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Nope. Still with FedEx Custom Critical. My comment about competent dispatchers available 24 hours a day was not a complaint. It was a suggested desirable feature. While there is the occasional hiccup, we feel we have competent dispatchers 24 hours a day. It is rare that a dispatch issue rises...

Yes. And you can also express your jealousy for not having them.

I actually feel a sense of relief reading your post. It has nothing to do with Panther. It has to do with knowing that Diane and I are not the only ones experiencing slow freight. It is easier to sit when you know others are sitting too. While we of course would prefer to be busy over slow...

Thinking about this a bit further and returning to the original topic, it occurred to me that we are talking about the differences new eyes can see. Leo is new to the FedEx Custom Critical system. Diane and I have grown accustomed to it. It is analogous to us using a rotary phone while Leo is...

It seems that the newer the truck, the less work you can do on it yourself. Sensor errors, program glitches and proprietary computer systems force dealer visits just to keep the truck running. In the old days, if the brake light came on, you would do the logical thing and look at the brakes...

I would add one thing to TeamCaffee's excellent post. Your carrier should make competent dispatchers available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Maybe for you. Not for us. Many times we are predispatched on the next run before we complete the current run. And as I said, truck counts do not change such that delivering a few hours early would make a difference for us. And, the customers we serve often do not want an early delivery. Getting...

I am none of the above. Many of our loads run straight through and we drive straight through. Many others may pick up say at 3:00 p.m. and are short enough to get us to the delivery at 3:00 a.m. the next day or two days later. With those, there is nothing to do but wait since the consignee...

Then disagree we will. You are injecting "confirmed" into this. I have not used the word and it makes no difference. When Diane and I are on a load we are focused 100% on meeting the customer's needs. Whether the load is confirmed or not, we abide by the delivery times. Almost always, the...

Many have said here in the Open Forum that a recession shakes out the weak players and the strong pick up the slack. I came across this article today that puts some numbers to the theory. While it appears things will get worse before they get better, it was encouraging to read, "A record...

That's correct. It is also correct that some ways of communicating are better than others when it comes to managing driver liability and not making yourself a pest. Delivering early is seldom possible for us so it is not an issue. The freight we haul is most often time-specific. For the same...

Diane just mentioned another aspect of this. Just this week, she was standing in line with a half-dozen other drivers at a consignee's shipping/receiving office window. The others were there to deliver too. The phone rang. On the other end was a driver requesting directions to the delivery. The...

Expedited freight is not the same load by load. Much of what we haul is high-value freight where sometimes a dozen people are waiting to go to work on it the instant it arrives. If the freight resolves an assembly line down issue, an employer may be managing the time he or she will have a...

Yes. November is shaping up to be an unusually slow month for us.

I didn't. Reread the post and let it go. Gary has and so have I.

1. They often do give the phone number. 2. They always give it when we have asked. 3. I don't want the number if I can help it. We are more than happy to let dispatch talk to shippers and consignees. For things like local directions needed as you approach the delivery and find your directions...

You got it wrong, Dave. In the departure call, they ask you what your reefer set point is on the paperwork and on the control unit. Looking at the control unit to confirm the set point is what reminded us to turn it on. Human error. It happens. Service failure prevented. Would not have happened...

Onan's 150 hour service inteval is a curious thing. The oil and filter changes are quick and easy to do (after a couple practice rounds) so I do them. I'd rather spend a little more on 3 quarts of oil and a filter than risk the generator. But the 150 hours strike me as strange when competing...

Improvements have been made. Departure calls for surface expedite loads are now automated and completed with a few button pushes. For many of the loads we haul, I'm not so sure I would want a system as simple as you describe. We have had it happen several times where, on an involved departure...

Sounds good to me! :) We both had our say. Let's move on.