The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

Roehl dosnt haul broker freight for our own brokerage lol that would be stupid. We haul other brokers fr8. Out of my last 10 loads only one was drop hook, and 3 were broker loads. You guys know my miles NEVER drop below 2800/wk right? Well right now I'm fighting to get 2500. It has never been this hard for me to make it. I would love to say oh that's just because its December blah blah blah, but I don't really buy that. O yea my avg length trip is <500mi now

 

I was on a decent run light load going to Lowes in Findlay OH, they call while in driving thru Dayton, drop that load there,we have one that is going to be late pick it up at bonton and take it to Bloomington by 5.....really just throw it out there like I had a choice, it's ready to pick up now, but you have to wait for other driver to show up and get the Lowes load before you can go get the one that's already late.... Love my job!

 

No Roehl driver here, but an observation. Short haul freight of less than 500 miles pays more per mile, especially freight that is less that 300 miles. A good 250 mile load that loads one day and delivers the next pays as much, or more, that a comparable 600 mile load.

Paper loads, if you are talking about rolls, are very heavy, and in my experience do not pay very well. Companies use them when they either need fill in freight, or are located next to where they have a lot of empty trucks.

A company can make much more pulling short freight, but the driver, o/o, and l/o suffers.

This is what JB Hunt has been doing for a few years, and their profits show the results.

 

Interesting changes going on, well from my point of view. Has anyone expressed their concerns to Rick? I know they used to do a drivers survey, maybe it's about time they start that again. If your fleet isn't happy you're going to be fighting a losing battle when you try to grow. Doesn't matter if it's company guys, L/P or O/O's, if turnover is too high you end up hiring just to replace your losses.

 

They know exactly what they are doing to us, ill let em know what I think soon enough. If I have to beg to get treated better I'd rather just move on. They gave us absolutely no option on the new fuel program and shut off our comdata cards, they did all that without giving a #### about what we thought about it, why would they care now? I realize I don't have to use their card but I can go to a company with 80 trucks and get a decent fuel discount. Also just got my next load 145 empty 367 loaded.....shocker

 

I don't claim to be a great driver and you certainly don't want me to work on your truck. What I do understand is business on both the macro and micro level. I pay attention to what is going on from multiple sources. Did you know that driver turnover is rising at a rate of 10% a month and is now up to 89%? As for Roehl there are several clues as to whether a load is a direct customer or brokered. Sometimes it's right on top of the bol. Another clue is when you have one of those pickup numbers that has no relevance to the shipper. Live loads tell me it's a customer we do very little business with. Some shippers don't handle their own logistics at all. In the past this was true of Graphic Packaging, they used CH Robinson for all their shipping.

I have a saying, "If you don't ask the right question, you'll never get the right answer." This is what is going on with the trucking companies. They aren't looking in the right places to find solutions so they come up with the idea of larger trucks. The truth is you get what you pay for. If you get cheap with labor, the quality of driver will go down. The better you pay, the more you can demand.

 

Don't freak out on your settlements, mine was -$55k said it's a IT problem Wtf

 

Mine was ($136,041)