Company Guidance / Advice

[Rawze]

(04-15-2017 )BiloxiDave Wrote:  ....
I am down to my last week of school and want to
....

If your goal is to eventually own a truck, read my book... http://rawze.com/book
and read it again.

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WHILE YOU ARE A COMPANY DRIVER --- LEARN TO RUN THE TRUCK 63 MPH AND LESS, and save every penny you can. -- Do that, and you will always be successful in your trucking career.

Driving slow and saving money are an oxymoron while being a company driver. You are paid solely on miles so there is no incentive for slowing down. What it will do though, is teach you the discipline on owning a truck with the most success. IT IS A PIECE OF INDUSTRIAL MACHINERY just like in a factory, only it is out in public out on the roadways. Learn how to operate it as such for turning maximum profit with minimum costs. I.E. the LOWEST speeds, least wear and operating costs possible while still maintaining your deadlines. Speed, fuel, and time are your enemies. Learn to manage ALL 3 with great precision to become successful.

Every time you stop, you must make up for it with speed. Every time you go fast, you must make up for it with excesses in fuel and wear costs, and every time your equipment is down, any of the other things you gained slightly by going faster and wasting fuel/time are exponentially lost. Simply managing/lowering speed and fuel efficiency, requiring you to STOP A LOT LESS and manage time very well so that slower speeds can be achieved = totally higher profits EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Practice these things on someone else's dime!. Being a company driver is a free education to learning these things and becoming successful in your own truck ownership later on. Learn to drive at lower speeds so that it becomes second nature by the time you do go O/O. Otherwise you will struggle like all the rest i have seen come and go. Owning is much different than simply driving.


ANY COMPANY YOU GO TO --- FIND OUT what the average mph the loads are booked at. I.E> A lot of the mega-fleets book their loads at 50-mph average from pick-up to delivery (total booked miles vs delivery time). This is very important and determines if you are going to have to drive LEGALLY or ILLEGALLY and be stressed out all the damn time because you might have to run 70+ mph and cook your books!.

I.E> load X goes from point A to point B. To get there you will have to run a minimum of X miles of each 11-hour shift to be there on time. -- >

Here are some hypothetical examples of being required to drive a minimum of. This is assuming that there will be multiple driving shifts between pickup and delivery and includes the time to get on/off freeways, fueling, etc. during a long cross--country trip ...


550 miles in a driving shift = 50 mph average, LEGAL, and you can do it at 60-63 MPH with good time management. Perfect for owner-op and perfect for maximum long term profits later on in your own truck.

600 miles in a driving shift = 55 mph average, LEGAL, but you will have to drive 68 MPH+ (65 minimum and no stopping for s$it) if your going cross-country with multiple 10-hour breaks. Very hard driving job if you are staying legal, most run slightly illegal to achieve this and stop a lot because they are always fighting traffic, delays, stress, and are always having to get coffee and sugar and pee a lot fighting fatigue. Every delay makes them hate their job and the motoring public. they are always driving hard all the damn time and are tired more than necessary.

MORE THAN 600 miles in a single driving shift. For example, 700+ in one shift is A BAD THING!. That is 63-mph average per shift in a long cross-country journey. -- you have to drive 70+ MPH and like a bad out of hell just to be legal once you include fueling, required breaks, etc. --> Most of the time, you are pushing your log books into the illegal zone and/or are running more than one log book and required to break the law just to make deliveries. -- A bad place to start out in trucking, and it only makes you an arrogant cow-boy trucker who is hell bent on speed and power after a few years. Truck ownership involves the "Ain't no one gonna tell me how to drive" attitude, they take-home a lot less money that they can keep. They end up pouring most of it into high fuel costs and repairs because the roads are beating the hell out of their truck everywhere they go. They almost always become arrogant, hate traffic, blame their POS equipment every time something breaks, and the list of bad habits only grow from there.

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YOU should not limit yourself to any particular type of trucking operation your first year, flatbed, etc. INSTEAD, Look for a company that does not require you to kill yourself by making you drive too fast or keep impossible schedules without running illegally. Find a company ALREADY ON electronic logs, they are soon to be required by everyone, go out and get some experience first. THEN LATER ON!, if you want to try out flat-bedding so badly, you will know more, have more experience, and be in a much better position to make wiser decisions. Trucking IS NOT LIKE other jobs. IT IS NORMAL to move companies a couple times when you are new to it. It is like being married, only you are the commodity being sought after, not the other way around. Sometimes it works out, but most of the time these days, after all the luster and "newness" is gone, you find out you are getting screwed in ways you don't want to be. Trucking is relentlessly cut-throat and everyone knows this. Jumping from one company to another those first couple years is the norm, not the exception for these reasons. Keep that in mind only ever holding to your employer loosely.

WHATEVER YOU DO!--- DO NOT own or lease your own truck FOR AT LEAST ONE YEAR~!. PERIOD!. Let your rookie mistakes (and believe me they will happen) take their toll on someone else's equipment and the problems of breakdowns and other issues be someone else's for that first year. After that,.. GO BACK AND RE-READ MY BOOK AGAIN before getting duped into a bad deal.

That is my own $0.02c on it, and I am sure there are a LOT of others who would disagree with it because they are as thick-headed as me, but that is what I think. - Remember, I am very successful in my own truck ownership so even if people don't agree with it, it is still some very solid info nonetheless.