Just throwing this out there.

You want truck drivers to compromise?

One of the primary criteria for being a driver is the blind conviction that your way is the only way and that all your opinions are incontrovertibly true facts and that everyone else is not merely mistaken but brain damged type stupid and that anyone who has the temerity to even mildly disagree with you is a complete failure as a human being and should be banished to some communist dictatorship type country somewhere.

I know this is true, I heard it on the CB.

 

Does it really matter? Most people who ask questions on here are one hit wonders. The veterans on here don't post much. The ones who post the good info are banned.. I don't post much, but I'm on here all the time reading post from other sections . Everything I learned about trucking came from this forum. Heck you have some company drivers own here know more about , being an owner op. Look at windsmith he is a company driver,but he has some knowledge on being an O/O.

 

You know, it occurs to me that this might be a good topic for a sticky post. That is, a summary of how the two business models of leasing to a carrier and being a carrier relate and differ. The quality of the posts often reflect the author's underlying misunderstanding of what their post would mean to each of those groups.

One thing that kind of bugs me is this perpetual pretense that being a carrier with authority is the top of the pecking order and somehow all others are lesser. I don't see it that way, and maybe some educational content on the business dynamics of each would be helpful to readers that aren't that familiar one way or the other. Especially company drivers considering making the leap to becoming "business owners." Each is just a different business model with both benefits and disadvantages.

Or maybe my perspective is skewed, being someone that has never been a company driver or leased on to a carrier.

Side note: I like the idea of having an identifier in the profile re leased to a carrier or are a carrier. It would help to understand the author of a post's perspective and maybe avoid some conflict.

 

I'll take a stab at it, but would need to validate assumptions I make about a lease operator with a moderator who is one. My industry knowledge is from doing the carrier with authority bit the hard way. Never been leased on to another carrier so all I know is what I've read here from others and been told at the Denny's counter LOL. I know that last part is all true, of course.

 

I do not normally get in the middle of these types of posts, but here was is my conclusion on the O/o thing in general. Perhaps some input for RedForeman if he decides to 'take a stab at it',...

(from sept 2012)

Owning a truck is a mindset. Successful Owner-Ops are that way because they are willing to make those extra efforts to earn that extra pay, take that extra opportunity, and to take on that extra responsibility to ensure the success of their business. Individually, many do not agree on how to go about being successful, but that is mainly because the trucking industry is a vast career with many areas of profit and success. No one wants to be a failure in what they do, and will fight tooth and nail to prevent it the best they know how, but many of the drivers out on the roads stop short when it comes to maximizing the profits and success in what they do. Everyone has their comfort zone, or comfort layer they are willing to operate inside. Some are satisfied with simply making their truck payments and covering their bills at home, others are not satisfied with anything less than their own authority and fleet of trucks. Whatever you do, and however far you are willing to go will ultimately be up to you. There are many who are successful at owning trucks who do none of the things suggested by other sucessful poeple, and for those, thats their comfort zone. There are others who will still say that owning a truck is impossible, and for them, perhaps it is. Someone is going to order those on-line items from the Internet, someone is going to need bread for their grocery store, and someone will need that 45,000lbs of plastic beads for their factory. Because of this, Someone ELSE is going to have to get behind the wheel of a truck and take those goods to their destination. Where there is demand, there is opportunity. That opportunity is the very thing that pushed you toward driving a truck to begin with. Take as much of that opportunity as you care to grasp onto and go with it. Success isn't measured by how much of that opportunity you grab hold of, but rather how well you take advantage of the piece of it you did decide to take. Keep things within the scope of your own perspective. Don't try to take too much of the opportunities out there, or you will find yourself spread too thin, making you miserable and unprofitable. Instead, take the smaller opportunities and maximize what you can get out of them. This will far outweigh in profit and satisfaction, making you proud of who you are and what you do. Learn everything you can from your way of 'Making It', and push it to its limits. Don't get stuck thinking that things are static in trucking either. This is a changing industry, so learn to change with it as it grows and becomes more efficient. Technology will continue to push this industry toward maximum efficiency, especially now that higher energy costs are here to stay. Learn to work with this technology, not against it. Use it to your advantage, and operate your business through management of your truck and management of your driving habits to stay ahead of the crowd, making your career easier giving you breathing room to grow. Take what others have to say and use only those portions that apply to you, helping you be more successful. Do things in a manner that is correct as much as possible. This will always benefit you in the end because shortcuts will typically cause more problems than they solve. Invest in yourself and buy the right tools for your trade and for the job at hand. Spending money on the correct tool and for the correct parts will not only get you going again reliably, but make you wiser and more knowledgeable in the future toward solving other problems. When things do not go smoothly, or when your truck decides to show that it is going to break down, finish delivering that load if there is any way possible first, keeping the customer happy, then shut down and fix the issue before taking on more freight. Try to solve problems yourself as much as possible. If you cannot, then talk to others first, before just simply throwing a problem at some overpaid service facility. If there is one thing in plentiful supply out here, it is the willingness for others to try and help you if you have a problem. Especially a truck problem. Making phone calls, getting information, and planning what to do next will benefit you the most. In the end, how much you know about what you do, what you know about your truck, and what you know about managing it all, will make the difference in how happy you are and how much money you keep. Be a proud truck owner that does things the safest, most correct way, keeping profitability in mind. Always drive in the safest way possible, showing others the professionalism expected of you. If you have to ask yourself if something is safe, then it probably is not. If it is not safe, then just don't do it. Find another solution, or just simply refuse to do it all together. There are enough statistics and bad reputations out there against truckers already. Don't feed that bad information horse with more bad things. Be the one driver in the crowd that is driving responsibly, showing all the other idiots that you actually take pride in what you do by being safe, coupled with driving to saving fuel. No ones life or career is worth that 10 minutes you gained from speeding all day. Just slow down, save fuel, manage your time well, and long term, you will be rewarded very well for it. As they say,...'Be Safe, and Keep the rubber Side Down'.

 

I will be glad to present the first problem.

How do you prove or okay someone to post?

After all, most are not honest on the years of driving.

 

Which is why my years driving are more then my age! I care less about that number and worry more about the information a person posts!