My dad was a truck driver, but before that, he was a truck mechanic. My mother told us countless stories of him being called out in the middle of the night to drive to where a truck had broken down on the side of the highway to try to repair it. It was dangerous and difficult work, and we were all very happy when he got the opportunity to go to truck driving school and get out from under the truck and up into the cab.
Thankfully, trucks are more reliable now than they were in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Breakdowns don’t happen as often, but with any machine as complicated at a diesel engine, issues occur. Add the hundreds of thousands of miles these trucks drive each year, and it’s a wonder they don’t break down constantly. But, while we understand that mechanical issues can and do happen, that doesn’t make it any easier to hear that your freight isn’t going to make it to delivery on time because the truck blew a turbo or overheated.
At Legion, we are prepared for these eventualities. If we’ve put a carrier on a load for you and the truck breaks down, we don’t just shrug our shoulders and tell you the freight will get there when the truck is fixed. We get to work immediately finding another power unit to come in and take that trailer the rest of the way to the delivery, making every effort possible to get it to the destination on time.
Is this more expensive than just waiting for the original carrier to complete the delivery? You bet it is. But that’s our problem – not yours. We don’t charge our customers to re-power freight when we’ve experienced a breakdown. We understand that this is simply part of doing business, and once we’ve committed to getting product delivered at a certain time, we’re going to do it, no matter what it costs.
But we’re also really grateful trucks are more reliable now than they were when my dad was working on them.
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