What was the most beneficial piece of advice you received?

Sorry Ron, touchy subject!

 

Best advice I ever got was- "Don't buy a truck"

 

Well experienced or not a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet and it is very easy for the greenest of drivers to see the quick impact of changing miles on your breakeven points. The waiting it out game is best played by the mega-carriers with millions, like Walmart selling under cost for a decade until everyone else goes away. If you are participating in that with one truck, I think you're kidding yourself. You can put a man on the moon without ever having done it by sticking to sound principles. Truckers are all in this slowdown together and it is fruitless to blame other truckers for accepting rates or whatever is going on. You know you can't get the 1000 or so truckers on this forum to agree on much and you can't blame individuals for aggregate behavior. The ones who want to pull through will run and make lemons out of lemonade.

The advice is sound and you present another viewpoint. Researchers can choose a set at their peril. But be forewarned my advice is not based on a belief system or the way I'd like things to be. It is how to survive with things the way they are.

 

I say the same thing to all truckers, company, lease and o/o :

Time is more important than money.

Met a lease operator at the port in Newark. I asked him how things were going for him and he said that he's maintaining. His checks are usually between $300-500 a week. I told him thats not maintaining. His company does like most companies and pays mileage guys on a sliding pay scale. The longer the run, the less CPM. This guy bounced from Laredo to Texarkana on a Thursday, loaded Friday bound for Massachusetts, and delivered Monday. He sat overnight on Monday and bounced to Newark to load going to Gillette, Wy for a Friday delivery.

Had to tell him the bad news, "Dude, you just lost your arse!"

Count the days Thursday(1),Friday(2)Monday(3)Tuesday(4)Thats 4 days on a 2000 mile load thats paying $.81 cpm,$1620 gross or $405 a day. $405 a day is good pay for a company driver, but horrible for a lease operator. A lease operator needs $500 a day (gross) to maintain. The only way a long load like that would have paid off is if it loaded on Friday (no bounce) and delivers Monday and get a reload Monday. Count the days Friday(1) Monday(2). That would be $810 a day.

I asked this lease operator if his company offered him more than 1 load and he said they offered 3...2 loading in Laredo on Thursday going to Okie City on Friday, and of course, that Texarkana to Mass load. He bombed. I would have went after the Laredo to Okie(no bounce) dropped it next day and THEN take a long load for a Monday delivery, Monday being the next business day after Friday.

Done right, in that same amount of time and not much difference in mileage, he would have made a minimum of $2500 or $625 a day, instead of the $1620, or $405 a day.

Time is more important than money.

 

Always have a back up plan.

KH

 

Yep....me too.

Dad drove for 46 years (O.O. for around 25 years), so...while I have no personal experience with being an O.O., I know how it works (at least I have an idea of how it works)

Its more about "logistical planning"...same as the big companies do it.

Meaning...If I take this good paying load...will it pay for the possible dead head that comes after? OR should I take this lower paying load, that will probably have a decent paying load waiting for me when I get empty and where will I be after getting empty from the decent paying load...

The point is...look ahead, as far as possible.

If you have truck payments to make...there really is no great solution other than plan ahead the best you can.

You can't lose money on a load or just pay for the fuel then expect to make truck payments, do unexpected repairs...but then there is that payment to make.

If you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time...do the best you can to get whatever you can, just make sure it is heading towards "greener pastures".

Don't take a cheap load that is going to leave you in the same situation when you get it off. (Remember the old saying...If you find yourself in a hole...STOP DIGGING)

 

I was told to stay out of trucking!