You'd better read some more . Teams are lucky to get 3,000 miles a week . Newbies solos sometimes don't get half that . Ditching your apartment after orientation is a bad idea for 2 reasons . 1. You can't claim per diem if you don't have a permanent address . 2 . What would you do if you got rejected by a trainer or terminated for some petty reason like thousands of other newbies have ?
Well, that's c.r.a.p. The company teams I talk with are regularily over 5000, and solos in the upper 2000's. Newbs and experienced drivers all get good miles. Miles don't count for the lease ops - it's revenue to the truck.
Miles do count to a lease because they are charged a fee by the mile. If you go over and beyond the OOR you are charged more.
Not in the way they are for a company driver. Gross revenue to the truck is based on a percentage of the linehaul and fuel surcharge revenue. It's in the interest of the LO to minimize the miles driven to hold costs (principally fuel and tire wear) to the minimum - that also will minimize the over mileage charge. Basically, team trucks are the only ones that incur any serious over-mileage charges. It's hard to run enough miles to get to that point in a solo operation... that's not saying a solo operator won't make money; again its the linehaul and fuel surcharge revenue that make them money. For company drivers, maximizing the dispatched miles is a given since we are paid on a per-mile basis.
You are not likely to hit over 3k very often. It does happen and usually when it does it comes at the expense of the previous week. I can think of only a couple weeks where I got over 3k miles in a stand alone week. example I came out after hometime and I took a load of apples from my home in WA to FL. Its really hard to explain how your 70 hour clock from the previous week can screw you from getting a great load without getting a restart and getting a load you can do with the hours you have available. Appointments are a factor. Available loads for a given location. Multiple loads in a week require time for loading/unloading or drop/hook... 2500 is a good number to quote. Last I heard they are not hiring any more tanker drivers. But ask, because things change all the time. I have a permanent address with my brother. I vote, I am registered as a resident with proof provided upon request from the DMV (and they did request it). Jump whatever hoops you have to if you can or so desire to ditch the apartment. Its not hard to get an apartment whenever or wherever I want when I have saved a little over $10k last year in the bank. Also, if for some reason I lost my job, quit or got stranded Im pretty sure with that amount of money I can get myself home and on my feet with no problem. You can easily save money... Initially you outfit your truck with things you may want and pay off your bills... once thats done, all you have to pay for out here is to eat and an occasional tolietries or clothing. My only bills are my cell phone/wireless card, and car insurance (for my car I keep in Springfield). I pay these online with my credit card for the points and pay the balance every month. I just came off vacation and went a little off budget for my neices and nephew... but I am back on the program and looking to save a lot more this year.
You beat me to it. I've heard the team drivers are getting great miles. Even the team lease ops seem to be doing well. When I was in training last spring, I regularly got paid over the guarantee because we ran over 5k miles. Saw a couple paychecks over $900 while in training! When I first went solo, the first couple months, it was a bit slow. I'll admit that. Probably in the range of 2000 to 2300 per week. But after about 2 months being solo, they started running me hard. I've been runnin' my butt off. Even now, I keep waiting for the "slow season" to kick in, but I'm running as much as I can handle. My appointment times have been tight, but doable. I seem to always be running close to that 70hr clock, which can be annoying. But my paychecks, especially recently, have been nice. I hate sounding like a freakin' cheerleader all the time. Is it possible that U2, IP and I are all exceptions to the rule? I suppose. But man, I was so worried to join Prime because of all the negativity. Here I am, almost a year later, and I'm still extremely happy here and have already made enough money to start a decent savings. Although, like U2, I don't own or rent a home either. My perminant address is at my parents house. I simply stay with friends / family when I take my hometime. Works for me and I'm savin' up a ton of cash. Just looked at my statement on QC for last week: 2788 miles. So, on the miles front, I'm either really lucky, or there is some misinformation floating around here.
I found flatbedding is generally easier to get miles because there is a lot less ######## getting loaded and unloaded. Kinda ###### up that I remember pulling down 3700+ miles a week in 2002 with Prime and never getting into logbook trouble.
Kiss that Prime logbook goodbye. Most of us company and some lease guys are on elogs... and the rest are soon to follow. (lease too) Im talking company driver miles. We can lose our jobs if we dont make at least 6.75 MPG.... Actually, most of us, who have no problems making MPG, are the ones cruising around at or very close to 55MPH even though our trucks are turned to 63... those who cant make MPG, get their trucks turned down, and forced to drive 55... if they still cant make MPG... then they are let go.
BTW... assuming I dont run into any problems with the load I am currently on... I will have 3300 dispatched miles this week. Yeah, its two loads between Monday when I came off vacation to Tuesday (8 days) but I will get a restart before delivering Tuesday morning... perfect world would put me on a work cycle like this... week after week... Guy can dream, right?
