Do you guys get to drive any? Seems like you gotta read rule books, appease customers, move axles, do this do that, DAMN! Truckers do A LOT more and have to know more than just drive, oh, you gotta know where your going too!
And.... .in North America most long haul truckers are getting paid by the mile, so everything else is non-paid labour. If the wheels aren't turning, you're not earning. Pre-trip inspection, 15 minutes of your own time. Fueling, 15 minutes of your own time, Loading or unloading, hours of your own time. Putting on/taking off snow chains, all unpaid labour. Going to the scales, scaling, sliding axles and or fifth wheel, re-weigh, all unpaid. I did flatback work, at least we got paid for tarping. In Europe you're getting paid by the hour, that's much better IMHO.
Are there many independents/owner operators left? All repair/maintenance falls on the owner of the tractor
Yes we did get to drive quite a bit with the 70 hours on duty in 8 day rule. Sometimes one had to be a little "creative" with all those little things. Lots of drivers use some form of GPS navigation system. Truck drivers must use a truck specific one, although there's no guarantee you'll be routed to the loading docks and not the front door. I used Google maps a lot for locating new customers, where the docks were and what roads to use. Sometimes I'd phone them and speak with the shipping people for directions. Been to some very interesting and hard to access places over the years. Later in my career I mostly went to the same customers. I'm officially retired as of Feb 29th.
I believe Europe allows less driving time compared to North America, plus none on Sunday's. Hourly pay then makes much more sense. Don't see industry wide hourly pay happening over here anytime soon. More and more companies are paying their drivers a flat rate for loading/unloading, and delay pay after one or two hours in the dock.
According to some stats I've seen, there's still plenty of owner operators out there. Many of them have leased on to a large company, partially to utilize the company's buying power for fuel, insurance, maintenance, and repairs. Independent owner operators pay all the bills and daily costs. The smarter ones can still make a good living by controlling those costs. Fuel is their biggest expense, depending on the fuel subsidy. The last 3 years have been difficult for many independents. NO POLITICAL REFERENCES PLEASE. It's also been tough for the large companies. My former employer did not offer a performance based Christmas bonus system in 2023 for the first time in twelve years as freight was that bad.
When I was a kid, commercial trucking was not allowed in my state (Massachusetts) on Sundays unless the cargo was perishable or there was a timeline that could not be controlled by the trucker. An example would be a cargo that had to reach a ship that was departing on a Sunday or early Monday AM. The police enforced this fairly aggressively. In something unrelated, I also remember Gasoline and oil tankers dragging a chain to prevent static buildup in the trailer. I wonder how they handle that now?
Congrats on your retirement on Leap year day, Tom. Retirement is something that I heartily recommend. CBS was talking about leap year this AM and they got a little screwed up in their info delivery. We all know that leap day occurs every four years, but even adding one day to the calendar every four years doesn't fix the time problem - The Earth's orbit around the Sun is not exactly 365 1/4 days. The fix is that every so-called leap year that is evenly divisible by both 100 and 400 does not get a leap day. 1700, 1800 and 1900 did not get a February 29. 2000 did get the leap day, but 2100, 2200, and 2300 will not get leap days, 2400 will.
The Sunday law is for countries like Germany and France. And you're allowed to DRIVE 58 hrs a week, all other hours are all paid hours. But it doesn't matter how many hours one works, you should get paid every minute that you work for your employer. I did oversize loads in North America, that includes also a lot a non-driving during the weekends (even on Saturdays) and you're not allowed to drive in the dark. That is not a lot of hours, especially during the winter time. And they still paid me by the mile. If they started paying drivers in North America by the hour, the whole "shortage of truck drivers problem" will go away. And it would also shorten the (in that case: paid) waiting time to load or unload at the customers.
Petrol stations in New Zealand are having leap year trouble today: February 29: Petrol stations back online after nationwide pump outages, leap year software glitch blamed 29 Feb, 2024 Kay Pinker from Te Awanga couldn't get her card to work at Gull's self service pump on Karamu Rd in Hastings on Thursday. Petrol stations around the country are up and running again following a day-long leap-year glitch which saw card payment machines go down for more than 10 hours. Allied Petroleum, Gull, Z, Waitomo and other fuel stops around New Zealand reported problems with card payments on Thursday because of a software glitch they said was caused by their systems not being programmed to deal with the date February 29. BP truckstops also saw issues with their outdoor payment terminals, prompting an apology from the company for any inconvenience caused. BP said its fuel cards had not been affected. Click here to read the full article
