Why do most LTLs not hire owner-operators?

UPS F would LOVE to you have you as an O/O.

Really, to me, the key to making $$$ as an O/O is:
--Having a place to park your truck (NOT the local shopping center parking lot.....)
--Being able to FIX your truck, or having a dependable mechanic. i'm not talking about the big stuff, such as remaning an engine (although this would help).

--Being able to calculate NUMBERS properly. There are big time tax benefits to being an O/O vs. company driver. i'm not saying O/O IS automatically better than being a company driver, but it COULD be depending on your situation.

 

Not to mention alot of those guys will conveniently "break down" when it suits them. My boss wishes he could get rid if all his owner ops because of that

 

Another key to being a O/O and financially successful, not pressing to run run run miles, but scrutinizing what a load calculates on a cost per mile basis and being able to accurately compare against the true operating costs of that truck running down the road and maintaining insurance/truck payments. I see it all over the place on O/O lease purchase setups, promising miles miles miles (cough cough hurricane express), but what good is it to you as an operator to wear out your truck by running 3,500 miles a week for 5 or 6 years to pay the truck off (as well as fork over a 10k+ balloon payment for the title).

 

The way you worded your post, it makes you sound like you are asking about an O/O driving a LTL company owned truck. To do that, you would have to be hired by the company for a bunch of legal reasons. Then you are no longer O/O. If you are talking about an O/O doing contract work for LTL companies, I think they all do it. I have an 07 Western Star, I have hauled doubles for ABF, UPS, FedEx, and southeastern. I have also hauled 53 foot trailers for the same.

 

It's been said that to this day, Saia still has some O/O contractors at some of their southern terminals, now wether that entails running under Saia's authority or their own I am not sure, I do know that Saia does routinely use outside carriers to move freight, out here on the west coast it's mainly a company called Varna trucking, and as already mentioned I have also recently seen Landstsr O/Os pulling sets as well.

 

To the original question, YRC and OD choose to run their business as they choose. That said them and all the other big ltl carriers do use outside carriers, they call it purchased transportation.
No leasing on trucks, no extra book work, no trucks they can’t force dispatch, just call their broker and order what they need.
If yrc was to lease trucks directly they would get in a fight with the union and its just not worth it.
Read some of the big companies annual reports and you can see how much they spend on purchased transport.

 

YRC has owner operators, they are leased to YRC Reimer in Canada. We see them all the time in Burnsville MN taking freight to Winnipeg MB, also in Salt Lake City UT. Not all the YRC Reimer are Owner Operators, but I know some of them are. An explaination is the difference in value between USD and Canada money, so they can pay in Canadian money, worth 30% less.

 

I didn't read all of this but from a carrier/O/O perspective...if I have to call someone else then I am losing money and irritating my drivers. I only have me and my 1 truck but if I had 10 drivers and 10 trucks then those loads NEED to be on my trucks with my drivers....period! Same as if I had 100 trucks or more.

The average LTL loaded trailer is 23k (according to a source at Pitt-Ohio) so why not ALWAYS find room and pay your own company.

 

Yes, but what do you do if you have 10 trucks and drivers, but 11 loads? Push the load back and miss SLA agreements or buy a truck and hire another driver or give that one load to an O/O? And remember, if you hire anther driver the other 10 will get fewer runs so the 11th is doing more than one load.

 

I don't know how they do it man but I know I want no part of it! LOL. OMG the headaches!