Owner Operators, who’s in and who’s out? (poll)

It’s not nearly as much of a grind when you’re financially stable enough to not feel like you have to truck. I may not be rich, but I’m not hurting and like you I’ll truck until I’m physically not able.

And I’d sell it all today if I was able to keep my schedule and my pay, but that’s likely not to happen. I could have one or the other, but not both.

 

I’ve said it on here before I do like clean air, but I’d like to see a medium, preferably without having to add def,

If slowly working myself back from the 2 accidents and actually have it in mind I do want to order a new truck, I don’t know when the cut off is though because I definitely don’t want to be a first year guinea pig

 

I don't use failure as a pejorative. Even if I were, a business failure is not necessarily a personal failure. An owner can do everything 'right' and still fail.

To me, a 'successful' business exit mean the business (or it's assets) gets sold for more than the initial investment. I'll even go so far as to say an intentional wind down that covers all business debts without an extra would be a 'successful business' - provided the business has been profitable over it's lifetime and could continue to operate.

However when the business cannot continue without a significant capital influx, then it's failed.

I would categorize the recent shut down of Carroll Fulmer as a business failure. They're going out in a classy way and probably leaving with a nice chunk of change left for themselves, but they were in a position where they couldn't move forward and they couldn't stand still. The difference between facing a catastrophic lawsuit or a catastrophic equipment failure is moot - at least to me. Business choices were made that put the company into an untenable position.

I'd even call DeBoer a failure. They got a sweat heart deal from the Schneider family who over payed out of friendship, but DeBoer didn't sell because they wanted to. They had maybe 6 months before default. They hadn't done anything 'wrong' (at least as far as I know), they simply got "caught in irons" in challenging business environment.

 

Dude, c'mon. Apparently you haven't constantly learned a thing. You can't just be stable and happy in this game. You've got to suffer! You've got to be miserable! You've got to blame the man, the industry, the immigrants, the brokers, etc!

 

Well, yes, or course. Any good catholic knows you need to be miserable and blame "the other " for it.

 

18 weeks down in 14 months due to 2 non at fault accidents and a second motor tossed in the middle….. don’t want to say I’m hurting but I don’t really have much left if I get another chunk of time missing like the above again

I have the opposite problem of most guys, I’ve got good paying work, and I’m willing to do it, them wild cards haven’t been very kind though, but that’s trucking.

 

And that's why I said that failure doesn't mean a person necessarily did something wrong.

 

I don't know what it is, but the #### cycle in trucking always seems to come in 3's. I hope you have some smooth sailing now!

 

I use Factoring. With my company you can pick which brokers you want to bill directly and which brokers you want to factor. They don't keep any reserves and with 15 trucks you rate is probably gonna be 1-1.5%.

 

It's a different mentality when you do something by choice and because you wouldn't care to do anything else for a living (but would if you had to). That is probably the rarest type of driver. Now if I woke up tomorrow wealthy I'd probably find some other way to occupy my time if I no longer needed to go grind for a living, and I doubt there's too many guys in that position who would no matter how cool their truck was. They'd do the annual show circuit and have a couple show trucks maybe, in between their other hobbies and distractions. But as a lowly "trading-time-for-money" proposition I wouldn't care to do anything else.