RV Transport Companies

I wish. I took this season off. As far as Mr Schrock is a liar.... absolutely not. I had a few interactions with him and found him to be genuine and sincere person.

 

Lastone In:

THANK YOU.

I hope you enjoy being a grand dad starting next month. It is a unique opportunity to spoil your grandchild, criticize it's parents, then say Bye-Bye when YOU or your grandchild gets tired and grumpy!

 

You are comparing a big truck to a little truck. My cost of operation for each and every mile is only about .44.

 

Scratch everything I said then. I'll mind my own bidness and keep my pinocchio nose out of it.lol

 

RM, just curious why you sold out and started this gig. This is exactly another avenue I was considering.

 

It was 14 years ago and wanted off the road for issues at home.

 

I hauled travel trailers and boats and had my own Pete and covered wagon. Made 3 X the money with the Pete after expenses as I did hauling boats and TTs. My truck was paid for, fuel was expensive but running ety really ate me up. You have to log it and run CDL hours even ety. I didn't have a sleeper and Motels were close to $100.00 a day because I won't stay in a bedbug infested roach motel. Someone said you can eat on $10 a day to which I say Baloney and that's all you'll eat. A good breakfast is $7, Lunch is around 5-6 for a Arbys sandwich and dinner is around $10 if you want to eat right. I have been a runner for years having entered the Marine Corps Marathon more than once and know a proper diet. My brother say's Horizon actually pays $1.35 for 5th wheels, and even talked him into hauling a boat from FL to IN for .60/mi. I'm a retired AV mech and made around 100K/ year and if you want to make money, it's not in trucking.Besides as a Mech I was home every night by 3 AM and didn't go to work til 2PM so I had time to go fishing every day if I wanted.

 

I really don't believe Roadmedic when he say's he ran "170,000" miles a year. Bit farfetched having owned some Class 379s which would run 91 MPH. I ran from Baltimore to Seattle on an aluminum run both ways with a covered wagon. Loaded and unloaded in 15 min most of the time. The best year I ever had was 140,000 miles running 5 MPH over the posted speed limit and avoiding bad weather by stopping to watch the weather chanel and running around winter storms. There are very few people who work like I do, run like I do don't watch TV during rest periods and you can't run 500 miles a day 340 days a year. I ran team out of Oklahoma City hauling explosives and we made around 140,000 a year and you were too tired to do anything else.

 

That year I was not home much.
It was a FEMA year and logs were not an issue for months.

The next year was much lower.

 

I’m still talking on the street with current transport drivers who I still keep in contact with.

Some interesting trends and opportunities. First, the sleeping in RV’s is becoming a big deal. No longer are transport companies frowning on the practice.A s I have stated in a past post - the approval of sleeping on the couch became a standard and now sleeping on the bed, (with a cover over the bed), is becoming normal. Of course it’s become a “don’t ask - don’t tell” type of issue. The hand full of people I have been talking with now consider it a “right” to sleep in the unit. Some have even set a standard of 4 out of 7 nights in an RV when they are driving. This is all in an effort to lower cost and in-turn increase revenue.


With that in mind an alternative is floating around.


A past dispatcher mentions that a plan to pay the drivers daily per-diem. Similar to what some OTR drivers get from their companies, (yes I know — it’s a whole different issue in the OTR world).
As it stands now many transport drivers, ( best guess is around 70-90%), do not claim the per-diem on there taxes. The problem is after all of the other deductions the net profit, (or loss), would not change the tax liability since many drivers are not making very much money, (after expenses), driving seasonally.


RoadMedic - If your still on this thread, please provide your accounting background to this observation.


Of corse details would need to be worked out, but it could go something like this. The transport companies could pay the per-diem to the drivers for “days out”. They could even limit the “days out” to actual driving days. This would be a tax advantage to the companies since it would be a deduction against profit. To the drivers it would show up as a line item on the 1099 they get from the company as additional income. For most of the drivers it would not make that big of a difference on there taxes since their net is so low to begin with.


Talk among yourself. Should your transport company pay the per-diem as a benefit to you to not sleep in the units?