Running with JCT

There was some conversation here a few pages ago about trucks and the letters following the truck number. As diligent readers know, JCT assigns a new letter to a truck number for each driver who is assigned to that truck. I'm not completely happy with the way that I answered that, so let me expand on my answer a bit.

Just because a truck has a letter after the number, doesn't mean that a driver went broke or quit the company. Many drivers get a used truck out of orientation, and trade it in after 90 days for a new or newer truck. However, considering JCT's turnover rate, a lot of those letters represent an unprepared driver who didn't make it here. Since the time that I started, "Running with JCT", and throughout the thread, I've said that driver turnover is a problem. It's expensive to the company, and it puts a cloud over JCT and the whole lease-purchase business.

Do these drivers fail because of an inherent flaw in the system? No! It's actually very simple to make money over here. But, if you have a difficult family budget, geographical problems (living off of our usual lanes), need too much time off, or any number of other things, then you may find it impossible to make it in lease-purchase here or anywhere else.

For example: I have a "C" following my truck number. That means that I'm the fourth driver of this truck. I picked out this 2012 Cascadia in September of 2012. Going by an educated guesstimate, this truck was put on the road for JCT around June of 2011. In less than a year and a half, THREE other drivers failed in this truck. I'm not positive that they failed, but since this was the newest Cascadia available at the time, I doubt that they traded it in for something else.

Those three drivers put 180,000 miles on the truck. That is plenty of miles for the time in service. They weren't starving for miles. Let me emphasize that; THEY DIDN'T STARVE FOR MILES! Lol. There was some other reason that they left.

As of right now, I've had this truck for just under 17 months. I've driven 201,752 miles in that time for an average of about 12,000 miles/month. Over half of the time that I've had this truck, I was under the old, fixed-payment lease system, and I made money. I believe that this new, variable-lease plan makes it easier to make money AND still have some quality home time.

A skeptic can look at my anecdotal evidence and say that over half of JCT drivers fail. Maybe he would be right. I don't know. And I don't claim to have the holy grail of how to run your truck to make money either. My chronicles on, "Running with JCT" simply tell how it works for me. As I've met more drivers through this thread; both experienced JCT drivers and new-hires, I've seen a variety of ways to run successfully. I've even talked to successful, veteran drivers who have screwy ideas about fueling and managing their hours, lol.

My simple advice is to keep your costs low and your miles high. Buy fuel as cheaply as possible. Don't think paycheck to paycheck when fueling. The biggest boneheaded thing that I've seen out here is a JCT driver filling up in California because he wanted a bigger settlement that week. Once you've got those tanks full, work at getting the best range out of them that you can. There are a lot of resources on here to help you learn to improve your MPG's.

Running 3,000 miles per week is easy. Yesterday I was talking to Treputt on the phone, and he told me about a disgruntled JCT driver who claimed he was only getting 1,800 miles per week. Treputt, who's averaging almost 1,800 miles per trip, was as mystified as I was. How is that possible? You simply have to go from point A to point B in a timely manner. If there's too much time on a trip, ask for a relay to keep you moving. This isn't rocket science! Don't be late for appointments. That's all I do to get the miles. You don't have to be schmoozy with your DM. The miles are there as many new drivers have reported.

The best advice I can give to our new drivers is to network with experience JCT drivers. You're on the right track by researching companies on TTR. You might be surprised to find out that the vast majority of drivers DIDN'T read and research JCT on here. You'll see them in orientation, and if you think that they're set up to fail, you're probably right. By knowing the fundamentals, you are well under way to becoming successful operators.

Wow! That was a lot, lol. I've got to motor on down to Calexico. Shoot me an email or yahoo message if you can find them in my profile, otherwise just state your intent and I'll find you.