Review our plans?

? You'll need to post a lot more details to get a response. List projections of both profits and expenses, truck choices, preferred lanes, etc.
Experienced drivers or just deciding on a whim to join the industry?

 

Just ONE repair shop?

Let's say you are using Memphis as your home base.. (Where are you located anyway?) How far do you range from your base? You will need more than one shop.

You want a fuel card capable of billing you wherever you get fuel. Petro? 76? Etc.

You will want a Comdata First National Account of Kentucky I think it's Louisville So you can pay your over the road expenses to the driver.

You want prepass if you run into say NYC. GWB is a hundred dollars in the morning and another 100 dollars getting out by dinner.

Satellites are a few thousand dollars to install I think. You WILL find that qualcomm is a quality and necessary service for your work. But however many words you use is about 5 words every 50 cents. I once chatted with a friend while driving north across Mississippi one night, it was about 20 dollars for a hours worth of messaging back and forth, it was back in the days without cellphone or text laws like they have today.

You will need a small warehouse, capable of storing say 5 truck loads to start off. And someone to deal with it.

If you put a reefer on that thing you open up potentially blood donations etc. Another is class 7, radioactive.

You also need to set aside 10% of your revenue against future engine destruction and heavy wrecker recovery which is like a thousand dollars per hour.

Require your shippers and customers to purchase insurance. If I sold something on the bay and shipped with Fed ex that box is insured for at least the retail value of the widget inside of it.

Civil Liability insurance. 2 million dollars should be pretty good to start.

A weapons policy.

A fund to send someone by air and ground transport to recover stranded or abandoned trucks at a moment's notice. A disgrungled driver quitting and leaving your truck inside Camden NJ out of spite can do you alot of damage.

A computer room that is protected against those who are not allowed in. Your information is far beyond the old Rolodex days.

A Generator large enough to be on call and hooked up to you during ice storms. You are probably hauling someone's Mission critical stuff somewhere and things like ice storms killing your power should not be allowed to interfere with that item and communciations.

I can go on and on, but I think that's enough for this post.

If driver has a CLEAN record and nothing on it anywhere, those are the ones you want.

Enhanced drivers licensing allows access to Federal Installations and possibly even Canada. We are getting ready to add that on ourselves volunatrily before it becomes mandatory here in Arkansas it's literally a gold star stamped onto your license whatever it might be.

DAC is not enough, you will be pulling PSP, back ground criminal checks and also visiting the public facing webportals of courthouses to examine various people by name to discover criminal history if any. You can literally enter a name into the court database for the State and presto. Either clean or a stack of convictions.

I don't think Workmans is optional. You probably will need to check with your local town fathers plus the county and state as well as uncle sam for your location. You will be paying money to protect your workers via unemployment insurance etc.

There are certain rule changes pending to where your DOT MC Number might go away, look into that.

 

OK here are the important questions;

your friend - what type of trucks is he running - B/C/D units for FedExCC?

Do you plan on getting a CDL and going on the road for a few months?

DO you know what FedExCC does?

Answer those and I will post a comment that will help you out.

 

They started charging coming back into New Jersey????!?!!!

 

Oh. DOH!

 

Had no idea man.. last time I crossed that bridge was in 2013. I remember leaving my fuel card at that pilot in Milford CT or whatever the town is. Dispatched asked me if I could drive back and I told them I'm gonna need $100... had to get fuel with t checks until i got back to a terminal.

 

Inbound is $68

Outbound is free.

 

Milford I think was the American Eagle 76 way back when. A good stop with a big salad bar and a parking that makes for fun times in the rain.