The one thing that I have never understood, As long as someone else accepted a load why should anyone get dropped or dinged for declining?
I actually know that. I talked with someone at the office today, who will remain nameless, and he explained some things, some of which I already knew, or had a good guess about.
They deal with owner/operators, fleet owners, and drivers of fleet owners, and turndowns are almost exclusively recorded and tracked for the fleet owners. The only people who pay any attention to the turndowns are the ones dealing with them in the context of dealing with a fleet owner.
That's also in part why the "PERSONAL" mind reading reason became the default reason for the turndown. The only person who pays attention to the reason is the one dealing with a fleet owner. (so I'm fine with that).
They're also going to revisit the turndown policies, or at least the resetting of hours. Right now, the hard rule is if it's less than 200 miles, you don't get a turndown. I get that someone driving a van for a fleet owner wouldn't want a 200 mile run, because after the split there's nothing on it for the driver. And if you get 3 loads that week and they're all less-than 200 miles, you're screwed.
On the other hand, if it's 180 miles and pays $300, you deserve a turndown of you don't take it (that's my own opinion, not Load One's). By the same token, if it's 240 miles DH to the pickup and the all miles pay ends up being 55 cents a mile, you don't deserve a turndown for that. Or at least you don't deserve to have your hours reset for it.
I got one yesterday where the loaded miles rate was pretty good, but I was just realistically too far away for that load, and probably shouldn't have even been offered it on the first place, because the DH reduced the pay to 60 some odd cents for all miles. Maybe offer it, but don't reset the hours for that. Once you get to where the DH is more than 30% of the loaded miles, you're taking on a big risk that you don't end up driving several hours just for the load to cancel right before you get there. So they're gonna look at that, too.
