, talk to the dispatchers and choose reliable, honest people to deal with, you won't have an issue.
Direct a driver to do things and you become liable as you "pushed" him to do things without going through their dispatch/office/corporate.
Direct a driver to do things and you become liable as you "pushed" him to do things without going through their dispatch/office/corporate.
20
Something else you need to be aware of ... if you contact a driver directly and he happens to be in the middle of his sleep shift, you have actually just put him back on duty, negating the time he just put in sleeping to keep his log book right. No big deal until he gets in an accident, then the DOT requisitions his log book, qualification file, maintenance records, and his cellphone bill ... then you're scuppered.
Dispatch would know that he is on a sleep shift and wouldn't call him until he's actually back on duty.
Dispatch would know that he is on a sleep shift and wouldn't call him until he's actually back on duty.
10
No where did I suggest that the driver be dispatched or contacted.
Michael I generally agree with what you say here but if you truly believe that dispatch know when a driver is sleeping or on duty you're sadly mistaken for the most part. The vast majority of the Great Wide guys pick and choose their own freight and have no "dispatcher". They accept and book freight through agents (not dispatchers) and have few or no allegiance to any specific agent.
Michael I generally agree with what you say here but if you truly believe that dispatch know when a driver is sleeping or on duty you're sadly mistaken for the most part. The vast majority of the Great Wide guys pick and choose their own freight and have no "dispatcher". They accept and book freight through agents (not dispatchers) and have few or no allegiance to any specific agent.
Ralph you stated "Insist on the driver's cell number and twice daily update calls from the driver not the agent."
this often leads to confusion or people not being aware of what is happening. I think that is all he really meant, apart from an obvious warning on current liability issues.
this often leads to confusion or people not being aware of what is happening. I think that is all he really meant, apart from an obvious warning on current liability issues.
20
Ralph, we NEVER EVER EVER give our driver's number any more. Their job is to drive the truck. It is the dispatch's job to do the rest. also because drivers sometimes get calls at ungodly hours (how would you like to get a check call at 5 a.m. when you went to bed at 1 a.m. cause the shipper took most of the day and all of the evening to load you) and like others have said, you have no idea what their schedule is. As a dispatcher, I know my drivers. The ones who are early risers, the ones that drive most of the night, the ones that stress easily etc. Please don't expect that everyone does things as you do. Also not all dispatchers treat their drivers with tender loving care like we do.
30
Our answer is we do not pay for the drivers cell phones so we do not give out numbers. Also if they call us constantly on a load we just cut them off, we find that they have someone calling who has no clue that when you tell them he is loaded at 10:00AM and delivers the next day they do not need to call every hour for an update.
20
You have/had customers actually call your drivers every hour for an update? You're right, that just reeks of stupidity, and unfortunately, there's no known cure for that 
I suppose the quick answer would be wait for the driver to call you saying the customer just called him, then call the customer and tell them they just delayed their delivery 10 hours by calling the driver and putting him on duty answering their call thereby negating the 7 1/2 hours he just put into his sleep shift ... LOL ... and by the way, there's now a charge for your wasting his time and taking the truck out of production .... That's $150.00 an hour and no "free" time.
I suppose the quick answer would be wait for the driver to call you saying the customer just called him, then call the customer and tell them they just delayed their delivery 10 hours by calling the driver and putting him on duty answering their call thereby negating the 7 1/2 hours he just put into his sleep shift ... LOL ... and by the way, there's now a charge for your wasting his time and taking the truck out of production .... That's $150.00 an hour and no "free" time.
You have/had customers actually call your drivers every hour for an update? You're right, that just reeks of stupidity, and unfortunately, there's no known cure for that
I suppose the quick answer would be wait for the driver to call you saying the customer just called him, then call the customer and tell them they just delayed their delivery 10 hours by calling the driver and putting him on duty answering their call thereby negating the 7 1/2 hours he just put into his sleep shift ... LOL ... and by the way, there's now a charge for your wasting his time and taking the truck out of production .... That's $150.00 an hour and no "free" time.
lol, we try to get them to call in when we need a bond cancelled or we need specific info, but calling the driver to update once it's already loaded is really pushing it... if you're dealing with good carriers & good dispatchers you'll know you're getting the right info from them every time. You can also get to know some carriers & some dispatchers, when they say he'll be there in 20 minutes it means 1 hour & 20 minutes, but that's experience. A lot of people don't care for experience or skill, they will just call for updates for no reason at random times of the day.... sometimes really late or really earlier... if it's past the appt time just check in with shipper/receiver, if he isn't there then call the dispatcher.
10
Martineav, the O/O's that work for companies like Great Wide aren't like the typical baby sat drivers you normally get. These guys pick and choose their own freight They DON'T have a dispatcher (I said that once before). They book freight through a DM agent and that's about the extent of their relationship. DM probably has a couple of hundred agents/offices. Their guys pick where they go/what they do.
30
Greatwide spawned partly out of what was called Dallas Mavis at one time. So ralphthetrucker is correct, the O/O relationship is similar to that of a Landstar O/O, which heaven knows can be frustrating.
Greatwide also operates dedicated operations (they bought YRC Logistics maybe 2-3 years ago), so if you were assigning freight to a truck on one of those fleets there would be a dispatcher that has a relationship with the driver.
Hard to say which is which though.
Greatwide also operates dedicated operations (they bought YRC Logistics maybe 2-3 years ago), so if you were assigning freight to a truck on one of those fleets there would be a dispatcher that has a relationship with the driver.
Hard to say which is which though.
30
Not at all like uShip. uShip for the most part from what I can see is a delivery service for people buying and selling on ebay Kijiji craigslist type of site. Great wide is a bunch of brokers for lack of a better term under one umbrella selling freight to their own core group of drivers, They will post loads and take loads from outside load posting services if needed but for the most part they take freight from their own agents. Some are small carriers under the Great Wide umbrella that is why they also use outside boards for some loads as do some of the owner operators in cases where Great Wide has no freight in a given area. Same deal as Landstar.