Practical vs Short Miles

Filed Under (Trucking - Industry)

Just a quick note to remind everyone what a short mile and a practical mile is. A short mile is what most companies pay and is an almost impossible route for a truck to drive.  Drivers drive practical miles and truck companies and brokers pay short miles. Usually about a 10 percent difference.

Crete to Pay Drivers Practical Route Miles

The change to Practical Route miles will take effect at the start of Crete Carrier’s fiscal year on Oct. 1. Currently, the Lincoln, Neb.,-based company pays its drivers industry-standard Short Route miles.
   Ostergard said the switch to Practical Route miles was made to more accurately reflect Crete Carrier’s commitment to its drivers. The change will affect the 5,600 drivers who are either employed by or contract with Crete Carrier.
   “Even though paying Practical Route miles is not the standard in our industry, we made this change with the best interests of our drivers in mind,” Ostergard said. “When we say ‘there are no shortcuts’ at Crete Carrier, we mean it.”

The problem is that it’s an industry standard. It’s a standard to rip-off the drivers and owner operators and it’s the biggest scam the "industry" is perpetrating on us. And Crete issues a press release to tell everyone they are finally doing the right thing.  It’s not their fault they’ve been short changing their drivers for years and years, it’s an industry standard, it’s the industry’s fault. Big companies like this make the industry standards and by the way, they make me sick to my stomach.

The last load I took the broker told me my trip was 850 miles, I was sitting at my laptop looking at the route program I use and I asked her if that was "short miles", she checked and it was. I said, "my truck only drives practical miles." She adjusted her program to show practical miles and it was a 50  mile difference, imagine that? A difference of $94, but it’s an "industry standard".  These people want to strike for something no one can control like fuel prices? How about industry standard crap like this???

And if you’d like to see our new truck that only drives practical miles, check our personal site under photo albums for new truck, or click here.

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Comments

BB on 4 September, 2005 at 9:15 am #

Thank GOD I don’t drive OTR!!


Chad Johnson on 18 September, 2005 at 3:55 pm #

No offense sir, But i think your a little nuts if you don’t think a strike would drive down full prices. if you like it or not. we have a president who is friends with a saudi king. thats why prices are going up and staying in my opinion. the bushes make money off of high fuel cost. I really do think if American Truck drivers shut down for a week. the president would be hey pal to the king and the prices would drops just like that. we all have our views and I know what your saying but yours raises the cost of living in america. you know as well as i do that getting the trucking industy to pay more to o/o is just a vicious circle of price increase’s that hit the consumer. no hard feelings sir and have a nice day…chad


wayne on 25 September, 2005 at 9:22 pm #

Better the consumer than us! A strike won’t work because we would all have to do it and that’s not going to happen. Second, any price drop that did happen because of a strike would only be temporary. Rising prices for fuel and insurance and tires is a fact of doing business. Adjust your rates accordingly and stay in business.


Armadillo on 29 December, 2005 at 7:01 pm #

http://www.workers.org/ww/france3.html

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9711/01/france.truck/

France did it, There is only one way to do a strike. Shut the trucks down in the middle of the road. The GW bridge would be a choice spot, I-80/I-94 Chicago, I-10 at I-5 in Los Angelos. This would definately raise a brow. How about Lets just all run the scales all the time. Its not a moving violation but it would get some attention and most of us (99.99%)would get away with it. Kinda be like a school of mullet swimming by a Lobster. One or two of us might get pinched but they aint gonna eat us. Lets say we did “shut down”. What would we ask for? How about lets get the trucking industry in line with the rest of the working world. HOURLY WAGES for the employees(Company drivers) With the true hours I work I would make $500 a week at minumum wage. There is a few jobs out there that pay hourly and they are not minimum wage. Let a labor arbitrator decide what is fair compensation. I wouldn’t do it for less than $18 an hour.

The O/O is saying What about me. Just think what would happen to freight rates if all company drivers was put on hourly wages. Win/Win!!!!!!!!!!

If it would be stressed that this is our goal. Hourly wages..Would I abide by DOT regulations. You can bet on it. Would the highways be safer?

Now, fuel prices and the rest. This is The United States. Capitalist = supply and demand. If we shut down like the french there would be an over abundance of fuel. 1 day of shut down would back the refineries up tremendously. Hourly Wages would give a result in less miles driven and less fuel being consumed until the demand had risen again.


Kevin on 4 February, 2006 at 10:12 am #

Ok…While I’m still searching out the matter regarding “Practical” miles, I STILL can’t see what the difference is?!?!

Ok, ok…they’re “supposed” to be more than the HHG (DUH)…they’re NOT hub, yet WHAT ARE THEY!?!?! In other words, how are “Practical” miles determined?

The “old way” usually results in getting 3 different miles as far as counting when you finish a load…you’ve got #1 DISPATCHED miles. #2 ROUTED miles, and #3 ACTUAL miles driven. And MOST of the time the “actual” is the highest number.

Even if one were to take Mapquest for a “standard” it would be better than HHG, or the miles noted in your atlas.

Oh well…time will tell (I THINK?!), as the company I drive for has wet our appetite telling us in a voice mail that we’re goin’ to PRACTICAL MILES in the near future.

Many companies however will always say the next change is to benefit employees, and only hope this will! I guess we can compare the identical run with the new PRACTICAL miles figuring as all of this unfolds.

Regards


wayne on 4 February, 2006 at 12:13 pm #

Most trucking routing programs include options for either HHG or Truck Shortest or Truck Practical. PC Miler has come out with a Hazmat routing option. Try etrucker.com to check out truck routing.

Practical miles are closer to what you are going to actually drive. They could also be called “quickest” in some (car) routing programs. As a general rule of thumb the difference between short and practical is about 10%.

Using Promiles, a competitor of PC Miler, From Las Vegas, NV to Wichita, KS Practical is 1267, routing is from I-15 - 70, south on I-135 to Wichita. Using the “Truck Shortest” option is 1171, routing is south on 93 (over the dam, which you can’t do), east on I-40 then to Wichita on US-54. Which isn’t a bad road, but it’s a lot of two lane and small towns.

Hub miles or actual miles would include getting lost or going out of route to go home or driving around in circles, most companies aren’t going to pay for that.

Practical is the closest to reality as we are going to get and about the only difference between Practical and actual is going to be the few miles driving in town to your pick-up or delivery. Depending on the company or dispatcher even the practical miles can go from the center of town to the center of town or you can go from zip code to zip code which would even closer to reality.

Dispatch miles are usually HHG or Shortest miles option in PC Miler

Depending on you pick-up and drop-off you may not notice a big difference every single trip, but overall there is a big difference.


carlos on 23 November, 2006 at 4:40 pm #

WHAT BOTHER ME THE MOST IS THAT I HAVE TO WORK FOR FREE 10% I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW TRUCKING COMPANIES CAN GET AWAY WITH IT, IS THERE ANY LEGAL ACTION THAT TRUCKERS CAN TAKE TO FIX THIS PROBLEM, IS THERE ANY LAWYER THAT CAN TAKE OUR CASE??


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