what kind of advice have you received for o/o? i am a student graduating soon and am thinking about o/o.

I appologize for not getting back to you sooner, have only been on here a little while and have not worked out all the kinks yet. As for being an O/O or IC, there is a lot of info out there. The best thing to do is talk to any and all O/O you see while out on the road. You must be an person that is organized, detailed and a take charge type of person. If you are not any of these things than running your own truck will be difficult at best. The best advice I can give you, that I have received is being a company driver for 2 to 3 years before you buy your own truck. Now if your like me and you are constantly doing research and asking questions than 1 or 2 years should do it, especially if your the type of person I mentioned above. I wish you the best with your trucking career and be safe out there. Keep the left door shut and remember: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

I read your post about the definition of professionalism as well as this thread, and I agree with your statements. Why didn't anyone post their input on your thread, I wonder.

Thats a good question JimDriv3r, I have wondered that myself.

Another year down and I still drive for SNI. The wife is scheduled to start school on the 13th but I am afraid that won't happend, since she failer her test for the permit...LOL She is scheduled to take it again next Friday, I am sure she will pass this time. She has her Med Card now though, so that is good. I look forward to her getting in the truck with me, Lord willing that is.

I am a little on the frustrated side of life these days. Trying to research and find the best company to Lease to. My plan is to stay with SNI for a year once my wife gets on board. Durring that time, hopefully will find a good company that will give us many miles as an O/O Husband & Wife Team. Really hard finding the info,,think it is time to stop researching for a while....

Stay safe..

Two months later and the story has changed.....

My wife will not be getting her CDL and getting in the truck with me.. I wish I knew why a person would turn down such an oppertunity like the one her and I would have as a Team. Anyway, I have decided to take my life into my own hands and make some changes.. one of those changes was moving to leave SNI and learn to pull Flatbeds so I can get the experience I need for my business I have plans for. I decided to go with TMC and have since completed my orientation. I go out Monday, the 28th of March and will be back home next friday for weekend drill. If I need more training than I will back out with trainer that following monday. I have met with trainer and he seems like a good guy, hope the first impression is correct.

I applied with TMC last summer after getting a referral from another driver, but they weren't hiring anyone from the western region (or so I was told). Good luck at TMC! Chances are, you will probably go out with a trainer for a few weeks to learn about load securement, and backing. Believe it or not, backing a spread axle trailer is somewhat difficult and different than backing a trailer with tandems. Again, good luck with your training, and have fun with your weekend drills!

Here it is Augest and I haven't taken the time, up until today, to update my Blog...sheesh!

Anyway, as most know I have been terminated from TMC due to an injury I sustained at Drill and because I could not return to work promptly, TMC terminated my position. I have had many problems during the past 3 mo's but will be going back out on the road soon.

My wife and I have seemenly worked things out and she says she definetly will be going out on the road with me. She will be takeing her permit test in a day or two and hopefull will start school the 29th. I am being optimistic and am going to start with a new company that has good teaming qualities. It will either be with USX or W&S. Have pre hire from both....will inform later.

Okay,,, I have been with USX for two weeks now.. I like everything so far and look forward to the future.. My wife took her permit test again and passed the General Knowledge portion this time... she is going back on the 19th to take the other two portions again. If all goes well, she will be attending CDL school at Chattanooga state on Oct 21st and it will be mostly paid for by USX...

I really need to update this blog more frequently...

After the wife passed her tests, she attended the CDL School in Chattanooga, she pased all her final tests, I trained her and we have been driving as a team with USXpress up to 09/14/2012 We decided that there was more to an OTR driving job than just miles/money. We love driving as a team and do real good at it. We have chosen to go with a small fleet owner that has 9 trucks signed on with FedEx Ground. He has a spot for us in Chattanooga, says we will be home 1 or 2 days every week and he is paying us 4cpm more than we made at USXpress,,with no HM endorsement needed. We got our Doubles endorsement last week, with no problems. We start our first trip tonight and are nervouse about finding out if we made the right descision or not. I feel we have even though we will most likely loose a little pay, per week on average. But, if we get treated better than just a robot, than it will be fine. I will post a follow up in the near future. God Bless

Well, here is the follow up; We have been running with the FedEx Ground contractor since Oct 2012 and well,,,working more for FedEx than the contractor. Miles are all over the place, which kind of suprised me, and home time is all over the place as well. Forget about getting home every weekend as a OTR Team. I tried but it just doesn't work in our favor. Might do great in first part of week but than sit in CA for 2 days and end of week. We don't mind not being home every weekend so, we changed our thinking and decided not to try and get home every weekend. That seem to backfire. We get home when we don't want to be home and don't go home when we do want to...lol I am really tired of changing companies, never intended to have 4 driving jobs in less than 5 years. I will have 5 yrs in May and I am looking at another move. I'll be honest, I just want to get my own truck and start building a fleet. The problem with that is, everytime I start getting ahead, I fall back again.. Like taking 1 step forward, and going 2 steps backward. Waiting on a company to call us now, guess we will just see what God has in store for us....

It seems God has not approved our decision to go through a lease purchase deal. I am confident that we have taken all steps necessary to make this lease purchase work for us but, our funds have almost run out and there is no way we are going to start a lease purchase with no savings. So, we are going to go back to OTR company team. Not really what I want to do but, is the smartest thing to do at this time.... MY plan is to save up as much as possible over the next 12 months and than use that money to buy a truck. At that time we will have over $30,000 in the bank which will be sufficient to start our venture as an I/O Company.