1.50 per mile rant

mo miles mo money mo problems

 

Yea he's about 3 decades late for calling that gold

 

I was leased to Consolidated Freightways Special Commodities back in the late 70's through the 80's. Our base cheapest published rate for a flatbed truckload was $1.40 pm. Step deck rate was $1.68 pm. This was over 35 years ago. And very few of us lease operators ran that freight,unless you were stuck somewhere,and wanted to move. Agents trip leased that stuff out. We ran mostly class rated,steel and machinery ltl cross country back then,good paying work,that's where the money was.
No matter what the rate is,someone will always do it cheaper. Been that way as long as I can remember,esp. in todays deregulation mess.

 

You have to run the numbers, with if being lucky getting 5 years out of a truck before needing to do most major overhauls and replacement and with all the nickel and dimes replacing tires,wipers, permits and every little thing that might go wrong $1.50 is almost paying to run for them. If you are looking for a weight loss plan that will be working because you will be scrounging sometimes.

 

A flatbed driver told me many years ago, “ I am loosing money on every load so I am going to have to start pulling 2 loads a day”. I had to laugh about it to myself later. I feel for people who don’t understand their numbers well enough to know what it takes for them to be profitable.

 

I use $2.00 a mile on hub miles as my internal cost number (my trucking business services only our own farm). Even with a paid for truck and trailer, if we assign any overhead at all to the trucking company, we barely show a profit. That's on 2K miles a week, and with CHEAP insurance.

I guess we need more miles?

 

It is easy to have a million dollars in the bank after five years of trucking. Just start out with two million in the bank!

 

I have alot of $500 dollar days. But only 100 miles. Work 6-7 hours and be home for dinner. Sleep in bedroom. Its all how you look at it. I slacked 2017 and ran 34k miles. I enjoyed it.