Why do most owner operators fail?

you are the brightest bulb in the box

i drive for swift as a company driver, a 62mph truck with elogs, it doesnt get any better than this!!!

 

sure it does. a 75 mph truck on paper. NOT working for swift.

some of you may like to drive slow and slowwwww relaxed you fall asleep.

i'm perfectly comfortable with the pedal to the floor.

 

Of I put my pedal to the floor, I get in BIG trouble. I've had it buried before LOL......

 

I think a major reason many fail is poor planning, lack of knowledge, and hauling cheap freight. I will be the first to tell you we started with nothing to spare, I put enough of a downpayment in to get the truck payment where I wanted it, shopped around for insurance, got a good trailer for the same payment as I would be renting one and it's almost paid off now. Don't get me wrong things are tight at times but we made sure we knew what we had to have to make it before we got started in this, I also was a diesel mechanic long before I became a driver so 95% of the work on the equipment gets done by me, I have all the tools and knowledge that saves us a lot, we keep track of our cost per mile and don't dare get even close to it or under when we haul loads, I make sure we are getting more than enough. Another driver mentioned the whole tire pressure thing, he was exactly right!!! I do sunday night tire checks on the truck and trailer and I find potential problems if any and keep my tire pressures where they need to be, you have to be professional, keep yourself and your truck clean and treat these brokers as much like you want to be treated as possible, even though they might not deserve it. I can't even count how many times I've been told I don't talk or act like the typical owner operator, because I choose not to act like them. My wife is a Certified EMT and recently came to work for me as my dispatcher, she knew very little about the industry but she has learned quickly that this is a 7 day a week job, when I'm at home there is always something that has to be done, paperwork, cleaning the truck and trailer, performing maintenance and repairs, you name it. As for the whole driving 62, 65, 70, etc......I have a 07 387 Pete with a 475 C-15 Cat Acert with a 13 speed, at 75 mph I'm getting 5.3 to 5.7 loaded with 43,000 to 47,000 on the wagon, I normally run that or 72-73 but the real trick here is to have a truck that will hold a steady speed uphill and on flat road, you go having to downshift all the time and slow down 10 mph on every hill cause you can't keep speed up then you begin to spend money cause the more off and on the throttle you are the more fuel you burn. You don't have to hotrod on every start, keep in the powerband your engine runs best at, if you don't know it, ask a tech that knows your particular engine type. You can gain road speed by building up to it quicker than hammering on it off the start and banging gears, all that does is wear out your tires, driveline, trans, etc. Use your brain God gave you to make smart decisions and think before you make a move, don't jump at the first rate they offer you and do not by any means be afraid to say no when you think something isn't right about a situation you might be in or about to be in.

 

Thought I was the only one who cruised at 72-73 sometimes 75 or faster in short bursts... was starting to think I was an outcast lol.. I don't do it for fun. It's done out of pure necessity time constraints and the fact that 15 or 30 minutes extra sleep means a lot during a grind.. fuel mileage be darned...

 

funny comprehension that can't seem to be grasped, eh!!!!!!!!!!!!11

the faster you go, the more miles you run. and we all know that if the wheels aren't spinning. no one is making money. miles equal money. and yet they wanna go slower.

you lose 10 times more in revenue then you save in fuel -- going slower. save $200 in fuel per week. lose $2000 in revenue for a load.

and yes. think of all that extra sleep too. sounds like a no brainer to me. but apparently there is no brains that think about stuff like that. they just want to profit. now matter how much revenue they lose out on.

MILES = MONEY. THE MORE MILES. THE MORE MONEY.
LOADS EQUALS MONEY. but that's ok. yall just keep on creeping along. more money for me. AND THAT'S WHY I'M IN A HURRY. brokers need those loads delivered and you all are driving way too darned slow.

 

I don't know that it has generated extra revenue on a daily or weekly consistent basis by driving 10mph faster than everyone else and wouldn't go that far... That my friend is a stretch. Maybe a time or three it resulted in an extra load on a given day. I do know there were at least a 100 times or more when that 20 extra minutes of sleep after a grueling night was much appreciated before the next reload. My fuel mileage is in the low 6's on a bad day for mpg's, well sometimes I see 5.8 but not often. My loads are light and I deadhead a bunch don't idle much either. The opposite spectrum of this would be BigBadBill he's afraid he'll get a nose bleed going faster than 55mph. He's the guy that makes Swift trucks get in the left lane for once in their entire day. He don't hurry for nuthin lol. When we were pulling hoppers from the corn fields to the elevator speed would make for an extra load a day, but not general freight... ..but Bill would still drive slow so he wouldn't miss spotting and wheeling into a McDonald's or Pizzeria lol...

 

I book my own loads , so im not in a hurry to get to the next load. I drive 60mph and thats fast enough for me. At he end of the week or end of the month it all would average out about the same. Majority of the roads are not 70mph...

 

I book my own loads too. Sometimes 2 or 3 a day and sometimes 2 or 3 a day 3 days in advance, actually most of the time when I'm working general freight I'll "pre-plan" loads that way. 70+ makes a difference at the end of my day, I know it does, when I'm on the interstate. But I also truck thru the woods a lot,then it's always the speed limit.

 

traveling through the woods. i'll defenitely take 75. cuz you lose a LOT of time in them woods.

but we're talking 55 vs. 75. over 10 hours that's 2oo miles. times 5 days that's 1000 miles.

now i can see no big deal when you have to do your own booking. but if someone else is doing the booking for you. that 1000 miles per week can add up every month. 4000 miles of lost revenue per month. i know that has to equate to at LEAST 6G. if your truck averages 5 mpg. that's basically 2000 more in fuel for that 6G in revenue or better. profit of 4000 per month. but you go slow so you save b asically 1000 per month.

saving `1000 per month to lose that 4000 extra profit.

you all talk about making money. but that's a pretty chunk of change lost just to save on fuel cost.