Best Ever L/P Program

Whenever I read about these "scams" that are call "lease/purchase" programs, I am reminded of one several years ago that was the very best and I really do not understand why some "honest" trucking company has never duplicated it. Johnson Motor Lines out of Charlotte, NC had this program for their Special commodity Division. And here is a short outline on how it worked.


$2000.00 up front money. This was not a down payment, it was the start of your maintenance fund. In addition to this $2000, 5cpm was taken from your settlement and went into the fund until $4500 was reached. Once the $4500 was reached, the 5 cpm was not taken out until the fund fell below that limit.


Payments on the brand new International was 10 cpm. If you did not run, no payments were made. Harder you ran, the faster you got the truck paid off. I knew a driver that broke his leg and was out for 6 months and his truck sit in his drive way the whole time, no one came and reprocessed it. When he came back to work, his payments started back as he ran.


Repairs were done at Johnson's shop in Charlotte for fleet prices or if repairs had to be made out on the road, all you had to do was call and get a PO# and it was deducted from your maintenance fund. You could buy parts at Johnson's prices.

We were paid in two checks, one check for the truck and the other check for you.

No "forced dispatch". We worked "first in, first out" but you had the privilege of turning loads down. Oh, we were Teamsters just like Johnson's company drivers. We got Teamsters benefits. Another thing, We had "yards" about everywhere we went. We had a safe place to go to after unloading and waiting on the next load. Each yard had either an office along with a dispatcher and a drivers room and nice facilities. We didn't have to hang around some truck stop.

When Johnson shut down in 1980, all O/Os that were involved in the lease/purchase program were given a couple of options, we could turn out truck back in and get out maintenance fund, we could keep the truck and Johnson would arrange for a credit institution to finance the balance we owed.

This lease/purchase deal was like "having your cake and eating it too".

Now, as I read about all these "scams", I just do not understand why a trucking company interested in making money hauling freight instead of making money off the backs of the drivers don't started a program similar to this.