Is it time for me to jump in as an Owner Operator?

I think what a lot of you don’t understand is that operating area (radius) and home base play a significant part in insurance costs.

If I’m the op, I would pull the trigger on this. You are in a great area with a flat to run regional.

 

Well I wish you well your answers and post here seems very strange.I admit it’s been close to 10 years since I’ve even looked at load boards I just run for a direct customer I have,but when I did 1 you had to have an active MC number to open accounts on most load boards,and why someone would want to pay the subscription fees for 2 years to just look I really have no idea you can see some companies load boards like landstar but only certain loads so I don’t know what load boards your looking at.To say you have a good enough relationship with some brokers that there voluntarily giving you rates on loads and you don’t even have an active dot number most will ask for it first and if don’t have active numbers and already sit up with them I find it really hard to believe but if you’re relationship is that good you should already been running for that broker or brokers.

 

Like I said I wish no bad luck, Personally from my experience I think looking at load boards and trying to make decision of whether to or not run on your own authority isn’t a good idea.yes you might see a load today that goes 100 miles and pays $600 but how often is that going to happen,usually if a broker post the rate on the board with the load which is rare usually there a reason why he had to do that from my experience some examples are like it going to need specific equipment like maybe a nursery tarp or it going to a construction site and might end up taking all day to do. I think you would be better coming up with a specific idea what you want to do.Try finding brokers in your area that you can go and talk to face to face start a personal relationship with.I pull a step deck trailer if you have a flat for example go to brick yards,lumber yard,or mulch plants,nursery’s just examples I find these companies are a lot easier to get in with because a lot of time they have very busy seasons where they need more trucks .starting on your own and just running of boards is a very hard way to start IMO it’s just to hit or miss and to me it gets exhausting to stare at that board looking and calling.I was a little better off then some when I started just because I had a great relationship with a broker when I started because we had both worked at the same company before he was the sales and quite to start his own company and I was leased on there and guit to start my own so I always ran out for him and looked at boards to get back and sometimes he would have loads for me to get back.But I hated dealing with load boards when freight is good it’s easy when freight slows down it’s exhausting.I think a personal relationship with a broker works really good.