Beep Beep Roadrunner

I see there are threads for Roadrunner in the Bad section, Motor Carriers section, even the Lease section. So I thought I would start one over here on the Favorite section as Roadrunner is my favorite truck company lol, only been with one other truck company so that tells not so much...

Have been leased on since March 2014 and have been doing really well. It is mostly terminal to terminal pickup and deliveries hereafter to be referenced as T2T. I used to love it when my old company would tell me to 'tcall' a load at one of their terminals. Knew exactly where the place was and once the paperwork was in their hot little hands at the driver window I knew I would be paid for the load, no bothering with scanning in any paperwork.


At RR we have to scan in every load along with paper logs and trips sheets, scale tickets, toll receipts, fuel receipts, delivery receipts etc. I noticed that the TA and Petro are installing transflo now and we do have the option to use the transflo app using a smartphone.

They are pushing pretty hard for us to get the BigRoad Elogging app for smartphone, I believe because it has GPS tracking as well. As an added incentive they boosted our clean CSA roadside inspections from $100 to $1000. Now it might actually be worthwhile to run Elogs as they virtually insure a clean Level 3.

 

A little background on me: I went to trucking school for several weeks in early 2010. The school got us all prehire help from several carriers, including Covenant, Werner, Gordon and Systems Transport. I think there were some others too. I always imagined that the recruiters would call down to the school and talk to the receptionist about this or that student and ask her opinion. I say that because after talking just once to all the different recruiters they never called back and I could never get ahold of any of them. Why, you ask? I suspect it might have been because I came down there to informally check out the school with the administrator with my son in the stroller. I always figured they would tell the recruiters, "this guy won't make it, he's got a baby", as to why they never called back. I got in touch with CREngland but they wanted me to pay $1500 and take their 2 week driving course. I was like no way after spending $4500 already. Another classmate of mine was having similar problems and said he got ahold of Swift and they hired him on the phone. I jammed home and filled out a quick online app with Swift and a recruiter called within minutes.

Fast forward a little bit, I went to orientation then out with a mentor then solo for about 6 months. The mentor dude hired me as a teammate but that lasted just about a month as he wasn't paying me right. I think the first check was $0 the second pay was $460 and a piece of paper with the letters IOU $300 then the third pay was $900 and about 3 weeks after we were already home and I had quit a $600 check arrived in the mail for my wife.

The guy never really wanted a teammate, he really wanted me to take over his lease payments and for the privilege of doing that, (helping me get my own truck) he said I would have to pay him $0.10 per mile. When I said I was not comfortable with that, that's when we all of a sudden had to get routed home lol. He couldn't tell me what all the overhead was each week on the truck nor what the revenue per mile and fuel economy projections or break even points (most of that was not on my radar at that time anyway) but I just had a hinky feeling that running that show for $0.10 less than my potential contemporary lease operator colleagues would be just a little too much to bear.

Well we got back to the home terminal and I asked for the keys to a company truck, they were happy to have me back only problem they had just released a large orientation group who were already on the waiting list for trucks and my name would have to go to the bottom of that list.

I say all that stuff because that was the catylist for my becoming an owner operator. I went outside and several trucks with Lease Me signs, so called on one of them and the recruiter set up the whole deal for me to sign my life away. I'm still in the same truck 3.5 years later.

There are no company drivers at RR aside from those hired by owner operator/fleet owners. I just wanted to mention that to people reading, this is what I would call a step up in the hierarchy of trucking, moving from company driver to lease operator or owner operator. They do offer a lease program similar to the big mega carriers.

 

RR has several terminals. I have been to all but one so far, headquarters Cudahy WI. Right now I' m on a run picked up at the Livermore CA terminal delivering first stop Orlando FL final in Miami. I ended up doing a 10 hour break right there at Blyth CA but could have pushed it out across the border into AZ at the PFJ there. Something to think about next time.... Also for fun I pointed my GPS at a terminal up in Irving TX from there and it read 1220 miles or so. Wow I was thinking that would be an easy all freeway 2 day slam dunk compared with how I usually run from Livermore to Dallas which is down I5 or 99 to 58 to I40, all of which isn't too bad time sink wise, but my time runs out around Ludlow CA Essex CA eastbound rest area then the next day puts me around Albuquerque for a 650 mile third day into Dallas area which is tough because of the 287 with all of those small slow down towns.

I think next time I'll run all the way down to the 10 and across that way, 20 to 30 into Dallas full speed ahead lol.

This is what I like about T2T freight running the lane several times in a row and getting efficiencies set up for future runs. When I was OTR irregular route, sometimes might have ideas like that but might be a week or 4 months before I was back on that lane again.

They gave me 6 full days to get to first stop FL I could have made it today the 5th day. I pulled up about 88 miles short to get a shower and sit down meal here, but if I determine there is easy parking around that first stop, next time see I will be pushing in to get unloaded a day early.

I don't know what happened but I learned to hate going into new customers constantly. I guess getting sent to the wrong places or 2 hours down country bumpkin roads, or hard to find customers stuff that was creating inefficiencies with my 70 hour clock. This is what I love about T2T, maybe the first time going into the terminal not knowing exactly where it is and all, but each time after I can blast right in there.

When I first started the road just seemed 'endless'. Been around long enough to know to set little goals like if I see a truckstop next exit but remember that 150 miles down the road is a better one I like, that creates efficiency if I push on to the next one I like.

Or I might be employing a fuel strategy like I could get fuel here or wait to cross that state line or 'midnight line' I call it if I am driving through midnight. Might already have a 15 minute pretrip and 15 minute fuel logged for this 24 hour period, if I wait til after midnight I can get 15 minutes logged sometime soon after midnight and if I get pulled over it will make my logs look good lol that I have some time logged on line 4 for the current day.

Anyway, I'm on this 3000 mile run down to Florida was thinking on the way that I need to get right back home to California but am projecting running out the 70 hour clock to zero by Saturday coming into a holiday week. Will have to see how things go, considering deadheading up out of Florida about 700 miles to one of the terminals at Atlanta or Charlotte for a big mileage load west. The reasoning is if I take a load out of FL Friday and have to sit with no hours on Saturday, chances are those terminals would be closed for the weekend or no freight anyway, (Friday is their best load out days) I would rather use what little hours I have left to set up a chance to slam dunk a long load back home.

The other prospect is to just deadhead back 3000 miles, fuel discounts my carrier shares tells me it would cost less than $1000 to get back home empty.

 

Well, I finished the unload in Miami FL and split northbound stopping for 10 at a toll road rest area for the night (Thursday night.) Got up and drove on north again til dawn, had shower/breakfast etc then figured how much time I had left on my 70 and determined I could just make it to the Atlanta GA terminal. So I called up there for information on loads out, I explained the best I could that I could be there Friday or Saturday but could not leave til Sunday 0001. The guy was so confused. I just really was trying to get across that I would drop my trailer and they could load it but I could not leave til Sunday morning. He kept asking why I was taking a 34 reset. Nobody said anything about a 34 dude lol. I'm running off recaps--- crickets. Finally he said he'd call me back. I got back in the saddle on I75 north, I figured about an hour and a half, if he did not call I'd have to hook west on I10 and run til time ran out.

So he naturally never called back and I'm in Marianna FL with 1.5 hours left on the 70 last night (Saturday). Could have left toda at 0001 with a full day's worth of hours but decided to excercise just a little patience. Posted my truck up on a load board, looks like nothing shaking til Monday morning around here. Thought to move out toward Texas and try for a load going westward, so set location for there and nothing going west. So I will sit here til morning, will have a 34 hour break in and post my truck again. All I really need is a decent paying load to Texas area, that will pay for my fuel home to California from Miami. There is one load on the board leaving today to Fresno area, however it is from a broker on the unapproved broker list at my company. Thought about just booking it anyway, as I have enough fuel money to cover it. Unapproved broker just means I would not be paid for the load til my company gets paid. Company warns there is a reason these brokers are unapproved, sometimes they never pay. Company still wants their 8% cut whether the broker pays driver or not.

So anyway just chilling here in north Florida looking for a load west no big deal, totally prepared to deadhead the rest of the way home if necessary.

 

I think I read or heard somewhere RR lease trucks (talking about the trucks they do settlement deduction, not the trucks owner bring on their own) are limited to $525 a week. So for a brand new truck an owner would need a pretty good down payment to get the weekly payment that low. That driver may have gotten their truck from Lone Mountain truck leasing, I am seeing they have a few brand new trucks for less than $10,000 down about 2500 a month payments.
I know if my truck blows up that is probably what I would do.

That is the risk of leasing a used or turned in truck, maybe getting a lemon. Mine was turned in or the lease operator was fired not sure the history. Got it at 281k miles, problems with emissions systems for the first full year I had it then finally got her into a good shop which replaced everything under warranty. Pushing close to 700k miles now still going strong. It is a 2010 T660

 

OK so a quick recap of things. Emptied out last Thursday in Miami FL and began deadheading home to northern California. Have an important appointment Monday after Thanksgiving so that is the reason for the unusual decision. Ran my 70 down to 1.5 hours remaining Friday and picking up a goose egg on Saturday so sat out and did a 34 before deadheading home. Wow double unusual. But I spent the time picking apart the load boards and found something that would pay my fuel at least for the 3000 mile deadhead. Picked up in southern GA and delivered to San Antonio TX area. 4 of us were backed up to the docks. I have a handheld CB in my sleeper and was talking with the guy next to me. We had all been there so long the sun went down and the crew said they were going home after they loaded us, we were welcome to stay for our breaks. Well, this guy was freaking out trying to rearrange his paper logs because his 14 was about to run out. I told him since we'd been there 5 hours already, just sit tight and log 8 hours in the sleeper and extend your 14 out legally. It was like I was speaking Greek to this driver of 27 years (these were Werner brokered loads). Ended up signing off with him and did my 8 hour sleeper. Drove a few hours and pulled over for the 2 hour break. Walking Abby around the truck stop and Zero Dark Thirty we snuck up on a cat looking the other way. Abby has a 25 foot leash lol, I kept her pretty close til within range and let her creep the rest of the way up to the cat. I knew she would never hurt a cat, we once had Abby and 5 cats in the house. Anyway, she went up and took a big deep sniff out of the cat which *freaked* out lol. We have been all around the country the past 3.5 years and know where all the good spots are to stop and go chase kitties lol.

So finished the 2 hour break and drove to the end of my time and pleasantly discovered we were 4 hours ahead of schedule. Yay extended 10 hour break. Broker was very happy. '

Well, you all have a happy Thanksgiving, Abby and I are meandering our way across I-10 getting back home to Stockton CA

 

We are allowed to use our own trailers. I recall asking my recruiter about running more broker loads, he made it plain and clear that I would be leasing on to primarily move their T2T freight. I quietly said "we'll see..." to myself. I talk to a lot of Roadrunnerers out here and a lot of them were running a lot of broker freight. Roadrunner seems to have come up with the trailer pool fleet to combat that by getting the owners to stay in the T2T lanes more.

They do have in house RR broker agents but my experience is they keep the rates too low. Like the guy who wanted me to run a hazmat from New Jersey to Texas for 92% of $1.60, or the other one who wanted me to run a hazmat from Kentucky to Oregon for 92% of $2.00. I'm just now learning how to book my own loads off internet truck stop. These brokers have always paid the rate I asked for.

I am saving up to get my own trailer now. I know when it comes time to turn in the Xtralease trailer they are going to charge me up the wazoo for the vents I had installed, tires brakes and the little dings and scratches from being run into so many times at terminals and truck stops.