So you are three months into your new career

and thinking about leasing a truck...DON'T

First off..start up company you are with don't pay a whole lot per mile to lease operators/owner operators ad there will be so much fine print in the contract that a whole fleet of lawyers will need a month to figure it out.

Drive fr a year..run your truck as you would as an owner op..ask other owner operators how they are doing right now in the economy with fuel costs and miles. save money as much as you can for that year as a company driver and if possible before leasing after a year or two buy a good used truck..they are out there and not terrible in price...If you are still bound and determined to lease then avoid the huge "start up" company leases. Instead, look to companies that won' hire brand new drivers but do do leases to 1-2 yrs experienced drivers...ask questions of that companies lease operators..the hard questions..ask to see there load history or logs and look for long periods of downtime other than required 34 hr restarts etc...Ask what happened during those long off duty times

Ask about maintnence, replacement tires..fuel surcharge, payments truck options, apus...get the full lowdown on how it all works

You are more likely to succeed with what I call a 2nd tier company than central or cre because not only will they not hire a rookie driver straight out of school but they also want their dispatchers/loadplanners etc to have experience before they hire them usually and those dispatchers and load planners know how to rock and roll.

Just some food for thought

Petey