How do they make any money?

Mega's make money through sheer volume of freight being hauled. They also make lots of money with their lease/purchase scam that drivers fall for. The lease/purchase is very profitable for trucking company; moving freight and the driver pays all the bills and the trucking company rakes in the profits.

 

Yep, what @Chinatown said....

And, yes....... most are on the gov't subsidy gravy train for training, too. Big money to be made by them participating in the variety of programs out there.

 

I'll caution you a little bit against Hubris thinking dispatch is out to get you.

If I told a driver, here is a load to NYC. Get going and that driver threw a tantrum like a child denied sweets in walmart... we have a problem. I want another driver. You handled it and you did well. The best drivers do not get the squeaky wheel that is noticed by the bosses to be eliminated.

My spouse, her first load out of Lancaster to Denver involved a friday afternoon Dallas Rush. That stressed her to the max. But that is not the problem. She handled it. Later on that year I did learn exactly where her breaking points are and vice versa. Although when I am home I am like nothing will break me. But when you have finished a thousand miles, 20 minutes late for DC and weather coming in while i am gulping coffee and hanging out the open window in the freezing blast to stay awake.. I don't look good at all.

What dispatch WILL do to all new drivers is run em into the ground within 90 days because NO one has taught any newbie the magic word No. Not just no but backed by a very simple grade school explaination why it is no. Example I only have 10 hours to my 70 and you are sending me somewhere 14 hours away, guess what it's late. Unless you make new appt time.

That is how you say no.

Ultimately it is your CDL. YOUR 5th wheel. Assuming you have a mound of dollars saved up you can simply fail to put a load onto your 5th wheel a day. That alternator is acting up again. darn it...

And no I did not say anything. It just is. He he he.

 

I’ve said for years with the money these companies make off leasing trucks to people that don’t know any better, they can afford to cut rates, and haul large volumes of freight..
Yet the new breed likes to say “eld’s level the playing field”..
There will never be a level playing field when the megas can cut rates at will and repower a load as many times as needed to keep it moving.

Just some random thoughts from the big man and I’m back quiet...

 

Many of mega carriers run on averages. Any incident is averaged out over over the millions of miles their fleet collectively runs. Yeah, one truck may not be profitable this week, but they are all profitable on average. And they keep new drivers flowing in because they are several cents a mile cheaper on the pay scale....averages out better. Also, they have less health insurance costs on new drivers if they dont provide it for 3 to 6 months. Averages. They micromanage every aspect of the process they can. All to affect the averages. If they can get all their 3 thousand trucks to average 10 cpm profit and run them 300 miles a day, they figure 30 bucks a trucks, 90k a day, 2,700,000 million a month....... Many drivers will affect the averages in a positive way by running better than the 10cpm profit and more than 300 a day average. Many will squeak out the average for them and quit, unhappy, before they have to give him health insurance. They go by the old saying "keep track of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves". One other scam besides the fleece purchase mentioned by other guys is "per diem pay". What these trucking companies call per diem pay is neither per diem nor is it pay. Its a shell game they play with your taxable income to make it appear they are helping you earn more each week when it all washes out in April. And most of these carriers that do this then charge the driver a penny or two a mile "administrative fee". There is 20% or so of their desired profit margin just there.

 

Wow this sounds so difficult.

HOS time? So if you never stop at a truck stop you get a violation?

and dispatchers can f you over by just randomly scheduling you on impossible destinations that you'll never make it in time?