mercer transportation

Some very good info on this thread. Been reading it & not wanting to stop. Trying to get ALL the info I can bout Mercer. Thought about leasing on there some years ago...probably should have. But sold my flatbed & went to yanking tanks. Now wanna get back to open deck, but more interested in specialized, VERY LITTLE tarping. Body feeling it's age now. LOL!!!

 

All he had to do was say how cheap freight was and not " I'm dong a run now that pays $3/mile or how he is making $4,500+ a week gross"

The driver I had was not lazy and I reached out to alot of guys and in the end the freight just didn't pay what it should. I do $20,000 months easy you think you can do that at mercer? Maybe 5% can!

I'm doing a load now of steel fab pays $4.15/mi on 290 miles doing a LS load back to baytown,tx pays $750 and I'll have 54 miles of deadhead than Thursday I go and live load coming back up here for another $1,200 so I'll end up grossing $3,850 this week on somewhere about 1,500 miles and about 450 of them miles are empty miles when I drop Friday I'm headed 305 miles back home!!

GO Mercer!!!

 

well why dont your other trucks do that?

i do gross that, my current avg for the month of march is 5600 a week, i guess it will drop as by friday this week as this loads only going to be 3600 on 1600 miles. as you yourself said i cherry pick em.

to do that means having patience, i broke an oil line and had to cancel my monday load out of texas, but i didnt take the first load that popped up. i waited and got a decent one out of here.

funny my week will end about the same as you, 3600 on 1600 and 25 miles deadhead .

 

Hey skateboardman, u seem to give some good info on this thread, + the other guys too, I have a couple things I was wondering. I'm trying to work a deal with a guy I was leased to a few years ago to get a truck he wants to sell, & was thinking bout bringing it to Mercer. I wud like to get a step thru Mercer, but wud take a flat if need be. I like running the Midwest & Southeast, don't care to go farther than Jersey, NYC is OUT, &haven't lost squat in Canada. What I'm basically saying is if I can get the truck(he wants @ 20k for it, & I know the history on it cause most of the work was done on it while I was there.)cud this be good?? As long as I can pay a low truck note(< $1000/mo.) & cover expenses & my few bills @ home & a lil for rainy days, I'm good. Thnx for any info.

 

Kool-Aid??? I prefer Jack Daniels

 

Most won't understand this but I think you will, it's because I wasn't running the show. When I was in the office my numbers went up 25% some times more. I'm good with numbers and know freight lanes really well. When I said don't put anything on the truck that pays less than cost ($1.62/mi) didn't mean take the first load that paid that, but that's what was going on

I told her try and find the most pay for the less amount of miles that didn't mean go to Denver for $2.49/mi because it paid $.50 more per mile. That's one of my problems

2nd is drivers don't think as smart as O/O I don't stop in the middle of my day for fuel! I don't stop and sleep 50 miles from a big city and try driving thru the next morning in rush hour traffic! I turn my truck around and face the gate before I get loaded......drivers will pull in get loaded and turn as sharp as they can with 48,k to head out. I don't park as close to the front of a truck stop as I can I park in the back! And I don't drive 70 miles out of my way to stop at a truck stop because I have points on my card!!!!

I can go on for days been there done that! The only way I can see making money with trucks is paying drivers $.32/mi like all the big timers do.

 

correct, or just have one truck and do it yourself. what you just posted is what i do. i maximize revenue on the least number of miles.

 

first off, get a flat. more available freight. running the areas you mention. but as anyone will tell ya we are primarily a flatbed carrier. if ya get a stp be sure you can get levelors and such in order to maximize things. but get a flat.

how well you do here depends strictly on you.

 

Got a question for ya, would you reimburse a driver for showers while on the road???

I ask because you say not to go OOR to get to a truckstop for points on a card, but if you would not reimburse a driver the $10-$12 for a shower, what would you expect them to do? I know i will go a few miles OOR to get to a TA/Petro for a shower, instead of going to a Pilot and spending $10

 

Have I? Yes

Have I ever paid for a hotel? Yes instead of my truck running for 24 hours

I had drivers that would call and say im unloaded than would call with a load thinking there 30 miles away but instead now there 115 miles away because they headed to go get lunch with there points I was not really talking about a shower. Everytime this one driver I had dropped where is a TA/petro and head that way

When we were moving hay a few years back I had five trucks doing the same thing hay from MS to TX and matts back most drivers were doing 3 loads each way a week but two didn't......Why? Because they would f off! My good drivers would piss before there ever pulled out the others wouldn't 100 miles down the road "I need to stop" back on the road 100 miles later "you want to stop for lunch" good drivers would get something when they stopped before.

I was grossing $8,250 a week with good drivers and $5,500 with other drivers......that adds up fast!

Also drivers would never turn the trucks off never I had one driver one day tell me "I finally shut the truck off hope it starts that's the first time in two weeks"........... And you see why I could never get more than 5.5mpg out of my trucks?