My Start at O/O

I mentioned the damgerous places and filth because you asked about the negativity. Also, because you were wanting to take your wife and newborn with you. I wouldn't imagine you would want to expose them to some of what you have seen and done! Thankfully you have listened to some and found ut on your own that the insurance wouldn't allow the baby.

Honestly, I am trying to figure out why you came on here asking for experienced drivers opinions? You don't seem to really want to hear what they are saying
Good luck

 

Hi let me get this straight
You started this tread to ask experienced drivers input,than you are arguing with their answers and advices . I think you allready made up your mind to do this,all you want to hear is every one to agree with your plan than when you fail (I hope you will not)you dont feel guilty.Please aim $$$ low and shoot the stars later. God Bless and good luck

 

Xanix-the gist of what everyone here is trying to tell you is that trucking is unlike any other business you know. The link to the rates from transcore you posted is not at all an accurate reflection of the rates you will be given on your average load from a load board. If you've posted what kind of trailer you intend on buying, I haven't seen it, but in any case, you can easily make 20-30 phone calls and still not find one load paying enough to haul. If your supertruck really only gets 5.5mpg, you will save enough money with a 6.5mpg truck to buy a truck stop shower and eat decently every day. If fuel gets back up in the high $4/gal range again, you would save enough to get a hotel every day. That's at 6.5mpg, assuming here you'll be pulling a dry box, you could probably find a truck that gets 7mpg or better.

I too drove a straight truck before learning to drive a tractor-trailer, and I thought I was some hot stuff and could drive anything-anywhere too. I got a pretty serious reality check just driving around the training yard that first day. I could go on with the reality of why you will fail at this venture, but I'm going to offer what I think is a better alternative instead.

If you make 17k working a minimum of 50-70hrs a week now, you need to find another job, you are making less than minimum wage. I'm sure NJ is an expensive place to live, and it doesn't sound like you're too attached to it, since you are talking about being gone 50 weeks a year, and initially were planning on bringing your family with you. You also said some of the trucking companies you've called aren't hiring in your area right now. So move! I would bet that you could find a trucking job in most if not all of the areas RedBeard listed.

I understand your frustration at feeling like you can't progress anywhere doing what you're doing now, but there is a better way up and out of your current situation than what you are proposing here.

 

Am i missing a serious major part of information because i have been looking into the SBA as well.....this is actually a direct copy and paste from the SBA website.

It is important to note, however, that the SBA is primarily a guarantor of loans made by private and other institutions and does not offer loans to small businesses. Within SBA Loan Topics we’ll review:

 

Goodness gracious, I sure am glad I have found this thread! It has has kept me up for the last hour or so and has been very informative and even much moreso ENTERTAINING!!
Xanix, I admire your ambition and drive, I really do. I do believe that if you do what you intend to do with buying your apartment on wheels- you may actually succeed if you take your log book and throw it out the window, or maybe learn how to draw in 2-3 of them. I say this because even though I haven't been out on the road in over 10 years and actually only have about 10 months OTR experience, I do remember how the cookie crumbles when you are out on the road. JarHead really said it best- "pulling your hair out in Atlanta traffic, planning your own suicide in a L.A. traffic jam" (That was some #### funny stuff, jarhead. It made me blow soda through my nose and onto my keyboard from laughing so hard at that)- Xanix- it truly is very TOUGH to get 3000 miles a week average- you have to hustle and run your tail off. Now if you are with a company that gives you consistent 1500+ mile loads that are drop and hook,- well then it's easy! However, in the real world, it usually doesn't happen that way. I'll give you an example of what you can expect to run into.Day 1- load assignment is live load at shipper., 100 miles away. Cool, deadhead to shipper, arrive. Go into office, shipper tells you to back into dock 10. Great, docking done. An hour goes by, and you haven't felt the cab of the truck bounce around from a forklift pulling in and out of it loading the trailer. You get out of your truck, go into office, talk to manager. You're told that there is one more trailer getting loaded in front of you, shouldn't be long. OK! You go back into your truck. An hour goes by, nothing. Then you finally hear and feel the forklift rolling in and out of the trailer. Yayy!! Another hour goes by, then awesome, you're done getting loaded, and it's time to roll!!! Ok , now you have a load that is supposed to be delivered the next A.M. 600 miles down the road. You have spent about two hours deadheading to the shipper, and waited 3 hours to get loaded. Guess what sunshine? That's 5 hours, which only leaves you 9 hours left to drive before you are supposed to take your D.O.T. mandated 10 consecutive hour break. The most you can legally log in a state with a Semi-Truck 65MPH speed limit is 60 MPH. So 9 times 60 = 540 miles. But wait a minute, I forgot the .25 hrs you have to log for your Pre-Trip Inspection before you deadheaded to the shipper, and the .25 hrs. you have to log after you get loaded. So you actually only have 8.5 hours left in service. So you leave the shipper at about 3 PM. you drive your legal 8.5 hours, and let's say for arguments' sake that you actually average 60MPH <<<< Hey it's for arguments' sake<<, well you get 510 miles before you have to pull it over, and now it's almost midnight, and your load is due at the consignee at 8AM. But guess what? You HAVE to take a D.O.T. mandated 10 consecutive hour break, which will put you back on the road at 10AM, and get you to the consignee at about noon. You can't get the load to the consignee on time legally, so what do you do??
Let's just say scenarios like these happened to me atleast twice a week, and guess what? As soon as I was unloaded I'd get a load assignment to deadhead another 100 miles to somewhere for another live load that was going another 5-600 miles for delivery the next day!!!! In situations like these you truly learn the definition of 'fatigued'. Like another driver mentioned earlier, I can also remember many many times where I would pass out the instant that my head hit the pillow. To this day in my life, I have yet to ever pass out for the night as quickly unless I had a 12-pack of beer in a three hour period. It is possible if you are creative to get the load there in time, but you better hope the D.O.T. doesn't get you or it will be expensive and you'll be put out of service for a bit. Also Xanix, when this kind of stuff happens, it wears you down and you HAVE to rest.
Hopefully the company you sign on with will give you the 1500+ mile runs that are drop and hook at dropyards that are a mile or two from the Interstate. I know I always dreamed of them, as I am sure that there are many drivers that still do dream of them.

I am actually also researching the differences of Company Driver vs. Lease Operator vs. Bank Financed Owner Operator,- though Tractor only. I have VA benefits available to me, though my problem is going to be 'challenged' credit. Does anyone have any idea if the VA benefits will be helpful for someone with these credit 'challenges'? I plan on driving Company at least 3 months before attempting L/O or O/O. I am only considering a truck in about the 06 -07 Model year with about 400,000 to 500, 000 miles on it. From what I have seen , the payments of these 24 month Company lease programs are an astounding 600-750+ a WEEK which equals about 2400-3000 a month on the same equipment that could be financed for 24 mos. bank financing for 1800-2000 a month, and with the Bank financing the Truck will be paid off at the end of the 24 month term while at the lease-end there will still be a substantial balloon payment to be made. It doesn't seem to make much sense to lease in this case, though I do think there are some Tax advantages to leasing- could anyone explain this? By my rough calculations, with a 2000/mo payment running 12000 miles a month at .91 a mile I should net about $4500-$5000 after all overhead . Does this seem even remotely possible?? Thanks, and I apologize for the rambling and I hope the post is even readable.

 

I'm NOT going to offer any advise or do any naysaying.....it's already been done.

I truly can't think of a thing that has been left out.

I'll offer my best wishes and good luck.......you'll need it.

Here's why...................

You refuse to pay attention to or be confused by the facts..........

Because.......Your mind is made up.

 

Glad you enjoyed the descriptions Delirious Nomad!



Bet that brought back some memories, eh? Your descriptions of waiting for loading were spot on too!! I was a flatbedder, so I didn't back into docks much, but I still waited WAY too long for that lazy fat bazzztrd on the forklift to come up to my skateboard and start placing product. There were times where I KNEW they were screwing with me. Just to see what it would take for me to snap (and beat them down to the white meat with my cheater bar).

Traffic around major cities WILL slow you down. Period. Cant avoid it. LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, St Louis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, Cleveland, Tampa, Montgomery, are ALL cities on my nuke list for whenever I get my first nuke to use as I please. I seriously lost way too much of my mind sitting for hours in that traffic with suicidal 4-wheelers darting in and out in front of me.

Quick observation.... you ever notice how when you pull into a metro area and traffic slows way down that as soon as you hit that first big cluster of vehicles you notice you have to pee?..... and you are in the middle lane?...... and the next truck stop is 30 exits away on the other side of the city??? No place to pull over, no truck stop, it's hot, your mouth tastes like fumunda cheese, you smell your own *** because you just strapped, chained, and tarped that load earlier and it was already 95 degrees at 9am..... you havent had anything decent to eat yet, you are almost out of cigarettes, and your bladder is full.

Aaaaahhh, the glamor of trucking.

 

Ok, now you are just getting ridiculous. A new car compared to a $25 car is just getting a little crazy. Comparing a 4-5 year old Tractor to a brand new tractor is nowhere near your comparison. First of all, a $25 car more than likely hasnt even had oil changed in a couple years. I'm willing to bet any $40k tractor on any lot has had lightyears more maintenance than the average family car. And you cannot compare the mileage either. Cars are not built to go into the 400k mile range. Trucks on the other hand, can and DO run over 1 million miles. Look around, a lot of the trucks you see every day may have over a million miles.

If you do your PM, your used truck with 400k miles will do another 600k just fine.

Because you are doing different routes, breaking up your day by stopping here and there, getting in and out of the truck. 11 hours on I10, especially between San Antonio and El Paso, WILL make you drowsy. Period. Unless you are smoking crack in the truck. Same with I40 between Gallup, NM and Amarillo, TX and all points east. You don't have to drink Monsters or coffee or anything, that was a figure of speech to make a point. But you WILL be tired after running 715 miles in one day (which, technically you cannot do at 65mph for 11 hours, because being human, you are going to need to stop to pee, stretch legs, eat, etc...)

Yep, and even with all of that, sometimes the best plans fail due to outside factors. Been there, done that.

I'll bet my first born son on it. Ante up.