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Know Your Rights Detention and Deadhead Calculator

Detention and Deadhead Calculator

Published Jul 24, 2026 · Updated Jul 25, 2026

Mileage pay counts miles. It does not count the hours you sat at a dock, and it rarely counts the miles you ran empty to get to the next load. Enter a normal week and see what that time is worth over a year. Nothing is saved, sent, or stored. The math runs entirely in your browser.

Loads and waiting

Pickup and delivery combined

Usually 2 hours per stop

Be honest. Many claims are denied or never filed.

Miles

Company drivers: your CPM. Owner-operators: your line-haul rate.

Enter 0 if empty miles are not paid

Your week

Fueling, inspections, paperwork, scales

Why this matters. A week where you sat twenty hours and drove fifty looks the same on a settlement sheet as a week where you sat two hours. The pay is identical. The difference comes out of your life, not the company balance sheet, which is exactly why the incentive to fix it is weak.

Detention is only claimable if it is documented. Arrival and departure times on the bill of lading, in the ELD record, and in messages to dispatch are what turn waiting into a claim. Undocumented waiting is unrecoverable, no matter what the contract says.

If your real hourly rate surprises you, that number is worth carrying into your next conversation about pay, a new carrier, or whether a load is worth taking at all.

Check the company first

Look up FMCSA authority, safety record and driver reports before you sign anything.

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