1188 a day that’s the way to do it
when I started driving trucks in 1974 ■■■■ that’s long time ago.trips were all paid by the day 4 hundred miles a day. every day. plus or minus a bit …always knackered did this till about 1985 own company then until 2004… plenty of money… always knackered… then did a few years driving for company with couple hundred trucks to take me to pension…they paid on the hour and I gotta be honest I reckon that’s the way to go …so if you guys can get day/hourly pay it aint half a lot easier…
kr79 that’s 730miles yes …
kr79:
1188 a day that’s the way to do it
The blokes that are doing that will have a HUGE shock when they have to run legal with an EOBR, they will see their wages drop significantly when they drop a hundred plus miles a day.
I hope they don’t run their household budget on their current earnings, they’ll be deep in the merde if they are.
I’ve run my logs to the max, it doesn’t actually get you much further down the road, on a 3500mile trip it only gains an hour or so.
If you have to keep stopping every couple of hours then fudging is the order of the day, but if you keep going all day, like you’re supposed to, it doesn’t make much difference at all.
On a trip out west I can comfortably log it as it happens and get to the coast in two shifts, even in winter, if I hit really bad weather I can use the dispensation for bad weather and still do it legally.
It’s a bit different running in the US, but that was one of the reasons I chose to stay north of the border, with the new reset ruling, that’s turning out to be a better decision than I first thought.
It is a bit boring running the prairies, it’s next to impossible to find decent food, and the winter road conditions are a nightmare, but the new Flying Js have made staying clean a lot easier and the money is rolling in, so the positives overcome the negatives for me.
It wasn’t what I came here to do, in fact running in Canada was my biggest problem at Big Fright, but times change…
some good posts on here ,and newbies should read them but …a lot o them seem to think all we are trying to do is put them off coming,but for myself i wish i knew a lot o stuff when i came over instead o finding out the hard way!.
Having spoke to other drivers at work about ,milage,hourly,tonnage pay i come to the con clusion that some folk are there own worst enemy!!
duhh wanting to come of hrly and go onto tonnage pay on the tippers… absolutely bonkers…
jimmy.
I’ll be happy with hourly pay, by averaging the current mileage rates and how many hours it takes to do them it should be simple to come up with an hourly rate, as long as they work out the hourly rate on a realistic mph figure and not PC Miler numbers.
The ideal way for everyone would be a piece rate, so Winnipeg to Calgary or whatever, pays a set amount of hours, but incorporate an increase for weather/whatever delays, all city work is strictly on the clock, as are tipping and loading.
That would discourage the layby dwellers and the lunch counter supertruckers from hanging the job out and [zb]ing it up for the rest of us…
Either that or a salary, where you have to put a specific amount of log days in to qualify…
I often check the moving average mph which is recorded on the sat-nav, it’s always over 50 mph; so that’s an hourly rate of over $20.
I couldn’t care less how they calculate my wages, hourly / day rate or by the mile, as long as what I’m being paid reflects the effort I put in and that the company treats you correctly that’s all I care about and the place I work for does just that.
So I’m happy enough making what I make for doing what i do at the place where I drive and the life I’m able to live because of it. Isn’t that what its all about??
My truck has an elog and I average around 12 to 13 thousand miles a month with regular hometime, usually every weekend, and around $6000 a month.
Elogs are not the cause of you making less money, incompetent or useless dispatchers are.
Hi guys.
I’ve been trying to read as many post and other info for the last few months about moving to Canada and still can’t make up my mind.
A few questions , if you don’t mind:
- Do you in Canada get paid per kilometre or per mile?
- When you say you’ve done so many miles, is that actual miles or kilometres? In some posts it is miles in some kilometres.
- Are you financially better off working in Canada or were you better off when working in the UK? Are you better off per hour spend working then in the UK? Only when you calculate how many hours you spend at work and not how many miles/kilometres you manage to cover daily, only then you can get a real picture of you being rewarded for your time spent at work (your truck), in my view.
- These new driving hours regulations that have been introduced are for the US driving and do not change anything when driving only in Canada, am I right? If someone drives only on Canadian soil things are staying the same as they used to be?
- Are costs of living, and I mean basics, such as food, energy bills (I know they are higher because of a longer and harsher winter), then back in the UK?
Yes, I know the quality of living in Canada could be better then in the UK because of the open spaces, nice outdoors, but if you do not have time to enjoy it, because you need to cover so many kilometres/miles to get some reasonable wage or you have to sit idle in a truck stop in the middle of nowhere because you’ve run out of your hours, or your company can’t find you a load to take you back home, and you do not get paid for it or get paid peanuts, or your truck broke down and you get paid nothing for having it replaced or repaired, then there is not much advantage in moving to Canada, at least for me.
That’s why I’m interested in pay per hour and whether, after converting your pay per mile into how many hours you spend working for the company, whether it is driving or doing something else, whether you are better off per hour then when you were working as a driver in the UK.
Thanks
anon84679660:
Hi guys.
I’ve been trying to read as many post and other info for the last few months about moving to Canada and still can’t make up my mind.
A few questions , if you don’t mind:
- Do you in Canada get paid per kilometre or per mile?
- When you say you’ve done so many miles, is that actual miles or kilometres? In some posts it is miles in some kilometres.
- Are you financially better off working in Canada or were you better off when working in the UK? Are you better off per hour spend working then in the UK? Only when you calculate how many hours you spend at work and not how many miles/kilometres you manage to cover daily, only then you can get a real picture of you being rewarded for your time spent at work (your truck), in my view.
- These new driving hours regulations that have been introduced are for the US driving and do not change anything when driving only in Canada, am I right? If someone drives only on Canadian soil things are staying the same as they used to be?
- Are costs of living, and I mean basics, such as food, energy bills (I know they are higher because of a longer and harsher winter), then back in the UK?
Yes, I know the quality of living in Canada could be better then in the UK because of the open spaces, nice outdoors, but if you do not have time to enjoy it, because you need to cover so many kilometres/miles to get some reasonable wage or you have to sit idle in a truck stop in the middle of nowhere because you’ve run out of your hours, or your company can’t find you a load to take you back home, and you do not get paid for it or get paid peanuts, or your truck broke down and you get paid nothing for having it replaced or repaired, then there is not much advantage in moving to Canada, at least for me.
That’s why I’m interested in pay per hour and whether, after converting your pay per mile into how many hours you spend working for the company, whether it is driving or doing something else, whether you are better off per hour then when you were working as a driver in the UK.Thanks
1,paid by kms driven plus hourly for everything else.
2,as above.
3,Yes.
4,You’re correct.
5,Hmm costs of living ,on a par maybe slightly higher across the board . Plating a car(insurance) roughly a grand a year but no road tax or annual MOT , gas(petrol) is $1.15 per litre, smokes $12-17 a pack but depends on Province,beer $4,bread $2.50, milk2L $4 .TV is $100 per month including sports channels which I consider expensive . Last night bought T Bones for the grill for $7 each (cheap).
Western Canada is booming with work and if you want to work hard you’ll get rewarded well , but not until you’ve got permanent residency .
It all depends on the job you have in the UK.
Everyone I know here has a better house, car, lifestyle etc than they did before they made the move.
If you work out the cpm rate into hours, as Chris did, it works out to around $20ph at 40cpm and a 50mph average.
That’s a minimum though if you’re running in Canada. I can set my cruise at 65mph and easily achieve a 60mph average on the Prairies. That brings the ph rate up to $24.
Add ons for tipping/loading etc usually put an extra $250-300pw on top of that, so that will help bring the hourly rate up to $28ph.
One driver, who posts here, worked out his pay per mile to be $0.55 with all the extras he gets. This will mean you will take home your gross per mile rate or thereabouts, but you’ve got to get the add ons, if you work for flat mileage, you won’t achieve that.
You also get a decent tax rebate, up to $10k every year to add on to your take home pay.
Now, you won’t do none of that working for H&R or similar. You need a job with plenty of miles when you want them and add on pay for everything else you do. Firms like that don’t have a problem recruiting drivers, so you’ll have to wait a while to get a decent job over here.
If you are planning on doing the move from the UK, then Loblaws is probably the best way to go, unless you want to see the World and ‘live the dream’ as it’s trunking between RDCs, the money is pretty decent. PM russ on here, he’ll tell you more.
If you are considering H&R, I hope you have a nice big safety cushion in the bank, as it’s a nightmare, just ask taffy, chunk or Mick Fly.
If you’re looking at the Maritimes, Robinhood is your man for advice.
In Canada it would seem clear from reading these posts that if you want to earn good money… and your… “good at your job you will”…whether on miles or hourly you can earn big money and live better…don’t know if its a time that we are at in the uk but it seems there aint never going to be big money to be made…
That is true…to a degree.
If you come here with a Mon-Fri mindset you either won’t earn much or you’ll hate it.
You need to look at the bigger picture at times, you could have a crap start to the month and for example, get stuck without a load on a Friday, spend a weekend in a truckstop on layover pay which is less than you would get for a decent driving day.
You reload Monday and get home Tuesday, you left last Wednesday, so you go home until Thursday and get a short run as the weekend is getting in the way, or have three days at home and leave Friday with a decent over the weekend run.
That’s not the way to do it, you have to count that weekend as time off and keep going when you get back. A week away has turned into two weeks, but your miles and therefore your money are back on track.
It isn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but it is what it is, you have to adapt to that to make it work. Many find it hard to make that change.
You do what you have to do to enjoy your chosen lifestyle . Others will agree with me when I say being stuck in a blizzard at minus 30 miles from anywhere up to your arse in drifting snow isn’t much fun and at such times I question what on earth I’m doing , but would I swap my achievements in Canada for my 3 bed semi-detached life as was ? Not a hope , neither would my family 
Thanks guys for your replies.
If i come over I would be trying to get to Manitoba or Saskatchewan as from what I gather their immigration requirements are not as stringent as other states and you do not need to have 2 years prior driving experience, which I do not have as I passed my class 1 only 4 months ago and have been working as a class 1 driver for only 2 months.
I’m planning to get myself over to the other side of the pond by spring next year.
Obviously there are not going to be many companies willing to take me on, but from what I’ve read so far those two provinces or states I mentioned above do not require any prior experience from Europe, at least they do not mention it in their long haul driver immigration requirements.
I would be happy if anyone would want to prove me wrong.
Thanks
The companies may not, but when I did it, both the LMO and PNP schemes required two years experience.
newmercman:
The companies may not, but when I did it, both the LMO and PNP schemes required two years experience.
Think this is still the case 
Hi Guys
Sorry for not replying sooner, but been very busy at work.
A few more questions if you do not mind:
- When applying for a work with a Canadian company, they check your work experience , or should I say the immigration department checks your experience from the UK, or Europe in general. Do you need to provide proof of experience driving vehicles with some number of axles, lets say it needs to be experience driving 5 or 6 axles vehicles, or it doesn’t matter as long as you have experience driving Class 1 vehicles and the number of axles is not important?
- If you get brought to work for some company and after working for them for a few months , you are not happy about the work and conditions and want to change for a better company, will you need to go back to the UK and apply for a new work permit and get a new LMO, or can you just quit working for the company that brought you to Canada and without leaving Canada start working for a new company that you’ve been able to find and that got you a LMO and offered you some better conditions?
Could your time you spent working for a company that brought you to Canada, be added to the time you need to spend working for a Canadian company(ies) before applying for permanent residency?
Thanks
The number of axles isn’t an issue. I could be totally wrong but it may even be possible to count your rigid experience, especially if you get references / confirmation of employments that simple state that you worked for company A between date X and date X as a “Truck driver”.
I’m sure I’ve met people over here who didn’t have two or three actual years of class 1 experience before stepping foot in Canada. If it were me I’d use my class 2 experience and gloss over the fact that it was in a rigid.
When you’re in Canada and if you did want to change jobs, you can do so from within Canada, you dont have to leave, your new company will get you an LMO of their own, which you will then have to active at a border post or such like. At worst you’d just go to the US border, turn around and get it done there, you certainly dont have to go back to the UK.