Detention and Arriving 5 Minutes Late?

When you're starting out and running your first 10 loads, you'll get into a rhythm when it comes to detention. As a refresher, what is detention? Detention is a fee that a Trucking Company can charge a Broker if a Shipper or a Receiver holds their Truck or Trailer for taking too long to get loaded or unloaded. I like to refer to this as "loss of use of time" which is describing the compensation a person should receive for a period of time that they are without the use of their equipment. In shorter terms, time is money.

But what if your Driver is heading to a Shipper for a pickup and the Driver arrives at the Shipper 5 minutes past the appointment time? Well, 9 times out of 10 the Truck will be marked by the Shipper as "Missed Appointment Time" and because the Truck was late it does not qualify for detention (AT ALL). For example, the Rate Con could say the appointment time for picking up a load was for 1:00 PM and the Driver arrived at 1:05 PM. The Carrier agreed to do this load and takes full responsibility for moving the shipment and this includes following all the instructions on the Rate Con (the contract). So, if a Truck is late by 5 minutes then the Driver is not abiding by the contract instructions. The Broker is 100% within their rights to not have to pay detention to the Truck if the Truck requests it. That's the final word on missing the appointment time by 5 minutes. 

But it's not the end of the world: most shippers will take less than 2 hours to load or unload a Truck most of the time. That's the standard amount of time that a Warehouse (shipper/receiver) wants to have your Truck at their Facility. If it takes longer than 2 hours it means A.) It's a crappy warehouse that is managed poorly or B.) The warehouse is so busy that things are just taking a while to get sorted out and for the truck to get loaded. However, I’ve also seen the opposite side of the coin, where the truck missed the appointment time by 5 minutes and then has to wait at the Shipper or the Receiver for 5+ hours, and the Truck will not get paid detention because their appointment was missed.

If you are late to the shipper or the receiver by 5 to 15 minutes you can always ask the person who is checking you in if they can fudge the numbers on the BOL or POD. If you find someone who is cool they might be able to do this for you. 95% of the time they won't, but hey, it never hurts to ask... I would. But what you should never do is personally take your own pen and scratch out or change the Arrival and Departure Times on the paperwork. That is a guaranteed way to get into trouble. You'll get into trouble with Brokers and they will write up a Carrier411 report on you. Then they will blacklist you from ever working with that Broker ever again. Plus, that Broker is probably going to tell your Freight Factor and that Freight Factor might drop you as a customer (I've seen this exact situation happen more than two dozen times). So, the moral of the story is to just arrive at your locations early so you don't have to deal with these potential problems.