Different Profession Wondering About O/O

First off. How many miles have you turned working for another company? Most insurance companies wont touch you with out one year driven. Average insurance may kill any profits you might hope to see. Also if you havent turned any miles yet, your going to have another surprise. Overhead of repairs on a new driver is tremeandous.

 

www.OOIDA.com is a business website for owner-operators.
Take a look and become a member; your questions can be answered there.

 

When you are figuring on moving the truck, you have to account for that when you are presented with a work offer and figure that into the amount of money you need to operate the truck before profits.

It isn't the load by load that count, it is the month of work to reach the bottom line from the accumulation of the revenue and subtraction of the cost that are incurred that count.

 

You can go to ND if the loads pays enough to drive empty out of ND to the next load. The way it work is they pay more money to go somewhere body wants to go. They pay good money going to the northeast. Once you get their nothing is pay anything to get out.

Have you looked at the rates lately, the are dropping because everyone got in when they seen the cazy rates on 2017 and 2018.

Denver Colorado is probably most crazy rates. They will pay cazy rates to Denver. Their is nothing coming out of Denver. Cheap heavy beer. Now I see why my company used to deadhead us to Kansas for meat loads. I see why truck stops are always full in Denver.

Loads pay good for dry van out of Los Angeles but getting their is no so easy.

 

I assume by your headline you haven't worked in trucking yet

Why don't you spend a few years driving a company-owned truck to learn the basics first and make sure it's something you like, before buying a truck before trying to eat the entire elephant at once.

I used to work in IT. Rarely in IT forums did I encounter people asking about starting their own IT business before knowing how to fix a computer.

Trucking looks deceptively easy, but it's not. In a way it is. When people ask me how it's working out... I tell them it's the easiest and hardest job I've worked so far. And that's driving a company truck I don't have to worry about paperwork or finding loads or permits or any of that other undesirable stuff. The other night I had a flat tire. I just called my breakdown line and drove to a TA and it magically got paid for and fixed. If you own your own truck, it's all on you.

That's leaving aside all the issues rookies come across. I don't know you but I drive with a lot new drivers. I'm not saying I'm not still a rookie. But some of them have problems for months, even a year or more learning to handle a truck properly... navigation.. living on the road.. time management.. not running stuff over when they make turns... not smashing into a new Peterbuilt parked next to the spot they are trying to back into... etc. Hours of service, trailer weights... tandem placements... reefer cooler management.. it goes on and on and on

 

Good advice. I feel the same way. Learn the ropes without having to do it all. It's really nice being able to call the office when the truck won't start and having them send a hook and a replacement truck out instead of freaking out about trying to repower the load because it's your ### if it's late and then having to deal with getting the truck repaired.