How busy is busy?

[piper1]

I just came off a week that, well I was really glad it was done cause I'm pooped.

I ran 4263 total miles between Monday and today (2 loads from Canada,one to Wichita and one to Atlanta). I know that's insane and likely a fluke, but I'm not saying no to U.S. loads.

My question is when it is really busy, what kind of miles do you van guys get?

PS, its not my intention here to brag, in all those mile I incurred some killer expenses I wasn't counting on so I didn't make a ton of money.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

When it's busy for us as a team in a Sprinter if we need sleep we have to go out of service...we don't get the luxury of a 34 hour restart...they will literally pre-book us and run our wheels off...

 

[dcalien]

Piper, I will let you know when it gets busy. I have been busy, only not delivering loads.

I have not been doing this very long, and the most I have run yet is 1800 miles in a week. Funny thing about it, I did it by Wed. then did nothing the rest of the week.

I have not gone out of service since I started, though to be fair I have spent a couple of days at my Son's house in between loads.

 

[piper1]

That's happened to me too. I get a Wichita and then when I get back I get **** that barely seems to pay the fuel for the rest of the week.

 

[Turtle]

When the stars line up just right and I can get the right sleep at the right time and the right loads come in at the right time, I've ran as many as 3500-4500 miles when it's busy like that. Everything has to fall into place where you get lots of long loads in a row, and when you drop off one and then go to bed, you get the proper 8 or 9 hours sleep, then when you wake up you almost immediately get another long load picking up ASAP.

I remember one week where I ran 4 straight loads between 800-900 miles, then woke up on Friday afternoon to a load that picked up in Chattanooga for a San Francisco Monday delivery. Next day got a load from Oakland to Los Angeles, then the next day got one from LA to Chicago.

In Feb I had a 3300 mile week, then had 300 miles across 2 loads the next week. Ya never know.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

piper...your carrier do income averaging??? As in making everyone equal in pay?? DX does , you make too much too soon and they sit you out till others catch up....

 

[piper1]

Nothing official, I think they do it for the Canadian work but most of our guys don't want US work, I prefer it and try really hard not to screw it up so I think that's why I get it. Problem is we haven't had enough of it. When I'm just bouncin around in Ontario I get the feeling we get "equalized".

 

[nightcreacher]

when its busy,you will know it,they will pre dispatch you before you thru with the load your on,you will feel like your the only truck in the company,of course thats if your a team,never gets that busy for a single,HOS kills them

 

[butterfly610]

We're a team, and when we experienced our first really busy season, we had to practically tell them, "hey, we have to get a shower now." Seriously we had two weeks back to back last year where we ran 6000 miles. We kept getting 1000 mile plus trips back to back. We couldn't believe it. Those were the best 2 paychecks we've ever had. It was pretty hard getting enough sleep and all. But, I'd do it again in a hearbeat. Last week we had 2000 miles by Tuesday, and didn't get another load all week! You just never know.

 

[CharlesD]

I haven't had one of those really big ones in a while. I've been getting around 1500 lately with a couple around 2000. In my case, getting pre-dispatced doesn't happen since I don't have a dispatcher (unless my wife counts) but I had a pretty good scenario last month. I was heading to Delaware and while I was on my way I was calling some of the brokers I deal with to see what was coming out of that area for the next day. Nobody had anything listed at the moment, so I figured I was going to be getting up the next day and looking for something. Then out of the blue one of them called me back a couple hours with a pretty good paying load from Baltimore to Jacksonville. That put me in Jacksonville on the weekend and nothing was moving so I hit the beach on Sunday. Monday I had one going to Lake Placid and I barely had time to drop that one and deadhead back to Albany before I was getting another call with a load from Albany to Augusta, GA. My wife had listed the vehicle on a couple boards and someone saw me on there. That was an interesting stretch because I usually don't have brokers calling me with loads. Normally it's the other way around.

I've had around 3500 a couple times, but that doesn't happen that often.

 

[RLENT]

piper,

Congrats on the stellar week - very cool !!!!

Most I've ever done (paid mile wise) - is around 2700. When I was with my previous carrier (where I was running 50% deadhead) I did have one week where I ran over 5000 total miles .... although I cheated a bit - the wife came with me and we teamed on a 1100+ miler to Florida.

Last week I ran 2500 .... so it was a good week.

Like the Turtle said, I think it's almost a matter of the stars aligning - trying to manage my sleep is what I find the most difficult. Getting 3 or 4 or 5 hours at time, several times per day, just isn't the way my body would prefer to operate.

While I'd imagine that most (myself included) would like to have really big number weeks, I think I'd almost prefer getting a consistent 2000 -2500 miles per week. Of course, that's not gonna happen .....

Feast or famine seems to be the nature of the biz .....

 

[layoutshooter]

We have run out of hours a couple of times. That is pretty busy. Layoutshooter

 

[nightcreacher]

How busy is busy?When its busy,you wont have time to stop and go to the bathroom,when its slow,you'll have time to build the house to put the bathroom in