Solution For Fatigued Truck Drivers? Pay Them By The Hour!
Ken Shigley recently posted an entry on his trucking blog entitled "Five common sense ideas for reducing the risk of truck driver fatigue." Ken has a lot of things right with this post but one thing I believe is wrong is not asking for a 6th common sense reform, and that is simply to have drivers paid by the hour instead of by the mile.
Driving by the mile encourages drivers to push to make a few more dollars. Drivers are encouraged to push to exceed the hours of service requirements and push past the limits of safety. In fact trucking companies know this, government studies prove this, but companies still pay by the mile so that it is the driver that takes the risk of any slow down in on the highway due to construction or rush hour congestion. If the truck breaks down, the driver isn't paid until the problem is fixed.
Perhaps because courts have held drivers who are paid hourly are entitled to overtime (Bostain v. Food Express, Inc.---P3d---, 2007 WL 611259 (Wash March 1, 2007), the Washington Supreme Court held that interstate truck drivers are entitled to overtime compensation for any hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week) trucking companies don't want to pay by the hour. Do you know that truck drivers have been exempted from the federal law that protects almost every other American worker from being overworked without fair pay, the Fair Labor Standards Act?
Paying by the mile also encourages speeding. After all, if you just go a bit faster you can travel more hours in your allotted number of driving hours and earn more money. Drivers also speed to make up the miles that were missed due to traffic, mechanical problems, or other delays.
If truck drivers were paid by the hour then the trucking company would assume the risk of any delay. The driver will get paid the same regardless so he is not given an incentive to speed or drive over his hours of service. Until the trucking industry faces this fact drivers will both continue to speed and drive past their hours of service. The wrecks due to speed and fatigue that could easily be prevented will continue, leading to more tragedies on our roads.
You are [_____] to think you can pay drivers by the hour. If you want to do that then while you are at it you better raise the prices on everything you pay for. The rate per mile is the same today as it was 20 and 30 years ago. If the rate per mile went up then that would help drivers slow down and not have to push as hard. As it is if we were to be paid by the hour then for me it would be an average of $100 hour or $1,000 a day plain and simple, just for the fact that I own my own truck and have all my own overhead to pay for.
The ONLY way to solve the problems are to pay by the hour or mileage which ever is greater for the pay period.
I recently drove for Swift Transportation and only made money while on their training program; $350 a week before taxes on average. Sad.
As a husband and a father of 3 it is not even close to being a living wage. How in the world does the job market place determine that 25 cents a mile is a fair an reasonable wage, it simply is not. In fact it is well below minimum wage for the 14 hour day. If you only get to drive 300 miles but you work 14, you made $5 an hour, and some days are not that good.
Maybe it is that they use the 11 allowable driving hours and calculate 50 mph and figure a driver will drive 550 a day and drive for 6 days a week. That would be nice... 550x.25= $137.50x6= $825!! DREAM ON!!!
Well, the real world of trucking does not work like that. If you get a thousand mile run, they give you 30 hours to get there. They never take into consideration that you have to load, do pre-trip, in-route, and take a 10 hour breaks. They also do not figure for fueling, and traffic, and a truck that may only pull a hill at 40 mph. They also do not pay you for ANY of the time doing ANYTHING except driving. There are very minor things that may earn you $10 here, $15 there, but I never saw it more than once a week on average.
No... If you get 1000 miles on this run, the next 3 seem to be 300 miles or less each. Not to mention sitting at the dock, weigh station, DOT checks, traffic jams that all eat up your time. I made the best of every mile and trip I received. It is just seems to work out that way.
Also, lets not forget about sitting and waiting 3-4 hours to be dispatched that next load. Lets not forget about over weight loads and sitting at the dock a second time while the shipper reworks the load... For those not familiar with this, it is where the shipper unloads the trailer, repacks it, weighs it, and reloads your trailer. This takes hours and hours to complete. SAMS CLUB in Maryland is notorious for over weight trailers... and they have a scale on their yard.
My average week found me running out of hours 500 miles from home because of a shippers error that tied me up and made me not able to legally drive a load back to my home terminal because I had too many hours.
If companies were required to pay the greater of minimum wage OR mileage they would never put a driver in that position.
70 hours a week X $7.40 (Ohio 2011) = $512 week.
2500 miles X .25 per mile = $625
You can only LEGALLY drive 11 hours a day.
You can not LEGALLY drive after 14 hours of work.
You are REQUIRED to take a 10 consecutive hour break prior to driving again.
If you break these rules you will pay out more in fines that week than you earned. These rules are NOT flexible.
There are a few strategies that help a driver to stretch a day out a little, but not a great help in most cases.
My average weeks driving NETTED me a $500 gross check... that is $500 before eating EVERY meal in a truck stop. That is $500 before paying $5 a day to take a shower at a truck stop. That is $500 before paying taxes, health insurance (not available through the company till you are with them a while). That is $500 before paying roaming charges to talk to my wife and 3 kids that I only saw 9 days in 3 months!!!!.
I found that I could afford to quit that job and be a stay at home dad because the additional child care we took on as a result of me being on the road cost 3 times what I took home.
I wish I had the $5000 back that it cost me to get a class A license with every endorsement.
Truck drivers are not whining needlessly. They are not high paid. Owner operators will tell you they make $150,000 a year, but they don't tell you they spend it all on fuel, repairs, insurance, and TAXES. Many owner operators are driving for free after all is said and done.
LITERALLY... Nothing moves any where in America without a truck driver... NOTHING.
Pay them a living wage for crying out loud, they are earning it every day.
I will likely never drive a rig again, I cannot afford to.