Stepping Out With My Own Numbers

I was really excited seeing things turning around for me, but disaster struck again. I don’t know what it is about me that this stuff always happens. My driver parked in Wheeling, WV, went inside for a shower, came back out, and found someone had nailed the trailer, real good. The truck stop was full and he parked next to the scale. He took pictures, he wasn’t in the way, you could still easily get by, but somebody didn’t pay attention. They also left the scene and no one saw anything. I had to DH from Chicago to Wheeling to get the freight on my trailer as his trailer is not road worthy, loaded. It’s going to be a big bill to fix it. Seven damaged crossmembers. He’s on his way to AR to drop it off and get a rental in the meantime. The only trailer they had was a 2014 with a TK SB200 on it. And still charge top dollar, 1700 a month, for not much of a trailer.
Well

 

His other picture he sent was him next to the scale and you could see the chunks of metal on the ground. Beside the trailer. I didn’t include that one.

 

if it’s just you in the truck, leasing on can be a good deal. Finding a good company is very difficult. I did great with Fortune out of Windom, MN, great place. I leased one truck on with KL Breeden doing Tyson dedicated, pulling Tyson’s trailers even. You’d think that would be a sweet deal. It was a great rate per mile, but you didn’t run, just sat all the time. My other guy was leased on at Cargill, and same thing. The Cargill loads paid fantastic but you couldn’t stay moving. On top of that, they were deadheading him hundreds of miles between loads, any DH after 125 miles was 1.25, and then DH him 250-400 miles to go home, unpaid. I was running so many empty miles and the sitting, and grossing 3600.00 a week, it’s just not enough. If you have your costs under control, be at 1.45 or higher rate all miles, and gross 16k a month, that’s a good starting point. But, if you do it right, you can make more fully independent, just more issues to deal with, but manageable.

 

Getting your own authority, the only is option is jumping in with both feet. Using your ELD to try and stop bad driving behavior. At the end of each week I call them up and do a recap regarding safety. You have to keep in their head that you don’t tolerate the super trucker stuff. I’m a NASTC member using their fuel card, drug consortium, and insurance services. They have a new entrant program as well to get your authority. NASTC can do a whole lot for you for only 225.00 a year, I believe that’s right.
i just saw you already have authority. There’s lots of good deals on trucks and I highly recommend TenStreet. Call them up and see if they can demo it for you.
I use Tailwind TMS for back office stuff
Merge Transit for support

 

I don’t use it. The only one that benefits is the shipper. It’s not all good either. It only covers food that is directly related to emergency relief. There’s a lot of guys that don’t read that part of the HOS exemption. Lots of shippers are stamping bills and handing out slips of paper saying their shipment is COVID exempt when it isn’t. FMCSA should stick to things that are related to safety and not playing games with the rules of business. Same with this broker transparency nonsense going on right now. There are unintended consequences of asking a government bureaucracy to expand their role beyond what the intended mission of the agency was meant to be.