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Troy: Alright! Hello and welcome to the 40th episode of Big Rig Banter. The date is October 16th and I’m your co-host, Troy Diffenderfer.
Lenay: And I’m your favorite co-host, Lenay Ruhl.
Troy: And Lenay, how are you today?
Lenay: I’m good, loving this fall weather. How are you?
Troy: I’m great, this is my favorite time of year by far.
Lenay: Yeah, why is that?
Troy: Well, I mean in five days we have my birthday, which is on Monday.
Lenay: Five days?
Troy: Yes.
Lenay: Oh shit.
Troy: So truckers, don’t forget-
Lenay: I mean, oh crap.
Troy: So truckers, don’t forget to wish me happy birthday on Monday and Lenay, don’t forget your birthday present of course.
Lenay: Yup, I won’t. This is my favorite time of year too because I really love fall and just the leaves changing and everything like that. But other than that I don’t have a birthday or anything.
Troy: Well I do, so that’s what’s exciting. You did set the bar pretty high last year on your birthday gift for me, so I’m excited to see what I get this year.
Lenay: Yeah…
Troy: Just to be clear, Lenay bought me concert tickets to one of my favorite bands so that was really cool. Lenay and I and another coworker got to enjoy the concert last year so I’m pretty excited.
Lenay: Yeah, Puddle of Mud and then Troy left me there by myself all alone at the end, but it was all good we had a good time.
Troy: It was a lot of fun and then of course truckers, Halloween is rapidly approaching as well. By far, that’s my favorite holiday.
Lenay: Troy is having a party on Halloween, so if you’re in Pennsylvania you can stop by. I’ll leave his home address in the comments.
Troy: For sure! It is a costume party so you’re not going to be able to get in unless you’re wearing a costume. I love to dress up. Lenay, what’s your favorite costume that you’ve ever dressed up as?
Lenay: Oh my. I am the worst at coming up with Halloween costume ideas. And-
Troy: I even helped you last year.
Lenay: I know, last year I was supposed to be Slash from Guns and Roses but I got sick so I never actually went out for Halloween. In the years past, I guess I’ve been a witch super not unique, a gypsy, a hippie. I don’t know, I’m never anything really creative. I’ve always wanted to be Weird Al for Halloween because of my hair, but I don’t know if I have to guts to do it. Oh, one year I was a boy, too. I really did look like a boy.
Troy: Nice. It’s definitely my favorite, I love dressing up.
Lenay: What are you going to be this year? Or is it a secret?
Troy: This year it’s a secret, last year I was Troy Thunder, so it was pretty easy.
Lenay: The secret’s out.
Troy: Yeah, I got permission from him to dress up as Troy Thunder, so that was really cool. Other years I’ve been Joe Dirt, another year I was Miley Cyrus from the VMA awards.
Lenay: I’d like to see some pictures of that.
Troy: Those are very deep in the internet, so hopefully no one will actually see them.
Lenay: Oh geez.
Troy: But truckers, we want to hear about your Halloween plans so reach out to us using the #BigRigBanter. We definitely want to hear what you’re up to this spooky season.
Lenay: Yeah, for sure! And just a reminder, Big Rig Banter is powered by AllTruckJobs. AllTruckJobs is an online job board, so go on there, check it out, and see what trucking jobs are available right now.
Troy: For sure, but let’s jump right into this episode. Lenay, we’re talking about trucking layover and detention pay.
Lenay: Detention, that doesn’t sound good.
Troy: It isn’t good for a lot of you truckers. I’m sure many of you have experienced it. It’s a lot of waiting around and a lot of money being thrown down the drain for many cases. But we’re gonna go over some details, the difference between a layover and detention pay and what you guys can do during your trucking layover or detention.
Lenay: And also how you can try to avoid detention pay by being a little more proactive.
Troy: So Lenay, why don’t we jump into the difference between a trucking layover and a trucking detention?
Lenay: Sure, so a trucking layover is when a driver is delayed by a shipper or a receiver for one or more days whereas detention is the time spent at a shipper or receiver beyond a previously set amount of time.
Troy: Yeah, and a detention differs from a layover in that detention is during a shipment and layover is in between shipments. And we’ll kind of dive into a little more details when it comes to the trucking layover pay rate and the detention pay rate because those are gonna differ as well.
Lenay: Sure, but the bottom line is this is basically time where you’re sitting around doing nothing.
Troy: Which is definitely not good for your wallet in many cases. But so let’s jump in. The trucking layover pay rate is dependent upon the company. So, usually companies will have a specific set rate that you’ll know right upon working with them, so you’ll kind of know the idea and you know a lot of these trucking layovers are when the company itself drops the ball, it’s not necessarily in your hands and that’s why a lot of these times these layover pays can be pretty high. It can range from anywhere between $20 to even $80. The big thing is that you have to be sitting for at least 24 hours for you to start getting that layover pay rate. Several companies pay their drivers an hourly rate for each hour they are detained or some companies choose to pay for a motel for their drivers if the layover is overnight. So, that’s something that’s going to depend on the company but again you’re gonna be left without a shipment to transport so that’s something to keep in mind. So on the other hand, detention pay is similarly up to the discretion of the company. A lot of this times it comes from the communication breakdown between the shipper and receiver, regardless of which way you’re going. Whether you’re picking it up or dropping it off. Whether you get to a shipper and the load isn’t ready for you or you get a receiver and there’s no one there to retrieve it, that’s where you’re gonna find detention pay. And a lot of this just comes into who’s fault it was and what kind of contract you have. Most companies will include a clause in their contract with a shipper that says shippers or receivers have to pay detention pay, so this clause protects drivers from detention time and usually isn’t good in favor so this is something to consider as well. I’m sure there’s plenty of truckers out there that have had to deal with this so again let us know your experience for sure.
Lenay: Yeah, and I mean you know things happen, schedules get screwed up, but one way you can kind of stay on top of it to avoid you know having to talk to your trucking company about how you’re going to get paid and all that is to just call the shipper or receiver ahead of time and double-check that everything’s on schedule before you start driving. That way you might avoid being stuck in a situation like that.
Troy: For sure, and truckers let’s jump into how you can kind of manage that time. Whether you’re on a trucking layover or a detention pay, at the end of the day you’re going to be stuck somewhere and you’re gonna need something to do while you wait. Because like we said, it could be over 24 hours, you could be staying overnight, so you gotta pass this time somehow and you might not have Netflix to binge, so we’re gonna give you some other tips and tricks for passing the time as well.
Lenay: Yeah, I have some friends who are truck drivers and I used to live in Florida and my friend had a delivery down there and he was like yeah I’m stuck here till evening tomorrow, tied up nothing to do, and he’s like here’s the address of where I’m at, where do you live? And it turned out he was like two minutes from my house, so I went and got him, took him to my house. We ended up going to the beach for the day, getting dinner. So that was pretty cool, but I’ve definitely talked to drivers too where you know they’re like oh I’m in a cool area maybe I’ll Uber here and do some exploring you know while I’m stalled, you know if you don’t know anyone, you’re kind of at the mercy of public transportation or just stuck in your rig.
Troy: Yeah, that’s a good point Lenay and that’s definitely something you should consider truckers, is using public transportation or Uber and just exploring where ever you’re at. Obviously, you might be in the middle of nowhere, but if you’re in a major city or maybe a place with some cool landmarks, there’s always something to do there I’m sure. Another thing is just to work on your fitness and your health. A lot of truckers will go work out, whether it’s going for a jog or just working outside the rig, you know like we’ve said in previous podcasts, your mental and physical health are really important so anytime you can squeeze in some exercise is another great way to pass the time as well.
Lenay: Yeah for sure, and I mean depending on how long it is you know you might be able to kill the time just reading or watching TV or whatever, and you know I think a lot of people it’s like a layover, detention and it’s kind of a pain in the ass right? Like things didn’t go according to plan but you can always find a way to spin it and make it a positive thing. You know whether you get to watch a movie or go visit you haven’t seen in a while or see someplace you’ve never been before or even go get a good meal or you know if you have your pet with you, you can take them to the dog park, so.
Troy: For sure, it should be a time to relax, even though it’s stressful I’m sure. You truckers are going to be stressful about losing money and things like that, but use it as kind of a ‘me day’ or some ‘me time’ to just relax and maybe connect with your family back at home, whether it’s face-timing them or giving them a call, that’s something else you can do while you’re waiting during your layover or detention as well.
Lenay: Yeah, but I would definitely say that when you’re talking to trucking companies, you know if you’re still in that job search phase, this is a subject you want to look into ahead of time and just find out where they stand about this pay because you definitely don’t want to be stuck somewhere for 24-48 hours and then it turns out you’re not getting paid for that time. That kind of sucks, so.
Troy: For sure, and you know once again truckers, we hope we are helping you kind of navigate
through these trucking layovers and detention pay and whether it’s how to pass the time or knowing the difference between the two, we hope we were able to provide some information for sure.
Lenay: Yeah so if you have anything to share as far as what you-how you handle layover or detention pay, or if you have any questions about it, #BigRigBanter reach out to us on social media and we can have that conversation.
Troy: For sure, and once again don’t forget to leave us a review as well on Apple podcasts or any other place you’re listening to this, reviews really help us and we want to reach as many of you as possible.
Lenay: Yeah, most definitely. Is there anything else we forgot to add, Troy?
Troy: I don’t think so, I think that about wraps it up again. Enjoy spooky season.
Lenay: Yeah maybe we’ll have to post some pictures of us in our Halloween costumes when we
get them.
Troy: For sure, and once again we want you to reach out to us and we want to see some of your Halloween costumes as well.
Lenay: Yeah, don’t be strangers.
Troy: Alright and once again, I’m your co-host, Troy Diffenderfer.
Lenay: And I’m your favorite co-host, Lenay Ruhl.
Troy: And this has been Big Rig Banter.
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