Who here hauls asphalt with a tri axle?

Say you are getting $95 an hour for a triaxle, 4 or 8 hour minimum, Joe Shmoe’s project fell through this year and needs to find work for his 5 trucks, so he takes the guy that owns the plant out drinking and says I’ll do it for $80 as long as my trucks work first.... you think they are going to pay you the $95 if they don’t have to?

Dump trucks are the biggest cut throat section of the industry

 

When you've got iron sitting and payments to make, people will make sacrifices to stay afloat. Race to the bottom.

 

people do it all the time...... I lost a run for $80 less a day per truck. First season I matched the rate. Next season the other guy cut the rate again. And I bailed.....

and that was after 10 years full time hauling for the same plant......top of the list.

 

What the guys have said so far is very true. Dump trucking is probably the most cut-throat and least rewarding of any kind of trucking I've been in.
I don't know what it's like in your part of the country and I can only address what I see happening in my local area.
There are no contracts. None. You get hired on to haul, usually by a prime contractor or a broker, on a verbal agreement. If they decide to drop the rate you have two choices, go or stay.
The people you'll be working for are almost always well established local boys who have been doing business with each other for years. You're not going to win a fight against them. Ever.
If you have contacts in the industry, or better yet relatives or old friends, you might make a living but that's all you'll make.
Around here paving work used to be hourly. A few hungry junk-equipment operators started bidding the jobs on tonnage. This was a good deal for the contractor and absolute disaster for the truckers.
Say you get hired on to haul asphalt. With no contacts in the industry you'll be the last truck to load in the morning and the first one to be signed out later in the day. You might only work a couple of hours. If you get on a big job where you're working a full day every day start looking for a rate decrease because it's probably going to happen.
Hauling for a concrete plant? Stockpiling? Absolute bottom of the barrel. With what you wind up in your pocket at the end of the week you could probably do just as well working at Home Depot.
And if you stand up on your back legs and complain? The word gets out fast that you're a malcontent and you'll sit. The phone won't ring.
We still do some dirt work and some paving but it's usually for our own projects. Very seldom will we bid on anything else. If things are slow and I need to keep the crew together so they don't leave for better jobs I can always find some dirt work with a contractor but all I'll be doing is trading dollars and too much of that is a death spiral.
I admire your ambition and I wish you luck if you've really made up your mind to try this but go into it with your eyes open, okay?

 

In Wisconsin, most of those road projects were by alleged sealed bid, months in advance. These guys knew the contractor, and would always get the job. Besides, fine by me, dump trucking is the toughest on equipment I've found, let the boss buy new springs.

 

Welcome to dump trucking and the mixed bag of all kinds that own previously aforementioned dump trucks.

 

If I'd had better news for you I would have given it. If the opportunity presents itself drive for somebody for awhile.
You're on the outside looking in. You might be surprised how the view changes on the inside looking out.

 

Cut throat is putting it nicely. If there’s a dollar and a dime laying on the ground, guys will step over the dollar just to make sure you don’t get the dime. I work for a pretty big end dump outfit in KC, idk what goes on behind closed doors, but I can comment on what I hear from “smaller guys” in the field. 1,2 and 3 truck outfits. “X” company will have a tonnage contract with So & So, while “Y” company has an open ended contract. Well “Y” company will flood So & So with trucks just to dry out “X”‘s contract. I get business is business, but dude a lot it is borderline spiteful.