Question on understanding lanes..

Hello, been mostly a lurker for a long time on the forums. I am getting the ball rolling on becoming an O/O and leasing on to a carrier.

Ill start off by saying, i came to this decision not for the pay. I am not looking to get rich, or anything like that. My main reason is more freedom. I don't want someone telling me they cant grant me off time, or i cannot idle a truck at 100F. That said, I don't want to go broke either. One of the things i hear the guys talk about that own their own trucks is "know your lanes".
So what is there to know about it? what areas do i avoid? is there certain months i should consider areas that arent considered at other times (ex, fl around march and april)?
Thank you all for any advice.

 

How many years do you have as a company driver?

 

Yes know your lanes refers to knowing where to go and avoid for freight that you do. If you do a certain sector of an industry, there will be areas that might be difficult to return from. And when you want to go home, where to go so that load after can get you home (or close)

 

It means if you're pulling a flatbed for example into South Florida you need to account for a 500 mile deadhead out and make sure you still hit your running mile target with the money you got going in.

So if you got a 1000 mile haul into Miami and your running mile target is 2.50 you need to be charging at least $3,750.

A lot of guys mess up thinking 2 or 3 dollars a mile into a dead zone like Florida or Colorado is a good deal. They drop their running mile down to 1.5 and now they're making less than company drivers if they're lucky and losing money if not.

You'll learn the lanes from experience, but load to truck ratio maps on the load board sites like DAT and truckstop can give you an idea flawed as they are.

 

That’s a good explanation of it.

 

You don’t avoid any lanes, you go where your customers need you, but some areas you need to bid round trip or Atleast enough to bounce to a better area, like florida and the north east for example

guys get it in their head as long as they have something in the wagon and the tires are rolling they are making money, when all they are really doing is just throwing time and money away

 

I always said, before you go in, know how you're gonna get out.

 

not only that but you've got to know your cost per mile. Say as a rule of thumb your cost per mile is 1.70. Payments, fuel , taxes, driver pay, repair acct etc... lots of people don't kow or figure out till their gone.

 

I doubt many are able to run a truck for $1.70 a mile in this day and age…

 

I appreciate your response. This is part of what i was wondering, i know a lot of people hate going to FL cause trash rates are going out. However I did hear from one person that bouncing around in FL and staying there a bit till the trash rate doesnt hurt is also viable. Someone told me that lanes are also hot depnding on the time, so august you have candy loads, mid october u start having more frozen ham and pumpkin, november you have tree loads with multistops. are those the only ones? are there other lanes that are more year round or steady (ex. rust belt to tx, ok, and nd coils and pipes) i appreciate it