New company and driver

I'll be the first to tell you, but I'm sure many others will say the same thing.

Go drive for someone else for at LEAST 2 to 3 years before you jump in and buy your own rig. Trust me, in the long run you will be grateful you did.

@otterinthewater
@D.Tibbitt

 

www.OOIDA.com is a business website for the owner-operator.

 

Anything is possible if you have enough money.
1. yes new drivers/owners can get insurance on the truck. Get ready to spend more than $20,000 per year. That cost will go down as you gain experience.
2. If you are running your own business you would have your own MC/DOT numbers. If you are running under some trucking company's MC/DOT numbers you are likely an Independent Contractor or a lease-operator. Many trucking companies will be happy to let you pay all the expenses of the truck and give them much of your profit. One of the most dangerous ways to enter trucking as a newbie is to agree to a Lease-Purchase program with a trucking company. You take all the risk, and they share your profit. Sometimes they make money while you lose money. IMO, doing a Lease-Purchase deal as a newbie is like challenging a professional poker player to a contest while you are still reading the rules of poker out of a book. It is POSSIBLE you could beat him, but EVERYTHING is stacked in his favor. Most people would strongly recommend you DON'T DO THAT.

What would you say if you asked a friend to lunch and he said "instead of eating lunch why don't we start a restaurant, today?" It's a lot smarter to work as an employee, a company driver, in trucking before you take on the huge financial risk of paying for all of the expensive of a commercial truck. Your boss has been in the industry longer and already has contacts for every thing he does. You might not even know who to call if you had a flat tire. Why not let him pay for everything while you learn the job and work out a good plan to make money with your own truck. Even if you had nothing but warehouses of cash to spend, you have to wait over a year to take delivery of new trucks right now. Unfortunately 80-90% of newly licensed truck drivers have left the industry before they reach 1 year of experience.

 

The risks of being an owner-operator go WAY down fast as you learn how to drive smart, which areas of the country to avoid, what type of freight pays more than others. Right now you can't even be sure if living in the truck 24/7 for a week will be too much for you. You don't succeed in trucking just because you want to make money. You don't succeed in trucking just because you need money. There are several ways to make money in trucking and there are MANY trucking companies that make much of their money by getting newbies with a CDL to pay the expenses of the truck while the company charges those newbies jacked-up costs for trucks, maintenance, fees for every service, and penalty fees for stuff. There are trucking companies that lease a truck to one new driver, until he quits, another new drivers until he quits, and another new driver until he quits, over and over. By the time the truck is 4 years old they have paid for that truck 3-5 times with the new drivers who don't even know what a reasonable weekly cost is for a truck. Just the payment on a new truck could be $1000-1500 PER WEEK, plus insurance of a few hundred dollars PER WEEK, fuel costs of $1000-2000 PER WEEK, etc. The rates for shipping freight have fallen drastically in the last 2 months, from all-time highs to below average, and the economic recession hasn't even started yet. I hope you make lots of money in trucking. There are some good jobs, and a smart owner-operator will make much more than many company drivers. Almost none of those smart owner-operators made money right from the start as an owner-operator. PLENTY of experienced owner-operators went bankrupt because of some details most people wouldn't even know to look for. It is much harder than you think to NOT GO BROKE in trucking, let alone make money.

 

Its not just about the driving experience... You would be suprised what/how much you will learn about the BUSINESS of trucking as a company driver.

I used to have asperations of becoming an O/O... Then I became a company driver with a good company doing OTR. After learning everything I did as a company driver, I can guarantee I would have failed as an O/O straight out the gate. Most people have ALOT of misconceptions about the trucking industry that cant be explained until someone has seen them first hand... As a company driver you will get that exposure, amd if you pay close attention you will learn alot.

 

I won't discourage you from your dreams. A lot of people told me I was dumb to do this or that. But I made it happen... with that said this business will kick your ### everyday of the week and twice on sunday. And that's if you know what you're doing and how to navigate the market... I couldn't imagine just jumping in with my authority straight away... there is a he'll of a learning curve just as a company driver... the equivalent would be going from little League baseball to the major leagues. Sure you might be able to stand in the box and face the pitcher but can you get hits and find success? It's much tougher than it looks to the untrained eye.

 

Theoretically possible? Yes.

However, any business owner, which is what you will be as an owner operator, really breaks to two different things. Running a business, and then doing the job. i.e. driving.

Have you ever run your own business before? In any industry? If you have, good, you have a little bit of experience. If not, you’ll be learning how to run a business and how to drive a truck at the same time.

This isn’t like owning a store or a restaurant, where having a bad day might cost you some customers. You have a bad day while driving a truck, people die.

I would highly suggest you walk before you run and learn how to drive a truck first. Let somebody else worry about the business aspect. Once you are comfortable with the lifestyle, then decide if you want to run your own business.

 

In a way I was you. Here’s the issue. You don’t know what you don’t know yet. The only way to find out is seat time. Maybe that’s not an expensive proposition for you, but regrettably somewhere you’ll need to acquire that knowledge. Running as a O/O with your own numbers you are everyone’s competition. Few would be inclined to help, and how they run and what they know is often user specific.

So you need the skill and finesse to back a truck at night into a dark dock during a driving rainstorm after driving all 11 hours and been working for 14. You need to quash your ego, and learn when to park it when it’s windy, or have the experience to know the safe way. You have to understand diesels, tires, loads, securement, routing, DOT, and 1000 other likely scenarios…and that doesn’t include running the business.

I’m almost 4 years in. One year as a company driver/trainer. Almost 2 years as an operator for a Landstar BCO, and coming up on one year leased on to LS. I’m a pretty smart guy with a lot of previous business experience. I’m now 90% sure I would’ve failed, or been a guy treading water waiting to drown.

I listened to many on here. Some of them are posting above in your thread. Take a breath and really think. If you want to drop +/-$100-200k on a truck. $60-70k for a year of fuel, $20k on insurance, $15-20k on maintenance and or breakdown + lodging, accessories, and tools, and then have got $50k or so in cash to float you when you don’t get paid on time or god forbid you want to go home…by all means give it a go.

There’s just smarter ways to get there.

best of luck