Hourly Pay for OTR Drivers.

So once more drivers take it up the ass because carriers are too cheap to pay honestly.

Gotcha... thanks for the clarification.

And the same folks wonder why they can't find good drivers or why a lot have said screw it and moved on...

Ponderous.
 
snafu said:
Strange.. the folks who constantly say they can't find drivers still don't seem to understand that one of the main reasons why nobody wants to do this shit paying job anymore is because they're tired of working and not being paid for all of their time...
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That is so true. That, and the matter of more home time. Mind you the rest of it sounds like you are seriously pissed at carriers, but your points are well taken.
If you compared a driving job to a factory job, the big difference was one of supervision. How can you monitor the efficiency of your driver in the same way you can monitor a factory worker? The truth is you can't. Industry's solution to that was pay-by-the-mile, and if memory serves, it was introduced by produce brokers that just had to get their goods to the market before anyone else. Remember the movie White Line Fever??? Well, those days are long gone, and with the ELD coming, the issue of supervision goes away as well. Your point about government legislation proves that. Prior to the ELD, there was no way for the government to prove it either ... they would have had to rely on the paper log as well, which when you come right down to it is like catching the fox in the hen house, seeing nothing but feathers, and asking him if he ate the chickens. Of course the fox's answer is no ... prove otherwise ... LOL. Simply put, there is no downside to the ELD. If you, as a carrier, ran legal paper all the time, the ELD will have no effect on you. You get reliable metrics and KPI's out of it that will make your business that much more accurate (assuming your ELD is an OBC as well).
The next big hurdle for the industry is going to get "buy-in" from our customers ... the shippers and receivers. It's going to take big name trucking to institute hourly pay for drivers. From what I can tell, most shippers and receivers still haven'y figured out that there is a big change on the way. As is always true, the first guy through the wall always gets bloodied, and unfortunately, small carriers just don't have the blood to give. Maybe, instead of OOIDA wasting millions and millions and millions of dollars on trying to eliminate the ELD, they should have seen it for what it really is ... a means to get their membership fairly compensated for the work they do. Too bad Sonny Pruitt and Will Chandler are still at the helm.

As I reread this, I realize I am beginning to ramble, so I'll get off my soap box now ... LOL
(How many of you google Sonny Pruitt and Will Chandler ???)
 
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Hey Michael, not to confuse those who don't know their old trucking movies, Sonny Pruit and Will Chandler were the two main characters in the TV series "Moving On", not the movie White Line Fever. Will was the crotchety old veteran driver, and Sonny was the young guy also studying to become a lawyer. Jan Michael Vincent was the star of the movie, White Line Fever.
 
Will would likely be for ELD's Michael, he always was the brains behind the deal. :)

That said, much smarter people than I can debate the relative merits of hourly pay vs flat rate or per mile, but my modest experience is this. In 1976 I became an owner operator at North American Van Lines as a punk kid and I was on their special products division. In this case, "special products" were new (and I think unused) caskets from Dominion Casket in Oakville that I peddled across western Canada. The only reason the punk kid got that run was a lot of guys freaked out at the thought of hauling caskets for a living. Anyhoo, I was paid $0.60/mile, nothing to load/unload, plates, insurance and uniforms were paid for and when I was delivered I baled for home empty, no reload. Using StatCan numbers covering inflation only (ie: no raise), that same run would pay $2.46 per mile to the o/o in today's dollars.

If the industry was such that someone paid that kinda $$$ today I'd give them a dozen trucks in a heartbeat.

PS: Loaders, you have Will and Sonny mixed up. Will was the wannabe lawyer. :)
 
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You're correct. Either the Alzheimers flaring up, or too much turkey clouding the brain.
 
loaders said:
Hey Michael, not to confuse those who don't know their old trucking movies, Sonny Pruit and Will Chandler were the two main characters in the TV series "Moving On", not the movie White Line Fever. Will was the crotchety old veteran driver, and Sonny was the young guy also studying to become a lawyer. Jan Michael Vincent was the star of the movie, White Line Fever.
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Oh SNAP bro ... LOL
Actually Sonny was the crusty old dude, and Will was the wanna-be lawyer ... LOL
 
Michael Ludwig said:
@JayTee ... "I think unused..." That is just creepy dude ... ROFLMAO
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Yeah it was, and that's the reason the new kid got to haul 'em too. :)

I never really worried about it too much until one night in March '76 I was heading across from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg for a 7am Saturday delivery, outta nowhere it got warm and started with thunder and lightning the likes of which I'd never seen before, sent copious amounts of chills up and down my spine that night.
 
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JayTee said:
Will would likely be for ELD's Michael, he always was the brains behind the deal. :)

That said, much smarter people than I can debate the relative merits of hourly pay vs flat rate or per mile, but my modest experience is this. In 1976 I became an owner operator at North American Van Lines as a punk kid and I was on their special products division. In this case, "special products" were new (and I think unused) caskets from Dominion Casket in Oakville that I peddled across western Canada. The only reason the punk kid got that run was a lot of guys freaked out at the thought of hauling caskets for a living. Anyhoo, I was paid $0.60/mile, nothing to load/unload, plates, insurance and uniforms were paid for and when I was delivered I baled for home empty, no reload. Using StatCan numbers covering inflation only (ie: no raise), that same run would pay $2.46 per mile to the o/o in today's dollars.

If the industry was such that someone paid that kinda $$$ today I'd give them a dozen trucks in a heartbeat.

PS: Loaders, you have Will and Sonny mixed up. Will was the wannabe lawyer. :)
Click to expand...
JayTee said:
Will would likely be for ELD's Michael, he always was the brains behind the deal. :)

That said, much smarter people than I can debate the relative merits of hourly pay vs flat rate or per mile, but my modest experience is this. In 1976 I became an owner operator at North American Van Lines as a punk kid and I was on their special products division. In this case, "special products" were new (and I think unused) caskets from Dominion Casket in Oakville that I peddled across western Canada. The only reason the punk kid got that run was a lot of guys freaked out at the thought of hauling caskets for a living. Anyhoo, I was paid $0.60/mile, nothing to load/unload, plates, insurance and uniforms were paid for and when I was delivered I baled for home empty, no reload. Using StatCan numbers covering inflation only (ie: no raise), that same run would pay $2.46 per mile to the o/o in today's dollars.

If the industry was such that someone paid that kinda $$$ today I'd give them a dozen trucks in a heartbeat.

PS: Loaders, you have Will and Sonny mixed up. Will was the wannabe lawyer. :)
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Small world.

I was an O/O for 3041 if you can recall your agent numbers.
At the time they were the hub for the van lines 'electronics' division.
Sam Lackey would load out of there every week.
 
2426-41. I have no idea how I remembered that, but I was one of Jack Bellinger's Alberta fleet trucks.
 
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snafu said:
Lol it's amazing what we remember from those days.

2954 was the Household Division's Agency Code.
3041 was for the Electronics Division
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I was in there a few times to load/unload. Good bunch of people as I recall.
 
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