Heading to Landstar

Well - sing out if you have any questions on start up over there, and things to make it smoother.

 

My last recruit is still above water.

 

The Landstar guys I know who've been there decades are complaining about the no freight/cheap freight situation. Some are worried, some selling trucks.

Of course a KR/PP fanboy will be happy running the wheels off your truck for peanuts as long as the reassurance come your way that you're doing it right.

 

I guess you don't know me.

 

Congratulations and Godspeed!!

 

Good luck,it is what you make it,but they're the best.In this day and age,jmho.Truck smart not hard,my Landstar stock needs all the help it can get!

 

Good luck at LS I had to quit 8 months ago after 11 years. To much low paying freight and to much truck repairs. Even before I got a newer truck, and with my paid for 2000 truck no emission I was never making much money.

They do give you 3 day cruise with year's safe driving. I just don't think LS has enough loads and lots of loads you will see on the load board are not even available to haul. LS does no have the loads all their agents do. So agents post loads they find, but the agent can't commit to the load with out a truck to move it. So basically agents post loads, then when you call asking to haul the load. The agent has to call the shipper back and see if the load is still available. Lots of time the load was already covered by shipper. The good paying loads will be covered in 30 SECONDS that not joke. You can't dial the phone fast enough sometimes. Thats pulling van freight. When LS takes 35% of the load is just not enough mo ey pulling van. Look at LS rate per mile on loads and you will see how it looks. Maybe with a glider truck you can make it

 

Just remember it is not " run where you want, when you want" to make it work is "go where the money is, when it is there to run"
You got to be flexible and make fast decisions, you can't spend 15 minutes analyzing a load before you call, know what you can do and do it.
Blowing a week and not doing anything is easy, I just blew 2.
Buy a trailer, the market is flooded with used vans, get logistics post, bars, straps, pads and maybe a ramp or lift gate. Set yourself apart from all the other vans.

Many are sitting around complaining and starving, business has changed and what they were doing is gone and they have to accept that fact and move on, not set on their butt and hope it comes back.
(frame haulers?)

Don't get excited and book a weeks worth of loads before you leave home, that cheap crap is always there, the good stuff comes in at the last minute, be ready to go.

Find outbound freight near you home the is steady and pays good, it takes work though, no one is going to give away the good contacts, I would but you need a different trailer.

A little DH won't kill you, I know because I am a proffesional dead header.

My version of CMC "Bring more money in the front door than goes out the back"

Where do you live?

 

You should really look at LS rate per mile ! In my opinion the loads just are not their. Southern California used to be the hot spot for LS vans. Since most LS truck are older the agents seem to stop booking loads out of California because not truck to move back them. Plus everyone has a TV now and nobody is buying computers anymore. Agents post anything they can and they leave loads on load board that they know are not available. The LS computer system does not dump old loads that are past their pick-up time or dates.

People talk about deadhead out of bad area. You can see within a 600 mile circle of your truck all the loads. You can even see every load in the system. I know a LS driver he got the lift gate and belly box for his traile. Last I heard from him we was doing $150,000 a year. I did $135,000 a year pulling company van. I don't see the money. His friend who suggested he get a lift gate because he had one was doing $180,000. The driver grossing $150,000 makes last I heard $36,000 a year. It hard to tell exactly because he writing off everything. But he can't keep doing that.