The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

Mine is a 2yr have 14 months left.....

 

If I'm not mistaken preacherman is home every other weekend

 

On average I'm out fifteen to seventeen days at a time. Works out that I'm only home every third weekend. The problem is that there is too much wasted time while I'm out. My first day leaving the house is usually a joke as well as the weekends. Long term Roehl is probably not my best option. I'm also on a 42 month lease with a $12000.00 buyout at the end. I have no doubt that if I stayed out longer I would get more miles, but at what point does the business own you and you become a slave once again? I average twenty three days a month away from home. Do the math, that is plenty of time that I should be seeing a minimum of 9000 miles a month.

 

I agree with your point about wasted time while on the road. I also understand you have a family at home, as do many, rather most of the guys I talk to about this. I'm taking into account the fact that the economy is a tad broken at the moment too. I'm planning on much larger chunks out at a time, so I hope to see at least 9-10k miles per month.

To you point about the "business owning you", that's something I was taught to expect in the starting years of any business in order to be successful. Again, I understand you have a family and that is, and should be, a top priority. I don't and I'm ready for the business to "own me", so to speak. I don't think it's gonna be a hoot, but I also don't think it will be very bad. I look at it as an interesting and exciting challenge, and the biggest venture I've taken yet.

 

I have averaged 10k a month over the last three months running the Midwest regional as a company driver. Im home every weekend as well. I think it is a number of factors including your dispatcher and possibly your dispatchers repoire with the planners. They seem to keep MW guys moving so they can get us home for resets. Has worked out nicely so far.

 

Location, location, location... It matters where you are. If you are somewhere there is no freight, then you sit and wait. The majority of Roehl's loads move in the midwest, especialy on flats, so midwest regional should be some of the highest miles in the fleet. When lumber was still king, the Great Lakes regional fleet was the place to be, 2800-3000k every week, and home for a reset. It is all a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Being a L/O that plays very heavily into wheather or not to take a load. If it is going somewhere we don't normaly go, then it might be hard to get another load to keep you moving. Read through these forums, the van guys crack me up, some are 3000k plus per week and others are complaining about starving. That tells me they live in an off the beaten path place, and want to be home all the time. I hope that things get better, but I think we have a long road ahead of us yet. Just FYI Matt, I think I would wait and see what the economy does before I signed on the bottom line... At this point it could go either way, I would try to time it so you get on, on the way back up, that way you should have a few good years before the next downturn to make the money to pay for the truck. It might be worth looking into.

 

http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=74823&news_category_id=18 WIN

 

Cool! I'll go inside and congratulate the folks here in Marshfield when I wake up tomorrow. Then tell them to hurry up and fix my truck so I can go drive more safe miles!