Lesson for us all

Bill, I'm home for the holidays, would love to meet ya for lunch one day and talk business.

 

Our loads like that are usually high value. 600 miles would be in the neighborhood of $1500 to $1800.

 

I just did a quick search on Member's Edge and it's kind of amazing how many partials in the 4'-12' long 1k-12k range there are out of the Chicago area. It's kind of appealing to think a guy with a big rig could maybe grab some work on the side with a pickup, van, box-truck, or gooseneck trailer. I wonder how many of these partial loads they would actually agree to put on a vehicle other than a semi ?

I'm talking legal btw, also wonder if you could get any sort of break on insurance if you explain it would just be a side thing to the big rig ? I mean, my cost per mile would be almost 50 cents less just on fuel. But if I gotta come up with another $700/month to do it then it would be hard to justify.

 

When Dieselbear was posting, he was quite clear that it depended on the load rating of the trailer.

 

you mean the insurance premium ? like if the trailer is 20,000 or something it would be considerably less than a semi ? I guess I can just call my insurance guy tomorrow and ask what I'd be in for on something like that. I can really about justify a trailer like that for personal use as it is, might be pretty easy decision to insure it for commercial if I'm gonna be staying local more anyways.

 

This is kind of suprising in my dealings with the expedite business they have all been paid on a percentage basis.

 

There's a bunch of them in the expedite business that offer flat mileage rates to owner operators. Some that offer it as the only option for pay. The ones not ashamed to post these payscales online typically offer up the same low rates as a guy could get from a mega working general freight and somewhat normal hours sleeping at nights. See it lots these big expedite companies paying their owners peanuts on a 200-300 mile run that I'm getting around $1200 maybe more, sometimes several hundreds more. They make a killing off those guys. Panther does it. Also lots of small carriers on Sylectus do it. Like Bill says, there are many company owners in expedite who believe owner operators should never have any say in rates. They are the ones trying to gobble up as much market share as they can, cheapen the rates overall in a specialized segment, and reap the rewards while shoveling costs on others. Very short sighted outlook and not good at all for customer service.

 

I was leased on with expedited logistics out of houston,tx years ago i was paid $3/mile sounded good at the time until i relized i was only making $1.50/mile my all miles were $1.38 one year you loaded heading out and back in empty did this for two years before i got smart about it, I was the jack acc in the truck stop telling people how much i was getting paid off the same load they were doing for $1/mile less not thinking about dead heading home

 

You were going up to the northwest or somewhere with those right? It was like a deadend for even general freight dry van, forget about reloading with another expedite. That's pretty typical how some of the expedite companies will sell a high appearing rate (really that $3 was cheap) then the owner discovers what their true rate per mile is.. Some guys would be happy with that buck fifty lots of them doing longhaul auto parts cheap like that.

 

i went from houston,tx to rifle,co twice a week it paid $3,800 a run so with no sleep id turn and burn pick up monday 7am and pull out drop tuesday get some sleep early morning wednesday id head back reload thus night drop sat before the sun was up and head back, i was making $7,600 a week was young and stupid!!!! before i ever paid the first note on my new truck in 04 i had 44,000 miles on it i made over $330,k that year but drove 222,000 miles that year i just didnt know anybetter all i was looking at was gross not mileage

When that job ended i went from making $7-8,k a week to $2,000 and put my self in a bind boat, truck, trailer, house, and everything else was way more than i was making i needed miles and lots of them or better paying freight in 06 when fuel started getting high it was time to sale everything besides what made money when i started with a new company it wasnt as fast they didnt care when i dropped and always had a back haul at this time i was getting about $2.40/mile to the truck i was working half as much for same money you live and learn............and im still learning