Leonard's Express gamble

In second day of orientation in Farmington. My boss, his other driver, and I are all here in orientation. There's one other O/O and 4 company drivers. We drove our tractors up from Florida to Virginia and picked up 3 brand new reefers Utility. And then pulled them up here to Farmington to start orientation. The other O/O came up from South Carolina picking up a load somewhere in route to Farmington. I'll update more in a couple days.

 

There wasn't a lick of snow anywhere between Florida and Farmington on the way up. Arrived Sunday afternoon. And then the snow began to fall Sunday evening. 48 hours later and it is still lightly snowing. Fortunately it hasn't been a blizzard. Just moderate to light snow pretty much continually. The sun popped out for about 15 minutes this afternoon but then quickly vanished. Looks like the snow is going to continue on into tomorrow.

 

We, on the owner operator side, have essentially finished orientation today. The company drivers will finish up tomorrow. All of the owner operator trucks are still in Leonard's shop getting repairs done and Qualcomms put in. We were required to get DOT inspections done and sent up to Leonard's before getting offered contracts and getting orientation setup. But Leonard's did a more detailed inspection once we got up here, and pushed for marginal things to be repaired by their shop before turning us loose. Their shop rates are not bad, but my boss pushed back on some of the things. I think they've come to a compromise. If money wasn't so tight right now, my boss probably would have just went along. To be fair, our trucks are 2006, 2007, and 2011 and the previous carrier put us in a bind. The fuel discount here is much better than where we were. Overall our outlook is pretty good. The one major headache I foresee is the truck being kicked on to drive line with any movement. Seems I keep reading that most carriers have a 5 mph threshold. But here at Leonard's their saying any movement.

 

My first two runs were both one pick and one drop. Batavia, NY to Orlando, FL. Lake Wales, FL to Ankeny, Iowa. In orientation I asked about multi-stop frequency, and fortunately they said they don't do alot of multi-stoppers, which is fine by me. My boss's other driver pulled his first load from Batavia, NY to Jacksonville, FL and was heading home to Vero Beach from there. I probably won't follow his progress too closely. My boss pulled a load from the Buffalo, NY area to Council Bluffs, IA. Then he grabbed a load in Norfolk, NE with 3 drops in Oregon and Washington. Our dispatcher already inquired about sending me to California but my boss let him know that our trucks are not California compliant. Our dispatcher is out of Minnesota and we haven't met in person yet. I got a call letting me know that we're supposed to keep the truck speed under 70 mph. So I'll have to try to tame my ungoverned truck. I don't know yet if that rule applies in the 75 mph states or not. But I'm sure I'll find out. I'd read a review, before coming aboard, by a former leased on O/O, stating that he left Leonard's because of Leonard's mandatory driver facing camera policy. I don't know if Leonard's previously had such a policy or not, but they did not install cameras in our trucks. Can't speak for the company driver side.

 

I will add that Leonard's has company drivers, O/Os, and Lease Purchase. Some O/Os, like my boss, have multiple trucks leased on.

 

So far, neither my boss nor our dispatcher have shared that information with me. I'm just paid by the mile by my truck owner. We primarily made the move to Leonard's to get the trucks on the road more. The previous outfit was sitting us about as much as they ran us.