Running with JCT

Good morning. I'm going to roll so I'll leave the long answer until later. Swaps are not mandatory. I know what you're saying though. I had a long day Saturday with a 3 stop pick. I have never heard of favoritism. As you've seen on here, I've never turned down a load nor have I had a late delivery other than with a truck breakdown. Last winter I had weeks cruising I-10 in shorts and flip flops and I had weeks where I couldn't get off of I-80. Load swaps are relatively rare. When I get stopped I'll check back through my book and see how often they are. I know that my last one was to get ME home, lol.

 

Might try that again!

 

If favoritism exists here, I haven't seen it. I get plenty of miles and feel like the loads offered to me are pretty random. BTW, the beauty of picking up apples in a Washington winter is that very often they are bound for Florida. Just sayin'.

JCT will definitely ask to help out with swaps! But most of them are "neutral" revenue-wise. Some are really beneficial. For instance, the load that I picked up in Wallula, WA going to NC and FL. I got a call while going thru Nebraska asking me to swap to help a driver get home. We met up in Des Moines and I took his load to Oakland. Wallula to Miami is a bomb of a load! It was 3,514 miles and a couple of $40 drops. I ended up with 1,623 miles to Des Moines, drop/hook, and then 1,787 miles to Oakland. I've never heard of a punitive swap here.

That's an extreme worst case scenario, lol. For one, we don't always do produce in California. For another, that driver needing the swap would probably have been turned around hundreds of miles earlier. But if it did happen, I could turn it down. Swaps are optional. But I would probably help out the driver and the planner and catch a better load later. That Wallula-Miami trip was right after I took an "orphan" load that nobody wanted.

Again, no known favoritism here. My average length of haul is over 1,400 miles. I have had unproductive weeks in the 2,600 mile range. One that comes to mind was a Phoenix-Dallas-Phoenix-Dallas loop back in May where I was only able to get about that. But that was backed up by a Casa Grande-Sumner load then Kent, WA to Allentown, PA. I just don't think that our driver managers have time to hold grudges, lol.

Before JCT came up with this new variable lease, the best thing about them, IMO, was the miles available and length of haul. You will occasionally catch the short end of a swap. But you'll put another driver out sometimes too. I've just never seen or even heard a whisper about any malevolent dispatching over here.

 

That was probably accurate or close enough for fixed costs in 2012 when that video was made. He would have had a truck pymt of around $700 plus a one year side note of another $100+ and maybe even an APU payment as well. Before JCT offered the variable lease, my fixed costs were over $900/week. Now they're $377.29. As for only getting 1,800 miles per week, I bet that had everything to do with him wanting to be home with his boys. Any lease/purchase plan that I'm aware of requires you to run pretty hard. If you want to be home every couple of weeks JCT will probably not work out for you.

 

We have some local drivers spread around out there, but this guy obviously wasn't one of them. JCT is an OTR company. If you're not able to stay out three or more weeks at a time, it will be hard to make it. If he had researched a lease thread like this one, he would have realized that his goals would not be a good match here.