I think it is more fair and more of an incentive to pay a driver percentage. However, you cannot afford to pay a driver 35%. Most pay somewhere between 22-30%. I pay my drivers 25%. Keep in mind that when you have a driver in your truck all of your costs will go up. Maintenance costs will be higher, as will fuel costs.

"May be", is the key word here! There is plenty of folks, who owns the truck, pays for all costs, and still hammering down, making money for oil industries, rather than himself.... :sad:

It doesn't make any difference how you compensate your drivers. Some will be pedal to the metal all the time. Others will be more conscientious and slow it down.

I've worked with some guys that paid their drivers 50% after fuel,that might make them slow down if they thought about it.

I considered something along those lines, mike. I know a woman who owns a few trucks and that is how she pays her drivers. She told me that she has made more money doing it that way than any other. Apparently, the drivers seem to like it as well. She takes care of the truck payments out of her money and they split everything else.

That sounds like a great incentive idea....as the old saying goes: nobody works harder than they do for themselves. So if you incent them to where conserving fuel will make them $....they will do it!!

Yikes.. I've already bite and lost on that as a Driver. 2 months running watching fuel cost, not running the motor unless I really had to, my pay checks did not come up to what I was getting on Disability. But then again I was not the fault of that one, HIGH head head miles, Cheap Frieght, they did not want truck to sit and wait for better paying freight. Last load I went to pick up, was going to pay them 400.00 I had to deadhead 100 miles and the load was going to go another 273 miles. I was on near empty before I left to pick up the load. After running my program to get miles and amount fuel needed, I put in 500.00 fuel. Turned out the load would not fit in the trailer, needed a 53', I had a 48'

That sounds like a bad deal, coastie. The only way something like the fuel thing will work is if you haul decent paying freight. Percentage is the same way. Regardless of how you compensate your drivers you must have enough left over for a fair profit. You need to keep your deadhead to a minimum or be getting a good rate to justify the cost of deadheading. And you cannot haul cheap freight and survive in this business. I would be surprised if these people were still in business, coastie.

I was thinking about paying my driver:

40 CPM

Out of that, $80 a day per diem, so if he does 400 miles, he gets paid $80 per diem and $320 "rate" which equals to 40 CPM. That way he makes $80 per day tax free.

Full drop pay, $30 first drop, goes up $5 each drop

Full border pay, $20 per event, loaded or unloaded

Any fuel mileage above 7 mpg (actual gallons burned divided by PAID miles, not all miles) I would just give him the rest.

How does that sound?

I think you are giving too much away. Are you planning on paying any benefits? I think you are under estimating your costs. You need to pay a driver a good wage, but for this to work, you also need to make money. I don't think you can make enough money with the pay structure you posted. You don't need to pay a driver $0.40/mile plus $80/per diem. Once you get a driver in your truck you will find that your costs will be much greater than you expect.