No experience but getting Authority

Lilbit: Thanks for the link. I mentioned early in the thread that I would try my best to either document how it was going to work, or be a lighthouse and serve as a warning to others.

G/MAN: He's learning real quick that he's got a lot more skin in the game working for us instead of some random employer. In exchange for having line of sight on the business side of what he does for a living, he has to really step up his game to earn it.

BigBadBill: I hear you on the roadside inspections. Once that tag is squared away, he knows the benefit of asking for the paperwork if it happens again. We've been all through the CSA books and good inspections now could help reduce the overall score on a future mishap. Next time he passes through locally, we'll have the plate for the trailer and within a week or two the title will come in the mail. I can email that to him to print out in the truck and stick in the binder.

The lesson learned on the reefer is: there's more to it than just flipping the switch on and setting the temp on the dispatch sheet. There are two really informative threads here (search) that tell the story of refused reefer freight and what to do to avoid it. Two unfortunate guys who served as lighthouses for us by posting their story. There are also really good articles all over the net on proper loading and temp control for various types of freight.

I'm not gonna lie - all three of us were sweating and losing sleep over that weekend load of frozen meat. Wondering if there was a temp-tattler in the load and how deep it was. Wondering if the high temps south and west of here had made the temp go up enough to set it off. Wondering if the consignee was going to plug into our reefer and pull the data off. Wondering if our first insurance claim was gonna happen on our second ever load. When he checked in after delivery it was a massive relief and he headed directly to the service shop. $200 and change was all it took to get the box running at 100%. It could have cost us massively. A huge break for us and hopefully other people that think they want to haul reefer will read this and the other threads and take heed.

Side note on reefer: Most brokers will require reefer breakdown coverage on your insurance (in addition to the cargo coverage you already have). It added $1,000 to our annual premium. Don't say I didn't warn you LOL.

 

Are you saying that a passing roadside inspection your equipment exempts you from getting an annual inspection on that equipment by a mechanic? If so, would you care to back that up with a reference to a rule?

 

This is what I was told by IL Trooper giving aDOT talk at truck show. We all had same reaction. Just ask next time you are inspected. But I will still pay to have it done in a shop. A good shop will tell you if you need to watch something.

 

Found it. He was right, seems crazy. See paragraph (f).

I've had more than one roadside inspection that didn't cover everything it was supposed to and/or was done improperly (not that this is relevant, just pathetic.)

 

I was coming here to post the link.

Yeah, from a personal safety standpoint I will still get one done at my mechanic.

Was also told that if you have had an inspection recently and get pulled in to mention it. May save you some time.

 

A few years ago I got inspected. Shortly after I got pulled into a scale in a different state. I mentioned the recent inspection. The response was that I had not had an inspection with THEIR state.

 

Well I talked to him a half dozen times today and forgot to ask about a sticker. I'm with BigBadBill on this one.. I'll pay my repair guy to do a proper PM and inspection and not sweat the annual one. Not to mention, I'm probably more picky about details and will tell the shop to do more than they'd ever find without me standing right there.

Before we even went on our first run, I had an air leak fixed on the truck that my son had spotted while hooking up the new-to-us trailer at the sales lot. You know when you cross thread an air line coupler it doesn't matter how tight you crank it will still leak. The truck had gotten it's DOT annual at the sales lot when we bought it a week earlier. It's not like that dude was going to go too far out of his way to find things to fix on that truck. Nor would the DOT guy on the side of the road unless you gave him a good reason to.

 

There is a sticker that the DOT put on your windshield and on the front of your trailer that tells them that you have passed an inspection. A scale house can tell by looking at the sticker when you had your inspection. The year of the inspection is printed on the sticker. The quarter is noted by which corner of the sticker has been cut. It is simple but easily spotted as you cross a scale. Not all states give a sticker. California usually gives a sticker to those who pass their inspections.

It is much less expensive to have a local mechanic go over your equipment rather than taking a chance with the dot. Many problems can be spotted by the drivers with a good pre trip inspection. Tires, brakes, air leaks and exhaust are things that will get you shut down and cost a lot of money to have repaired if it has to be done on the side of the road or at a scale house.

Some of the major carriers require owner operators who are leased to them to have an inspection every 3 months. It is cheap insurance. Drivers and owners could do much to spot problems by getting underneath their trucks when they come home to check for problems. Exhaust leaks are easy to spot. As are thin pads on your brakes. In fact, you don't even need to get underneath a truck to check your brakes unless you want to check the adjustment.

The reason so many driver get shut down for their equipment is due to them not doing a proper pre trip. It doesn't take long to do a pre trip and it is much cheaper when the driver finds it rather than a DOT officer. If you want to pay a mechanic to do it for you it is probably going to be cheaper to pay him to do an inspection than just pay him by the hour to inspect your equipment.

 

I am in the process of buying a truck and applied for an authority on March 19th.

We have a lot in common as well, I work a full time job, also in IT industry and find it difficult to work in getting this business off the ground and fielding all the calls on insurance quotes, compliance service calls etc.

I don't know about you, but I just went to the USDOT website to apply for my authority. It seemed very straight forward to fill everything out - it was not so much to save money, but I like to do everything myself when I can just so I understand things a little better.

You are right about Progressive Insurance being the only game in town for newbie insurance. I'm even weaker than you on that as I only have a CDL learners permit. Thank god for Progessive as they will actually insure someone without a full CDL license - I've driven a small training truck for less than 2 hours in my whole life. I can only drive while another truck driver is with me so I will only be driving in a team environment until I can pass the driving portion of the test.

I also received a letter in the mail today that seemed to indicate that my authority was approved.

Maybe one of you can shed some light on this in that it starts out with "Your application seeking registration to operate as a new entrant in the interstate commerce within the United States has been approved." This seems a little odd to me in that I have not bought a truck yet, I am supposed to close on one in the next few days, but this is why I have not bought insurance. So no insurance has been submitted for my authority. Also, I have yet to submit the BOC3 filing. So I am a little skeptical that I have recieved an authority.

Also, I was wondering if you went straight to progressive or went through an agent to get your insurance. I got inundated with calls from order taker type agents after I applied for the authority as I sure you did as well. The majority were horrible. They would tell me things like you will never get insurance under my circumstances, then I would politely inform them that I already had quotes and then they would come back and tell me that I must be paying a lot and would tell them if roughly $6,200 a year is a lot then maybe so. By the way, I will have no trailer, I will only be pulling other company's trailers.

I found myself telling them that it was their job to give me solutions to the obstacles of a new driver and instead I was giving them solutions to the all the obstacles they would raise to me.

I was just overall shocked at 90 percent of the agent's level of competency was so poor which is why I call them order takers.

Also, found that they would offer me pretty much boiler plate insurance quotes with no extra's. I found that when I went straight to a progressive agent that I would get offered perks like $5,000 in medical related injuries to the drivers if an accident occured. Also, personal items insurance in the truck. The agents on the other hand, would always tell me don't bother asking for those perks as those items would drive up the cost of my insurance. Plus I would always have to wait a day to get a quote back where as when I call progressive I can tweak the policy as much as I want while I am on the phone and get the instant quote for each change made- doing that with an agent would be nearly impossible and a ton of response time lag.

All that being said, it is sort of nice to have a go between instead of going directly to Progessive. This way, you have someone to give you tips about situations where progressive is not going to give you any tips, you have to know what you are ordering and there is no advice given. For example, a nice tip I recieved is that I would have to choose a different address other than San Francisco as my rates would be too high in this area. The garage address is in San Diego so it was an easy correction - nevertheless, progressive would have just given you the higher rate and let you hang yourself.

I'm afraid I have gotten off into left field when writing my novel here. You mentioned that you might need to get additional insurance endorsements for some of your son's loads. I have a couple of questions on that first do you think $25,000 in Cargo insurance is enough or is $100,000 better? And since you can apparently get an additional endorsement then why bother with the $100,000.

 

If you expect to get loaded you will need $100,000 cargo and $1 million liability insurance. That is the minimum most brokers and shippers require. If you get a load which requires more cargo insurance you can get a ryder for that particular load much cheaper than paying a premium for additional insurance that you don't need the rest of the year.

If you want to find out for sure if your authority has been granted you can go to the fmcsa website and do a search. I believe the site is www.safestat.org. Unless things have change the feds require that your application for authority be advertised for 2 weeks before authority will be granted. My guess is that the letter you received was simply a confirmation that they have received your application and that you have a certain amount of time to get your insurance and BOC-3 filed before they will grant you authority. If you fail to get everything filed by the deadline then your application will be canceled and you will need to refile and pay the application fee again. When your authority is granted you will receive a letter that states that authority has been granted. It will have your MC number, name and address at the top. It should also have something like "Certificate of Authority" at the top of the letter. In any case, I would get everything to them ASAP so that there won't be any delays.