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Thirty Three Cents a Mile, and You Freeze to Death
allen griggs
Member Posts: 35,690 ✭✭✭✭
My nephew just called up my brother, his dad, and told him of his new job. He is working for Celadon. This is one of the big nationwide trucking companies.
Good God what a bad job. Starting pay at Celadon is .32 a mile, and top pay is .33 a mile. At my company starting pay is .37 a mile, and I get .42
.33 a mile is some of the worst pay in the trucking industry.
Even worse, the trucks at Celadon, says the nephew, are set so that they will not idle. And they do not have generators.
Every truck in my company has a diesel powered generator called an APU.
The APU has its own A/C and heater, separate from the truck engine. At night, I shut off my engine and throw a switch and turn on the APU. Then I have heat or A/C all night long. The APU is cheap to run, only uses a quart of diesel per hour.
Any truck can be set to idle as long as you want. But at Celadon they set the trucks so they cannot idle.
Can you imagine, being in Wisconsin on a ten degree night, and you have no heat? Guess you need a good sleeping bag.
Or, more close to home, how about Laredo Texas? I spend the night there about twice a week. Celadon has a huge terminal in Laredo.
On an August night in Laredo you will have a low of 78, but that is at 5am. When you go to bed at 10 pm it will be 86 degrees. Can you imagine trying to sleep at 86 degrees?
Good God what a bad job. Starting pay at Celadon is .32 a mile, and top pay is .33 a mile. At my company starting pay is .37 a mile, and I get .42
.33 a mile is some of the worst pay in the trucking industry.
Even worse, the trucks at Celadon, says the nephew, are set so that they will not idle. And they do not have generators.
Every truck in my company has a diesel powered generator called an APU.
The APU has its own A/C and heater, separate from the truck engine. At night, I shut off my engine and throw a switch and turn on the APU. Then I have heat or A/C all night long. The APU is cheap to run, only uses a quart of diesel per hour.
Any truck can be set to idle as long as you want. But at Celadon they set the trucks so they cannot idle.
Can you imagine, being in Wisconsin on a ten degree night, and you have no heat? Guess you need a good sleeping bag.
Or, more close to home, how about Laredo Texas? I spend the night there about twice a week. Celadon has a huge terminal in Laredo.
On an August night in Laredo you will have a low of 78, but that is at 5am. When you go to bed at 10 pm it will be 86 degrees. Can you imagine trying to sleep at 86 degrees?
Comments
A collection of carbon units.
Much the same where I work.
Without union protection, we'd be screwed!
To much of corporate America, the labor force is nothing more than a necessary evil.
A collection of carbon units.
Much the same where I work.
Without union protection, we'd be screwed!
Yeah and Soon Artificial Intelligence is going to drive 18 wheeler for 0 cents per mile! Nothing like progress when you can own a company and have robots do all the work![:o)] A Union of unpayed workers with no jobs!
They can get a bunch of deadbeats to sleep in the cab for 10 cents a mile for a while maybe!
serf
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/ata-self-driving-trucks-are-close-to-inevitable/
Proponents for driver-less trucks expect that in the near future, machines will be better at driving than humans. They point to the fact that an estimated 116,000 people are killed or injured in commercial vehicle crashes every year and that those deaths are overwhelmingly the cause of human error. Never mind the fact that they're overwhelmingly the fault of the non-commercial vehicle
I've been told in the state of Kalifornia, it is illegal for a diesel powered semi to idle more than 10 minutes.
Such a law would not surprise me in the land of fruits and nuts.
Wondering, Is that true?
[?]
It's true. You can't have a detachable magazine rifle either, so we came up with bullet buttons. Truck computers are set to shut the engine off at 10 minutes of idle time, so we bring the idle up to 700rpm, and set the cruise control.
Idiots make idiot laws, it really isn't that hard to outsmart them.[;)]
there happens to be one in Laredo Texas
https://www.idleair.com/features/services-and-prices/
I cringe when I hear these stories, thinking about what kind of world will be left for my son when he is older and ready to work.
Last I heard Idleair cost about $2 an hour.
Yes, at the big Flying J truck stop in Laredo, I watched them about 3 years ago install Idleair at about 100 of the parking spots.
So, yes, I would pay 20 bucks a night for a/c in Laredo in August. July, too.
Idleair is available at some places and not available at most places. For example the huge TA truck stop in Laredo, right across the street from the Flying J, does not have Idleair.
You're kidding, right??
You do understand there are actually houses in America that don't have AC in places where it gets way hotter than 86*?
"Can you imagine trying to sleep at 86 degrees?"
You're kidding, right??
You do understand there are actually houses in America that don't have AC in places where it gets way hotter than 86*?
I shut my truck off most nights, only run it when temps go sub zero. In the heat I put the winders down and enjoy the night,,, untill some jacksss shows up beside me with an APU that sounds like someone shot nitrous into a Briggs & Stratton and it's about ready to blow up. Then I fire the truck up, run the idle up to about 1200 and let my 8" stacks drown out that pathetic sounding APU [:D]
Not big money unless you keep rolling a lot of days non-stop, but everyone has to make a living.