Can anyone explain how to operate at 1.75 a mile and stay in business!?

You are looking at the wrong companies. At the very least you should explore landstar, Merced, admirals merchant.

But What has worked for me was finding a smaller sized carrier. Small to medium. Look for one paying percentage. Even if they run off the boards you will be doing a little better because of lots of factors, first being that insurance rate you are paying.

In my case, after they take out their cut and add back in the fuel surcharge they give me, I basically give up 20%. That in itself is almost the difference in your insurance. Other things to factor, find he right carrier and they will have experience. Experience dealing with brokers and load boards etc....

For this month I have managed to stay above $2 a mile my cut. That's after the carrier got their cut. I have no overhead other than my bobtail insurance (2500 for the year), maintenance, and fuel. You could even add in a truck payment,and you would still be better off than what you are doing.

Start looking around for a carrier in your area and go talk to them. There are still good people left in this industry. People that are willing to help others and not all about themselves. I know you can't see that from your prospective because it sounds like you have been burned. I wouldn't put all the blame on others tho as it sounds like you were in to deep right out the gate.

I hope you reavalute your situation and consider an alternative. Sucks to see this happen and it sucks for the industry for this kind of stuff to happen. I honestly have a sinking feeling in my gut for ya. One of my former drivers at my previous gig has a similiar situation going on. We both started looking and talking about owning trucks at the same time. He went the independent route and made his moves a lot faster than I did. He is now treading water and considering going the route I took.

Good luck man wish there was some magical piece of advise I could give you that you haven't heard.

 

@bulldawg trucker is that $2500 bobtail on your own? or is it thru the carrier you are leased onto?

 

Using their agent but on my own. It was a special program the agent was able to get me in because of 20 years with a cdl and no accidents. It is sort of like a pool. That being said at the most you should have to pay for bobtail is 4K a year and I believe that to be on the high side

 

And that includes the physical damage portion

 

Hmmm.. then I should stop stressing about my $2200 quote from progressive for 1MM liability and $25K physical damage. I have 1 yr cdl....lol....and I thought it was high.

OOIDA came back at $3400 for exactly same terms...lmao

 

Yep that's not bad at all for 1 year experience. I think my physical damage is higher, my truck was valued at 60k replacement. I never got a quote from progressive, OOIDA was quoting about the same for me and another company was a little lower than that. I hooked up with this agent and felt it was a fair shake.

 

back when i was working in the oil feilds i would have days like that where i might only drive 6 miles in one day but i was billed at 120 per hour, 24 hours on 6 miles was a #### good day

 

The majority of the companies out there pay like this. There are quite a few that pay % but most don't. People do it because they can't self dispatch. They need someone telling them what to do.

 

That's still a little high. I pay $980 a year for physical damage (truck value of $30k) & $240 a year for bobtail.

Edit because I didn't keep reading. Lol. I saw the value of your truck. That's why it's higher. Lol

 

I will have to go back and double check exactly what I paid but I am recalling it being just north of 2k. Maybe I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong looks like I need to shop that around a little more before next year. Thanks for throwing that out there!