Why O/O??

at the end of the week your paycheck will probaly be bigger than mine....and i'll definatly have more expences and headaches.....my reason?

the freedom

u see i can turn down loads, route myself whatever way i like,take 6 months off,run on my own shedule, heck i could d/h 3k miles and noone is gonna say a darn thing to me about it......except maybe my accountant, but i can fire him....lol

 

Most wannabe o/o's today will start as a lease operator thru a companies lease purchase plan. They will not have the money for a down payment nor the experience of running a business with all the nuances of not only driving a truck but maintaining it, filing and paying your taxes, Arranging for insurances such as bobtail, medical, dental, vision, disabilty, and workers comp (your responsibility as an independant contractor).
Face it, lease operators today will make LESS money in their pocket than a company driver.
Company drivers get all the insurance at reduced rates plus taxes are calculated and deducted weekly and a company driver gets paid vacations, holiday pay, sick days, 401k, doesnt pay for the fuel or maintenance costs at all. If the truck breaks down he calls the company and its up to the company to get it fixed. Less stress overall.
With a truck running about .70 to .75 cpm just to operate it is difficult to see any advantage (economically anyway). The average company will offer a lease operator about .90 cpm plus a 20 to .25 cent fuel surcharge. Companies are offering their drivers 40 to 55 cpm plus benefits and pay half the social security for the employee. A lease operator pays all the social security tax plus all the taxes are his responsibilty to pay quarterly or be faced with late fees and interest on top of the original tax liability.
A lease operator will have more tax write offs and will usually claim poverty to dodge the tax issue though. Not a good plan as your retirement from social security is directly proportional to the amount of tax you paid in. It will also make it more difficult to qualify for personal loans and credit in general if you are claiming poverty.
If on the other hand your intention is to screw your x wife on alimony payments, reduce your child support payments, and opt out of paying taxes then by all means become a lease operator. Just keep accurate tax records in the event you get audited.

 

Not to discourage you but the companies you just mentioned are very low on the driver satisfaction meter. I would offer the following: check into Roehl, Gainey (GTS), Crete (or any acklie company), or (the company I work for Eastern Freightways based out of North Brunswick Nj. I am biased of course in this respect but Here goes anyway. Eastern does accept student drivers from an accredited driving school. I believe the training pay is 100.00 per day after a 3 day paid orientation. Hotels are issued for the senior driver and although the trainee is encouraged to sleep in the truck by the company to "get used to it" most trainers will get a double room and share the room. For local trainers the trainee can go home (if they live close enough to North Brunswick) as long as they return to duty after their 10 hour break.
Getting your foot in the door is the main thing though. The companies you mentioned do not pay for paid holidays, sick days, personal days, break down pay, etc. and usually expect you to be gone 2 to 3 weeks at a time while Eastern gets their drivers home each weekend.
The down side of Eastern is the equipment is older and may break down more often than what the larger carriers offer.

 

I would like to have quoted the person who stated the average pay rate for lease operators in this post, however I cant figure out how to quote just part of a post!! LOL

Anyhow, my husband and I became o/o's for a few reasons, the main one being money. So far, we are making quite a bit more money compared to being company drivers. We bought our truck outright, no payments on it.
We leased on to a company that he was a company driver for. ( local company)
We are paid $1.09 per loaded mile and .77 cents per empty mile, we do not run empty much. On top of that we do get a fuel surcharge, and discounted fuel at the terminals. The other benifits to being leased to this company, is geting fleet priced insurance and they take care of getting the tags for the truck, we do pay for them. We are running the truck about 850 miles per day, he drives days, and I drive nights so one of us is always home with our son.

We have often wondered if getting our own authority would be better, but as bad as this sounds, its pretty easy where we are so far, why make things more difficult at the moment.

I have no idea if leasing on here has been the best deal or not, but it is working for us right now. If anyone else is in a similer position, I would love to learn what others are making.

I would not recommend becoming an o/o to any new driver, my husband and I were both company drivers for several years before buying our truck. It sometimes is very stressful, such as breakdowns & tax time.

Hope the info helps you to see there is both good and bad in owning your own truck.