Who knows a good authority shop in Canada?

[tracer]

I know it's possible to do everything over the Internet but I"ll need authorities both for Canada and US. It's probably best to hire a consultant. Anyone knows a good one in Ontario, Canada?

[mike3fan]

I have seen the rates you have been getting and I just don't see where it makes sense to get your own authority. IMO it wouldn't be worth the extra hassle of dealing with the extra insurance/paperwork and finding your own loads on a constant basis to match what you have been doing so far. If you were to ask most of the guys out there running flats/step I'm pretty sure their not making your rates, I could be wrong because I don't haul flat and really haven't talked to many, but from the vibe I get on this board it doesn't seem to great right now.

Now if you have contacts with shippers all lined up and you can get in with them that would be another thing, but also remember that any place you pick up for and deliver to with your current company is more than likely off limits due to no compete clauses in your lease that you signed.

You have a pretty good gig there where your at because they have lots of stuff moving back into Canada and alot fewer guys in the states are willing to go up there with all the new speed regulations imposed by your government.

Just a suggestion you can do with it what you want.

[tracer]

I have seen the rates you have been getting and I just don't see where it makes sense to get your own authority. IMO it wouldn't be worth the extra hassle of dealing with the extra insurance/paperwork and finding your own loads on a constant basis to match what you have been doing so far. If you were to ask most of the guys out there running flats/step I'm pretty sure their not making your rates, I could be wrong because I don't haul flat and really haven't talked to many, but from the vibe I get on this board it doesn't seem to great right now.

i wouldn't do anything right now, that's for sure. i'm just collecting information for the spring. rates i'm getting at mackinnon are all over the place. you either run like crazy, or you sit on your a** 3 days waiting for a load. the way i thought of doing this is this: i'd stay with them even after i have all the paperwork to go on my own (authority, insurance). while doing their runs i'll be sending out some business cards and flyers to try get in touch with direct shippers (not the ones mackinnon deals with). if i someone "bites", I might start phasing out mackinnon work and start working for myself, little by little.

on the other hand, they're charging me 18% (100 - 82) to provide insurance, ifta filing, authority, plates, and loads. if - after separation - i'll do as well as they're doing now, my cashflow would increase only by 18% minus whatever it'd cost me for all of the above: authority, ifta, insurance, plates, load boards, factoring, hired assassins to track disappeared brokers :) the list would probably go on and on.

the biggest advantage of going on my own for me is not the money but independence. i think i can do a better job dispatching my own truck than mackinnon. i'm sort of tired of their constant screw-ups. here's a recent example: i'm in bowling green, ky where i unloaded on friday around 6:30 pm. while i was driving to the consignee, dispatch wrote the reload would be in ghent, ky (150 mi away near nashville) but went home promptly at 5 pm without sending me the load offer or providing any load availability info. i got the load offer finally at 10:30 am today on saturday from the weekend dispatch who doesn't have a clue about this re-load. the phone number in the load offer "has been disconnected". so i'm sitting at a truck stop just north of bowling green because i don't want to drive for almost 3 hours with no guarantees of being loaded on a saturday.

they have too many trucks to deal with - that's the problem. if i were operating under my own authority, you can be sure I wouldn't "go home at 5 pm" or go to a bar and wait for things clear by themselves.

[specialkay]

First of all, you can do the paperwork yourself it's not that complicated. There was a permit office at the 230 truckstop in Woodstock Ont. If she's still there she could point you in the right direction. Second will MacKinnon let you do your own work? Carriers get very picky about these things. Some do but a lot don't. Right now the independant's I know are having a hard time matching the rate a O/O gets after the co takes their cut. A lot of shippers will cut the rate to the bone for one truck outfits or they won't even talk to you. Finally on your dispatch issues YOU have to stay on these jokers! Forget waiting for a message on the satelite. Get on the phone and yip away until you get the full info. If you keep asking about your reload before your empty they'll either tell you off or start giving some advance notice so you can plan your trips better. BTW everyone is up and down like crazy right now so you'll just have to suck it up like everyone else LOL Good luck

[tracer]

[QUOTE=specialkay;467040... Will MacKinnon let you do your own work? Carriers get very picky about these things. Some do but a lot don't. Right now the independant's I know are having a hard time matching the rate a O/O gets after the co takes their cut. A lot of shippers will cut the rate to the bone for one truck outfits or they won't even talk to you. Finally on your dispatch issues YOU have to stay on these jokers! Forget waiting for a message on the satelite. Get on the phone and yip away until you get the full info.[/QUOTE]

I suspect MacKinnon won't be happy if I get my own authority and start doing some trips on my own. This will cut into the hours of service so I won't be able to do as much for them. I could keep it under the wraps for a while but not for long. About the Dispatch: you're right. They don't like us calling the office on the phone ("use the satellite") but the information on the satellite is useless half of the time: wrong phone numbers, wrong pickup numbers, some weird abbreviations for a load type. So, I"m going to use my cell more often now (read about their latest screw-up on my blog). It's a good think I'm with Verizon and 900 min anywhere in USA and Canada is only $79.99 :)

[rank]

Your rates seem pretty good to me Tracer.

I took a quick look at my northbound averages and I'd say they were right around $3 US/loaded mile + permits for the last 6 months.....and that includes some double drop loads.....and OD loads into QC that nobody seems to want to take. Averages have been higher lately. Southbound rates suck tho from what I hear......that would be the problem.

Friday we loaded in NJ for North Bay. $1750 US on 620 loaded miles for $2.82 US/mile. Not the best rate and not the worst either. I am blessed with my own outbound, but where would you reload after that? Probably best to DH back to NJ for another load...now you're $1.42 for all miles. Is your cpm such that you can make a living on that? Maybe.

Oh yeah, my insurance is pushing $15,000 CDN/yr for truck and trailer. Liability only. Our FMCSA ISSD Safestat rating is 25. Plates are ~$2500. US customs user fee decal is $~225. Do you get a fuel discount? I get $.025/L but I have to buy 15,000 L/month at the Husky to get that.

IMO, you might do OK if you had an RGN and your step and you just sat at home and cherry picked loads for those 2 trailers, then DH down to the Dundalk area when things back up at the end of the month.

It takes a while to build contacts too. I've been at the carrier for hire business for ~3 years (started the same month as Steve Booth) and it seems like I'm starting to make a name out there. My phone rings fairly often when there is OD stuff to be moved. It's impossible to get a consistently good rates off the load boards and drive a truck.

You need a dispatcher.

[rank]

There was a permit office at the 230 truckstop in Woodstock Ont. If she's still there she could point you in the right direction.
that's "730 permits". I used to deal with the branch at the 730 truck stop but they started making too many screw ups, not taking my calls etc. You can try novapermits.com out of QC. That's who I use now. All 730 does for me now is my IFTA filing for $30/month per truck.....and I'm sure they are screwing that up too. I have a feeling they aren't deducting my NY toll rd miles.

[GMAN]

You may check with OOIDA. I believe that they have a Canadian affilate and they have been assisting people get their authority for a number of years. www.ooida.com (http://www.ooida.com) is their web address. There are also several who regularly advertise in some of the trucking magazines.

[tracer]

that's "730 permits". I used to deal with the branch at the 730 truck stop but they started making too many screw ups, not taking my calls etc. You can try novapermits.com out of QC. That's who I use now. All 730 does for me now is my IFTA filing for $30/month per truck.....and I'm sure they are screwing that up too. I have a feeling they aren't deducting my NY toll rd miles.

They have a branch in Fort Erie, ON, that truck plaza off Exit 5 on QEW. I talked to them but she wanted 3 grand for all permits and authorities. It seems too much. One of the guys who had 3 trucks with MacKinnon left (he drove one himself) and got his own authority. He bought used reefer trailers and seems to be doing okay. He told me he used some East Indian authority place in Brampton ON for his permits. No offence, but I wouldn't trust these guys to grease my truck, let alone prepare INTERSTATE and INTER-Country authority papers! I'd probably be stopped and cavity searched each time I'd try to cross the border :)

[tracer]

Your rates seem pretty good to me Tracer.

I took a quick look at my northbound averages and I'd say they were right around $3 US/loaded mile + permits for the last 6 months.....and that includes some double drop loads.....and OD loads into QC that nobody seems to want to take. Averages have been higher lately. Southbound rates suck tho from what I hear......that would be the problem.

Friday we loaded in NJ for North Bay. $1750 US on 620 loaded miles for $2.82 US/mile. Not the best rate and not the worst either. I am blessed with my own outbound, but where would you reload after that? Probably best to DH back to NJ for another load...now you're $1.42 for all miles. Is your cpm such that you can make a living on that? Maybe.

Oh yeah, my insurance is pushing $15,000 CDN/yr for truck and trailer. Liability only. Our FMCSA ISSD Safestat rating is 25. Plates are ~$2500. US customs user fee decal is $~225. Do you get a fuel discount? I get $.025/L but I have to buy 15,000 L/month at the Husky to get that.

IMO, you might do OK if you had an RGN and your step and you just sat at home and cherry picked loads for those 2 trailers, then DH down to the Dundalk area when things back up at the end of the month.

It takes a while to build contacts too. I've been at the carrier for hire business for ~3 years (started the same month as Steve Booth) and it seems like I'm starting to make a name out there. My phone rings fairly often when there is OD stuff to be moved. It's impossible to get a consistently good rates off the load boards and drive a truck.

You need a dispatcher.

15 grand for insurance? Wow. That's the 18% MacKinnon takes off me right there. Unless of course I get much higher rates that what I'm getting now with MacKinnon, 82% they're paying me seems like a good deal. My insurance runs me only about 600-700 bucks a month (5% of the revenue).

"Cherry-picking" is what I'd love to do. My idea is to do 1 (one) load a month that'd pay 10 grand in profit and then sit at home resting before getting another load :) The company would be called of course PARADISE TRUCKING. Wouldn't it be great?

[tracer]

You may check with OOIDA. I believe that they have a Canadian affilate and they have been assisting people get their authority for a number of years. www.ooida.com (http://www.ooida.com) is their web address. There are also several who regularly advertise in some of the trucking magazines.

Thanks!

[rank]

>15 grand for insurance? Wow.
$12,000 for liability on the truck and $1,500 for trailer. IMO your first step should be to get some ins quotes. You may find you have a pretty good deal where you are.

[tracer]

>15 grand for insurance? Wow.
$12,000 for liability on the truck and $1,500 for trailer. IMO your first step should be to get some ins quotes. You may find you have a pretty good deal where you are.

That makes sense. I'm not ready now but will get some insurance quotes in the spring. Thanks.

[mike3fan]

My insurance runs me only about 600-700 bucks a month (5% of the revenue).

600-700 bucks a month for what? That seems outrageous for truck and trailer insurance?

[wildkat]

600-700 bucks a month for what? That seems outrageous for truck and trailer insurance?

Mike truck insurance up here is very high. $600-$700/month is actually very low for up here...most place you'll pay that just for TRACTOR insurance...alot of companis charge double-triple that.

[mike3fan]

Mike truck insurance up here is very high. $600-$700/month is actually very low for up here...most place you'll pay that just for TRACTOR insurance...alot of companis charge double-triple that.


Wonder how they justify that? Can't be from all the truck Moose run-ins?

[allan5oh]

Combonation of worse roads that aren't taken care of as well as the US roads, worse weather, lots of critters, and no-fault insurance. The last one is a real doozy. We had an accident a while back where a vehicle lost control and slammed into one of our trucks, puncturing the fuel tank. Cost of diesel cleanup? $40k. Guess who pays.

[tracer]

Mike truck insurance up here is very high. $600-$700/month is actually very low for up here...most place you'll pay that just for TRACTOR insurance...alot of companis charge double-triple that.

mike got me scared there for a second. then i read the wildcat's post above and kinda relaxed: i'm in canada! to be fair, that number i usually show as "insurance" is a sum of all "insurances" they deduct from my pay check (eg mandatory personal insurance for coverage in usa when i travel outside of canada). but the truck insurance does run 5% of the revenue. that's the truth.

this shows again how vastly different trucking is in canada and usa! you americans have an easy life compared to what we have to deal with north of the border :)

[allan5oh]

Rules are also vastly different. Up here the carrier must buy the insurance. They can charge the cost back to the contractor, that's up to them. Totally different from the states.

[rank]

Wonder how they justify that? Can't be from all the truck Moose run-ins?
Once a yank sees a Canadian plate they start seeing dollar signs. Canada only rates aren't as bad.

[specialkay]

It's actually pretty simple Mike it's called GREED LOL Most of the big carriers up here are basically self insured on the equipment side. Then they charge 5% of the gross and rake in the money. When i was plated in Mi my truck/trailer ins (no liability) was $225/month now being plated in Ont. it's $154 a week and thats cheap compared to 5% of the gross.

[rank]

When i was plated in Mi my truck/trailer ins (no liability) was $225/month now being plated in Ont. it's $154 a week ....
"no liability"? Me no understand..........

[specialkay]

The carrier picks up the liability ins and I pay the collision ins on the equipment.

[rank]

The carrier picks up the liability ins and I pay the collision ins on the equipment.
ahhhhhh. gotcha.