This percentage can work out well for them. At $2.00 a mile (linehaul) at 25% thats $.50 a mile.

I went and got the truck back today. I wish I could have kept him. What a nice guy and good driver. I got lucky for my first one. He's was real happy too. Compared to his last job, now with prepass, sat radio which I left in there for him, payment real quick; he was real appreciative.

A little heavy on the pedal but overall like I said I got lucky for the first one. I got the regular in there now whom I hired. Let's see if I can make this two for two.

 

Good luck, Merrick. I hope things work out with the new driver.

 

That kind of underscores what I mean when I said they only care about what affects them. The bills were stamped therefore he was at risk....so he parked.

 

[quote="merrick4"

This percentage can work out well for them. At $2.00 a mile (linehaul) at 25% thats $.50 a mile.

[quote]w/out medical and 401k?

 

Thanks Gman for wishing me luck. Person, well no I don't offer a 401K but most of them are not matched anyway and most people would be better to do something on their own.

Anyway I kind of thought there must be something wrong with the idling rate as it was idling so much but not burning fuel. Well here's with Driver number 2:

04/23/2008 19:00 n/a
Latest reading 04/29/2008 13:00 n/a
Report duration 138.00 hours n/a
DISTANCE/FUEL
Odometer 144863.3 to 147459.5 n/a
Total Distance 2,596.2 miles avg 451.5 / day
Total Fuel 391.000 gallons n/a
Average MPG 6.64 miles/gallon n/a
Average Speed 57.5 mph n/a
TIME BREAKOUT
Engine Time 51.39 hours 37.2%
Moving Time 45.19 hours 32.7%
Over RPM Time 96.73 minutes 3.1%
Over Speed Time 17.13 hours 37.9%
Excess Speed Time 0.11 hours 0.3%
IDLE BREAKOUT
Long Idle Time 3.37 hours 6.6%
Long Idle Count 8 avg 25.25 mins each
Long Idle Fuel 0.607 gallons avg 0.08 gals each
Short Idle Time 2.84 hours 5.5%
Short Idle Count 328 avg 31 seconds each
Short Idle Fuel 2.142 gallons avg 0.01 gals each
PTO BREAKOUT
PTO Fuel 0.106 gallons n/a
PTO Time 0.38 hours n/a

Much less idling. Better fuel mileage too. The starter I think is going though. He was stuck for a while today til someone told him to bang the starter.

I got a call from Driver Number 1, he wants to come back with me. That was nice to hear that. I did try in his short time to keep him happy. Answer the phone when he calls, resolve all problems ASAP and pay fast.

Really not rocket science. I was thinking when I was with a big company, anytime you were in the yard, early in the morning they would come around and bang on the door to check mileage etc to see if the truck needed to be serviced.

They ought to have went around later (not waking people up) and see if the drivers had issues too. A well kept truck with no driver is useless just as a good driver with a broken truck is useless as well.

 

>I got a call from Driver Number 1, he wants to come back with me. That was nice to hear that.
Time to buy another truck & trailer. If you're not driving, you need approx 5 to make a decent living anyway.

 

Could you please elaborate on why that is so ? Thanks.

 

Well considering that you usually you tell people to stay away from this business I take that as a major compliment Rank. .

Actually I don't want to go too fast, but I seem to be keeping this truck running pretty well. I have to say I appreciate now having someone look for loads while the truck is moving. And I'm really appreciating working off the spot market.

I wouldn't mind either taking on maybe an O/O but then again with this GPS etc I can keep a tight control on things and my own truck. My name (or the company name, well both really) is very important to me.

For the last 3 weeks I have been billing between $6,000 to $7,000 a week. If I can keep this up I think I can keep my percentage and pay someone well.

Of course it helps to have people that want to work.

 

Smiles as he's writing...yeah I had my tongue in my cheek a little bit there Merrick but I figure if anyone can do it you can. Besides, you're obviously determined to ignore my plea for you to stay away so you may as well go at it LOL.

Graymist; My thinking is that each truck and trailer would only net approx $10,000/year and a family would want at least $50,000 to make all the risk, effort and capital investment worth it.