Prime, never been insulted by employer before.

Quit blowing sunshine up everybody's tail. The guarantee line haul rate is 95cpm. You cannot include your fuel surcharge in that, which you obviously have in this statement.

When I left (I can show the YTD statement to prove it) my average per mile rate overall was $1.10. But that includes fuel surcharge. With the high payments and BS loads, it was no wonder I was going hungry.

Regarding turn-in: you didn't stay for the inspection and get a copy of it???? WTH, dude??? Now since you didn't cover yourself in this way, of course they are going to get every penny they can. You took away any room you previously had to b**** about it.

 

That's what I've been suggesting for quite awhile... if you figure out how this works before sticking your foot in the bear trap, it's a lot easier to grab the bait and keep your parts!

That was then, this is now. Yup, at the bottom of the recession it was pretty ugly - but then IMO, Prime kept us running better than a lot of the other carriers did for their drivers - at least that's the way it seemed to me. Fast forward to now... the rates have recovered some, Prime's business actually expanded coming into this year, and things are better. Don't be gettin' down on Sazook - he's just letting you know how things look from his seat.

 

Where have I said that number is linehaul? I haven't. Linehaul guarantee at $0.95 plus fuel surcharge guarantee at $0.28 equals a minimum rate of $1.23.

 

What are you going to do when fuel prices go up again? Do they adjust for that?

 

The fuel surcharge is adjusted weekly, based on the previous weeks' average fleet price.

 

Hey sazook... why are you exaggerating your numbers?

Check your qualcom. This weeks surcharge guarantee is 25.5 up from 25 last week, and was down to 24 for the two weeks prior to that. it hasnt been 28 in a long LONG while now...

and again, watch how you tell people they guarantee 95cpm. they dont. You can still run loads far below that. I did, an din fact there was one week i did it twice. There is a good chance you will run at least one load a week around 60cpm.

 

I don't have the last surcharge message still on my QC, but I thought it was 28, if it was 25.5 then I apologize, you'd get at least $1.205 per mile instead of $1.23. As far as the number I gave not one of them is exaggerated, if I make it up to MI for yogurt I'd be more than happy to show you my settlements. The lowest rate on a load I've seen in the last 4 months (all the records I still have on my truck) is actually the load I'm on right now, and it's still above $1.00 a mile, and it's emptying out right in the middle of meat country, so there is a good chance of me getting a $2.00+/mi load heading back east.

 

saz, i'd really like to see a breakdown on a quarter to quarter basis versus averages from week to week. i'm presuming, of course, that it is how your taxes are paid, using alternative minimum tax.

that said, renting/leasing doesn't offer me the stability and predictability that's needed in difficult economic times. you have no idea what percentage of the haul you get from load to load (which would provide much more transparency about how these contracts are bid, who the 'cheap' shippers are [and which loads to reject on that basis alone], and what lanes to avoid like the plague), which bothers me a lot from a business point of view. unless you have previous experience in the business from the desk side or grew up with the business, as i did, even experienced veterans can get into trouble with this kind of situation in today's freight environment.

As my father (a retired independent o/o of 44 years) reminded me growing up... '.. if this business were as foolproof as some people make it out to be, every fool would be doing it. even people with MBA's have gone broke trying....'

 

He's not. My numbers are quite similar. Did you bother finding out what the track history of your FM was before you leased? There is "average" dispatching which severely sucks, and "power" dispatching - it all depends on who you team with as far as an FM goes.

Based on the length of the run, where I stand as far as revenue per day... I'd probably turn something like that down unless I was sure that was the only way out of a crappy freight area. Turned down one last week out of NW Arkansas that was $1-or-so a mile, but would have had me sitting for 2 days on it and delivered after cutoff. My low so far was $1.06/mi.

Huh??? "Stability and predictability???" From my limited perspective, there's no such thing in this industry. Check out McDonald's fry line.

Its fixed at 72% of linehaul, 100% of all collected fuel surcharge (plus fuel surcharge guarantee) and accessorial payments...

We get a copy of the quotation for each load attached to our settlements - probably a part of the optional statement I opted for - information is power!

 

I beg to differ. I was on the road with my husband. Who is an owner operator. He told them "No to a load" for reasons of no money to be made. They started giving him horrible loads. I sat right next to him, and listened to hid DP tell him well sorry but you had a load now you just need to suck up what you get now. I also get his statements and Yes!!! they try and charge you weekly for the tolls of $16.00. Also to do our taxes was only to be 6.00 a week, we had been getting charged 40.00 a week. I could go on and on for the things that we had been charged.