Turning my authority back on...

[Waterloo]

(06-16-2019 )smorgan87 Wrote:  I tried jb hunt power only. My last load i hauled for em was to front royal, va. Got there and the customer had no empty trailers. Well guess who else didnt have an empty trailer? JB. Afyer sitting til monday i ended up and bobtailed from VA (almost to DC) to MO, rented a wagon from xtra and got to work. That was the 3rd time they left me sitting with no trailer and no loads. Constantly wanted me to haul 45k lb beer loads for sub $2 (i dont have alcohol permits either) they only have certain loads available to power only and will not book a load from the brokerage. The power only load board did not work with android and i couldnt seem to get my point across to the dispatcher that i dont haul for free. Theyre a typical mega carrier IMO. Ive worked for them as a driver, as a PO carrier and ive hauled for their brokerage. The brokerage doesnt like me much. Ive actauly had them tell me i needed to quote them a reasonable rate and argue with me that 2 bucks to phoenix was a good rate.

I've got a line on a used trailer, sitting up the road from me, a 2102 that is supposed to be in good shape. Will find out tomorrow, will need to finance. They want $14,000 for it. I have yet to see it, but if it passes muster I may just go grab it. And I figured that if I can bag at least $1.70 a mile, I'm in the money. Truck is paid for, fuel discounts at .70 off a gallon, truck hitting 9 mpg and running good. I just need to roll, sitting for days is not cutting it. Need to renew my SCAC code too, another $85... I figure I should be ok.

[Waterloo]

(06-16-2019 )Chamberpains Wrote:  IFTA, in PA at least, is as simple as going down to the DMV and setting up the account and paying, I think, $10 for the sticker. Should be a quick painless experience. Then just file quarterly. Print or download the form online. PA is going 100% electronic this year so we no longer will get forms in the mail. Just sign up on PennDot or PA department of Revenue site for IFTA and files thru there quarterly.

Michigan used to be the same, just walk in with your numbers and get the stickers and permits... Now, sign up on internet and wait a few days for the mail to arrive. My buddy got his, took around three or four days.

[flatbed94kid]

Yea, dispatch like this:


Let's spy on Waterloo, ok, we see he is driving in real time right now with our satellite.
Now let's call him at 1130. Hehehe.
Bubba where are you? We know where your at. Why are u following that car so close? You can't see the rate con. How dare you call the broker, your not supposed to do that. We have to keep an eye on him now. What's wrong with the truck. U better get rolling.

[dhirocz]

Been strongly considering this as well. Amazing how one or two bad dispatchers can ruin a company isnt it?
What holds me back is all I know and all Ive ever done is tanker. That and I have nowhere to park a trailer...like you, Id be best power only. It seems I either have to choose to stay out all the time (life wont allow that), run cheap garbage or overweight permitted loads all the time or deal with the stress of crappy dispatchers. 6 months ago, I was absolutely thrilled and consistently made money on my FSC. Now my profit is maybe half of what it was.

[Waterloo]

(06-17-2019 )dhirocz Wrote:  Been strongly considering this as well. Amazing how one or two bad dispatchers can ruin a company isnt it?
What holds me back is all I know and all Ive ever done is tanker. That and I have nowhere to park a trailer...like you, Id be best power only. It seems I either have to choose to stay out all the time (life wont allow that), run cheap garbage or overweight permitted loads all the time or deal with the stress of crappy dispatchers. 6 months ago, I was absolutely thrilled and consistently made money on my FSC. Now my profit is maybe half of what it was.

Very sad what is allowed to go on in these companies. As far as power only, I think quite a bit will depend on where you are located. Dave at JB Hunt told me stay North, as the rates are much better, high $2.

Now, I have no idea what this JB freight is, 45,000 of beer is not doable with my heavy truck, 43,000 lbs is my cut off, etc... Could all be cheap crap freight for all I know.

But, that friend of my friend, he is hitting everyone, which is what I planned on doing, Schneider, PAM, UPS, FedEx, Amazon, Mercer, CHRW, XPO, Active Aero, etc. They all have an over abundance of trailers vs trucks. Especially when Christmas starts to fire up in September... UPS here I come if they will have me. I know Mercer has told me to call back in September, as they handle these UPS Christmas loads too. Something to look into.

I figure this is where a good load board will come in handy, looking at the DAT Premium, the everything package, $100 a month. Get a load, post the truck as to where I will be and roll. And then we have the tow away, where they pay you $100 - $300 to move the trailer, but you can load it out and use it until they need it. Another option if the trailer is freight worthy and will pass a DOT, lol.

I'm actually finding some stuff out here that looks pretty good. And if you think about it, no trailer expenses, no parking issues, when I dead head I will be bobtail, that is right around 14 +/- mpg right there vs dragging a trailer. Also seeing some dedicated stuff that requires power only that is paying pretty good. Year round freight, bounce in for a month, make bank, go home, come back...

I'll give it a shot, cannot be any worse than this drama. And there is always Menard's, LOL!

As long as I can get a rate to the truck that is $1.70 a mile or more, I am in the money and can do pretty good. Truck is paid for, no trailer expenses, high fuel mileage, and the fuel card offering up to .75 off a gallon. If I cannot do this, there is something wrong with me. Worse case, I go buy a trailer.

[Rawze]

I like my own situation. Not the most profitable but very reliable, no-nonsense income. I can come or go as I please, take time off when I want, or work hard and make a lot of $$$ if I like.


I haul cheap freight, VERY cheap!. 0.92c/mile + whatever the national rate for F.S.C. is. That kind of cheap that most would claim they can't crank up their their truck for.

BUT...

* I get paid every mile truck goes, loaded or empty, and usually even when going home from half way across the country if I wanted to. I have been paid the miles for bobtailing home from several thousand miles away before, several times, though they can choose not to pay me for that, it is optional.

* Most all expenses are paid for me, things like insurances, ifta, tolls, permits, tags, you name it. - It gets paid and does not come out of my settlement. I do pay for OA, and couple other things, adds up to about $130/week, and of course I pay for fuel.

* As far as fuel goes, I pay so little, compared to rest of industry, that it is not even funny. The mega-fleece I am leased onto buys fuel by the "tens-of-millions-of-dollar/year deals" for their company drivers, so I get that same discount. It is not unusual to pay only 1/3 or less a gallon than most others do whenever we are using their fuel network (currently TA/Petro). There is quite a bit of extra profit in this alone.

* There is no such thing as sitting really. - Since the mega-fleeece I am O/O with is a sublet of carrier for UPS, Conway, Fedex, Amazon, Estes, and every other damn carrier out there, I have never been "stuck" anywhere. - Not even in south florida.

* e-logs all the way, qualcomm, and they tell you not to drive if your too tired, if your out of hours, if there is any official reports of ice in the roadway, or if the roads require chains.

* I have been with them now for more than 10+ years, and damn qualcomm has never "beeped" with a load that did not make me a profit, i don;t care where it is going from or to.

* I have never had an incorrect paycheck, got cheated, not gotten paid, or anything else. Sure there has been discrepancy/shortfall on occasion, but they always seem to find it a paycheck or 2 later and fix it without me ever having to tell them about it.

-0-----

Downsides:

-- You are nothing but a number to them, and their "fleet dispatch managers, load planners, etc." are mostly completely useless 1st year graduate students in buisness/trucking and have no clue how a trucking operation works in the field. This means that you have to ignore them and just do whatever that qualcomm has planned for you the best you can, turn a blind eye just like an under-paid company driver would do for the rest. .. They clearly can't plan their way out of a wet paper bag most days and will stack you up with 3 or 4 loads that have no concept of proper delivery/pickup times, empty miles, etc. - They have no idea that it takes 30-45 minutes to navigate/complete a delivery before your next pick-up and that there may be 400 empty miles of driving time in between. - Actual consideration of though/planning from one load to the next on your own part that they stack you up on will only frustrate you and make you want to choke someone all the time.

How do we deal with this?...

We simply don't!. We ignore it completely and laugh about it. - We just push the truck in whatever direction it is supposed to go next at a normal pace. We just ensure to average 50 mph, same as industry standard, from pickup-to-delivery, no faster. -- No matter what they say or do, no matter how late the load is or gets. It is not my problem even if we run out of hours or it took 9 hours to get unloaded and the next pick up is 9 hours late. All we do is move the damn truck, play dumb as a brick, nothing more. - We let them be the bad guy if the truck does not make it on time due to their poor planning because no-way am I going to let it cost me more money by speeding up or doing other things trying to make the constant unrealistic deadlines. It all pays out the same 0.92/c mile to me, never changes, so therefore I have no incentive to make up for anyone else's poor planning, or for the shipper getting me out of their gate several hours late. i get that load out the gate 6 hours late, it is getting to the other end 6 hours late,.. even if I can make up the time if I had sped up,.. I am not making less profit for anyone else's poor planning.

- Low-rent freight and low-rent pay = Not my problem!, complain to someone else!.

- We love it!. -- WHY? -- Because settlement take-home, after fuel and expenses pay is usually in the $4,500 - $5,500 (roughly $2,500 average per driver) range most weeks and we make more than $80,000 - $100,000 a year of "after-all expenses and even maint. and other costs" and that is decent money no matter how you look at it. Let that damn qualcomm thing beep,.. we will go wherever it says next, ignore the rest completely, and just make our profits. In the end, I have seen hundreds of people come over here,.. some with their own authority + many people leased onto places big and small and about every situation and trucking style and company over the years.

-- In the end, when comparing it up, it all pays about the same and it is based on the type of freight you haul. With Dry-van and reefer freight, it all pays about the same no matter how you slice that pie up. Confidently, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 beign the best pay you can make in the dry-van market, I can say our take-home pay is right about 6 of 10 of what most O/O's will earn and have kept in their pockets at the end of a year. - Not great, but the advantage is the fact that that damn truck never sits unless we want it to. There is always 15+ loads waiting/ stacked up, even in the worst places in this country for it at any given moment of the day. We can be dumb as bricks, I can come and go as I please. Every load makes me a profit and I have never lost money on one yet. - That is worth every damn bit of not being the highest paid, because it allows a person rely on those things without question of headache. - i call it Owner-op on training wheels, and to me, that is all I am willing to put up with,.. to hell with all the load planning, and dead zones, and other things,.. I just want to drive, make a decent paycheck, fix on my own stuff, and the room to come and go as I please, so that is why we do it this way.

[Waterloo]

Thanks Rawze, well said, and so true.

[simon999]

I have authority 2 years. Worked out for me much better than being leased to company before.
I run dryvan. Last year I averaged $2.20-2.50 per mile. This year is slower and its only $1.80 overall average.
I dont use ooida insurance cause they are B type and lots of brokers wont give you loads.
Last year I used progressive (A), then I switched to lancer.
My factoring company takes 2.75%.
Some brokers like Uber no need factoring they pay 2-4days no fee.
I use "transconnect" fuel card (gives $0.20-0.30 off Ta and Petro cash price).
I do calculate my ifta myself (its easy through state website, need only write miles and gallons).
Drug test consortium $75 a year.
Irp plate for my truck about $1900 a year.
I do find loads myself. Idont use any dispatch service, cause imo its waste of money.
Also last year I had dot audit and I passed ok.
So yes having authority is more responsebility. But also more profit if you know what are you doing.

[Waterloo]

I called Progressive and lost my mind on what they wanted for insurance, $17,000! vs $10,300 and better coverage at OOIDA.

I called my buddy who has the list of folks that will not recognize OOIDA cargo insurance. I'm good, PTL out of Texas is about the only one that may ding me, as they own Texas, never heard of the rest other than Rhoel (sp?), never pulled their stuff, so no big deal, so no issues there. The handful of outfits were steel haulers and car haulers, no flatbed here or parking lot... So, no big deal.

Everything is ready to go, drug test tomorrow, Authority will be active on Thursday according to the guy I spoke with at the FMSCA... Handled all of the filings myself, so no issues as of yet. OOIDA covered the BOC3 filing for free, as well as the Drug Consortium seeing as I am such a good customer... Just tell them you are thinking of using Concentra... ;-)

IFTA, called them, gal said she will send out the stickers when I call her on Thursday, when authority goes active, should have them at the latest Monday or Tuesday.

ELD arrived today, good there.

Will handle KY and NY on Thursday when everything goes live... I will let OOIDA handle that for $25. Will have permits in 24 hours.

Piss me off on Thursday, WELL WELCOME TO MONDAY! ;-)

Already getting lines on freight...

And yes, it IS that easy.