When it's $1.48/mile versus .48/mile why not aspire to be an o/o?

I don't blame a guy for wanting a real life at home.
I'd like one myself,but,if everyone was a truck owner,freight would never get delivered..lol
Everyone running 1500 mile weeks?

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to the original question of why work for .48 per mile when you could make 1.48 as a o/o

well if it costs you more than a dollar per mile to run your truck your making less than driving a company truck with no risk. if anything happens its there problem. your truck your problem. you better be making more than 1.48 per mile if its your truck.

 

So to put some numbers to my post above.

My truck and trailer are leased to Landstar and I am also the driver. Truck is a 2011 that I paid off last year and trailer is a 53 foot box van.

They supply me with a d.o.t. number, good discounts, and access to their internal load board (which can have some good paying freight).

Year to date I have run approx 14k miles 2k of which where empty. (600 of that deadhead was to take care of some personal business)

The truck has been paid $26k for Jan and Feb. I have the truck in the shop so that is it for those 2 months. I did not start the year until 1/12 and then took another 5 day break the next weekend. So only ran half of January and ran easy in Feb avoiding the snows.

"To the truck" averages to $1.88 all miles ( If you drop out the 600 miles I am near that $2/mile mark). That is on 5 loops to the L.A. area from the Seattle/Portland area (2 of those loops passed through SLC area)

 

Of course I factor it in,

 

1.88 on those kind of miles pulling a box ain't bad at all. Heck he load I'm picking up next Monday to get back to my money load is only paying 1.87. And i gotta tarp it!

 

Same here, Monday through Friday running less than 2,500. I'm not interested in killing myself to make a buck.

 

I do plan on running between 2000 miles and 2500 miles the weeks that I run.....

I just choose to not run every week.

If I'm properly bribed I will even run out to the far east like TX and OH..... but not if the pay aint there. As far as delivering the freight... If it pays enough I'll deliver it. If it don't pay? It can sit until a mega gets around to hauling it....

 

What are you hauling? How long are the hauls? What part of the country?

 

At this point I would like to point out that Looking at $ per day is preferable for me over pennies per mile. I regularly tun down Freight paying over $3 per mile cause there are not enough miles to cover the daily requirements. A load from Sea-tac to Portland for $600 is going to take an entire day (or 2 half days and an overnight) for a less than 200 mile load.

But it's $3.00 per mile??

Add in the 80 miles of deadhead and you are down to about $2.14 per mile with not enough revenue to pay for the daily nut for: the truck, the driver, the fuel, and the companies cut(about 25%).

Unless I want to be sitting in Portland for a morning pickup the next day it would not be worth it, I would rather stay home.

 

I don't mind those 550 to 600 dollar day... i actually really like them. But its to the truck, not gross, and it's not on 200 miles either. 50 miles max.