Going from one truck to two and the what ifs?

Finding driver probably will be harder then dealing insurance and/or company to leases to.

 

My insurance requires two years experience. Can’t remember the exact details but most of the time it’s no more then 1 accident in 3 yrs, no more then 3 tickets, etc.

Normally if insurance won’t accept them then you don’t want them anyway.

Send to insurance before officially giving them the job. Or have them send their MVR and have insurance approve it first before going further.

 

I’ve been told many times over the years when talking to o/o’s. Never go from one to two. If your going to expand go from one to three, and up from there.

Reasoning is that if one truck goes down, you end up relying on the other truck to float the business until the broken one is back to earning. Could be weeks if waiting on a shop/dealership.

As an O/O today I am happy with one truck, but the more i think about expanding, the more sense this makes. Don’t forget once you hire someone you also have to buy workman’s comp insurance. That’s another added expense if one truck is down.

Good luck finding a good driver, trust would be my biggest problem. It’s so easy to get a cdl, and we’ve all seen the winners this industry has to offer.

 

What if your only truck breaks down?

 

Or 2 of your 3 go down or you cant find steady reliable drivers to fill them. Sometimes the logic out here never ceases to amaze me but then again looking at the failure rate it explains it.

 

Yeah at 85 to 95% in the first year, it amazes me how many people don't seem to listen to the advice of those who have sustained business in really bad times.

 

If you have two trucks and one goes down then you call up and get a rental until it’s fixed. Simple.

Your hardest challenge will be hiring the driver. Likely nobody will even respond to your ad. If you do find a candidate then meet up and most importantly do a drive test. You’ll know pretty quickly whether he/she knows what they are doing or not. If you wanted some extra assurance then have them run with you for a week then turn them loose. I’d recommend only hiring from your area that you base out of. The pool of candidates will be smaller but atleast your truck won’t get abandoned some random place and you have to quick making money, and then spend money to recover it. Besides you know your market better then any other I’d think as far as lanes and freight.

If you do the three truck thing then be prepared to immediately come off the road and work towards keeping those trucks busy on good loads and with good drivers in the cabs. Seems like a recipe for disaster though because if you got 2 trucks sitting you’ll be driving yours trying to keep ahold of the 2 sitting and you’ll be screaming about the driver shortage.

I think I’d buy a 2nd, get a steady driver in it, then immediately look for a 2nd driver and put them in your truck. If you lose a driver you can go back to full capacity by you steppping in.

Once your going steady with that and you want to get a third going then you’ll just need a third driver and if say you lose one around the same time your two trucks will pay for the third atleast. It’s a real challenge lemme tell you.

You really need to think more along the lines of what @BoyWander has done in getting his own authority. You’ll be very hard pressed to make any of this work by leasing on somewhere. IMO.

 

I’ve done it. Started with 1 truck and a dedicated run and needed help. I bought a truck hired a driver that I knew. Then things got slow I left the driver on th dedicated and I went into the oilfield. Things were hopping so I hired four more and bought more trucks. So at one point I was driving one and keeping track of 5 more. Way more work/headache than I wanted. When the oilfield slowed down a couple of years ago and my dedicated driver lost his medical (MS) I’m down to me and my truck. That’s the way I plan to stay. I found I’d much rather drive than manage. The extra money is not really worth the cost to get it... For me anyway.