Seeking information about YOUR experience as a team driver!

First of all, if there is a more appropriate place to post this, I won't be offended if it gets moved. I didn't see any forum dealing specifically with team driver experiences and I'm wondering how my experience matches up with other drivers'. Sorry this is a bit long, I just want to be clear about our situation.

I'm not looking for company names and specifics, but we are having a bit of a rough time adjusting to our current company's team environment.

A bit about us:

- 6/2 years experience
- married couple, came to current company as an established team with about 240,000 miles from another outfit
- working for a company of about 150 tractors, mostly company drivers, a few teams and some owner operators
- we run a dry van in US and Canada

Our first job we were the only team and the only tractor that did not run just regionally in Canada. It offered a good balance of home/work time but unfortunately didn't pay very well for the work. We were averaging 800mi between stops/trailer switches/wait times at customers, etc and making 15-20 picks/drops a week. When our main shipper started getting us home later and later each week (we left at a set time each week, so it was eating up our home time) we became annoyed and started shopping around. This job got us home (sometimes only for a reset) each week.

We sought out our current job and were immediately intrigued:

We were told that teams typically run 2 trips a week (+6000mi) for a direct customer and occasionally some shorter runs to fill in the week before going home, etc. This meant we would be running about 1600mi between scheduled stops and we expected our quality of life would improve as result. We would run more miles and sit less, and not be running 24hrs every day to meet appt times, but "only" working 8-10 hours shifts instead.

We would stay out 2 weeks instead of 1 but take a few days instead of just a reset.


The reality hasn't matched up with our expectations, unfortunately, and I'm wondering how other companies tend to dispatch their teams.

- We very seldom run the account we thought we were being hired to run. Only done it once this year and never 2 in a week as we discussed. Running 12000 miles on our 2 weeks out has never happened, we struggle to make 10000 miles in 2 weeks and often can't.

A typical run may see us move 1600mi on day 1 and deliver on day 2.
Most of day 2 is lost getting unloaded/waiting on a dispatch/getting reloaded.
We virtually never find out what our next dispatch is until we are empty and sitting somewhere. Often there are no truck stops and our customers won't allow us to stay when empty so we end up flustered and aimlessly driving around or parked curb side with our 4 ways on waiting.
Reloads are typically under 600 miles which is day 3
Another day lost getting empty and reloaded.
Reload is typically 600 mi or less.
The closer we get to home, the shorter the runs tend to get.
Lately we are feeling pressured by the short runs and lack of total miles to volunteer to work our days off, and the reward has been sitting, phone in hand, waiting for a dispatch that sometimes never comes. Often we end up moving loads 200 mi or less and it involves 4-5 trailer switches.

Is it typical for team drivers to pick up/deliver/swap trailers every single day? We are finding it very hard to get any rest when there seems to be so little time spent on the highway and stopping so often.

This week we averaged only 500 miles between stops and only netted 3500 miles because of all the short dispatches.

Do you and your co-driver have time to stop and take meals during the day? Are you often expected to run 24 hours on your first day out, even if dispatch insists you make contact first thing in morning, even if there is no load until much later? (Ie both drivers have been up all day) Do you generally know where you are going and what is expected before you are empty?

I haven't run for this company as single driver, but we are on elogs and it seems impossible that single drivers would be expected to run this way, as they would never know when/where to reposition, when to stop/start their clock to be legal if they didn't know what they were doing tomorrow by the end of the day.

The pay is very good for the mileage, but there is a trade off in the high stress nature of never knowing when/if/where we will be going. There is virtually no contact between drivers or company culture where I could ask another driver and my attempts to discuss it with dispatch have been met with some defensiveness, despite trying to open communication without sounding accusatory.


Well, thanks for reading if you're still with me here. I look forward to hearing how you are dispatched and your experiences working as a team driver!