Pay shortage? At 50 cents per mile and 55 mph, Heartland is paying their experienced drivers $27.50 an hour. How much do you reckon they’ll have to pay to attract enough drivers?
.And what do they pay while the truck is not moving waiting on a load?
50 cents a mile is nothing. Mohammed the taxi driver does better than that, and he gets tips on top of it.
That is more than a little misleading. Heartland pays 50 cents per mile in specific areas only (east coast runs are one such area).
In addition, it is nearly impossible to average 55 mph due to traffic, stopping and starting, etc.. That also fails to take into account the layover time, waiting time and other variables that count against driving time. Some companies do offer layover pay, but that is generally paid only after you’ve “donated: two hours to the company. Even then, the pay is minimal.
Pay shortage? At 50 cents per mile and 55 mph, Heartland is paying their experienced drivers $27.50 an hour. How much do you reckon they’ll have to pay to attract enough drivers?
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It ain’t that simple! You sound like the people who used to ask me what the hourly rate was to work on an offset press back in the late seventies when I was still an employee of the manufacturer. When I told them forty dollars an hour (roughly) they started railing about all the money I was making. I was actually working for less than $300. a week.
I am not a truck driver but I have had a lot of conversations with drivers. Most of them probably earn a little more than they could doing something else but they are not all buying castles and yachts by any means. It is a tough way to make a living unless you are among the small percentage of people who like life on the road. For many it is almost like the military life, it takes up 24 hours of every day. I spoke to one driver in February once and he said that he had not been home since Thanksgiving.