Stay away from this deal.

I've spent a fair bit of time looking at what you guys as o/o, idependents, & lease operators go through down south, & I wonder how you guys manage to survive.

90 cents/mile??? I was getting that back in 1991, when fuel was less than $1/gallon...

Somehow I think I have it pretty good up here...

Here's what my operations look like...

I'm not just sure how things work down south guys, but I'll give a short rundown on how it tends to work up here.

I am "leased on", but we still call ourselves owner-operators, so as not to confuse the terms, I will stick with you guy's terms, with a regional carrier.

I am paid by the mile, depending on how many axles I pull, my company provides all insurance & plates at a fixed rate, & that varies depending on who you work for & where you run to. And they also provide fuel cards & do NOT charge for using them, as some companies do, so we get the better fuel rate that the company is able to negotiate with their supplier.

My average rate/mile is $1.52 loaded or empty, if I have to bobtail anywhere(which is almost never) I get 5 axle rate, plus I get a "fuel supplement" (LTL carrier), currently around 10% of my gross revenue, to help offset the high cost of fuel, the company also pays all permits required. They also calculate & submit our fuel tax.

Oh, I almost forgot...our operations are striclty pin to pin...we do NOT donate 1 second of time, we get paid to make & break trains, waiting time for mechanical break downs on trailers, if we have to wait for trailers, etc, and for extra drops.

They also allow us to use their national accounts to buy things like tires, & if we have a major repair, they will allow us to use their accounts without a service charge if the full amount comes off our next statement. They will also allow you to finance a large repair or if for instance you need to buy 10 tires at once over 3 months, but will add 10% for that priviledge. We can also get all regular maintence, such as oil changes & such for much less than it would cost to do anywhere else, as their per hour shop rate is 1/2 what anyone else charges & we also pay their rate for things like oil & parts, which is about 25% less than retail.

We pull company owned trailers, mostly reefers in which THEY pay all repairs, maintenance & fuel for.


We are also given a Safety Bonus, if at the end of each calendar year you have not had an accident or incident, which is 1% of our gross revenue, for me about $3000/truck...nice to pay the Christmas bills with. ;D ;D They also provide optional medical & dental benefits.

As of my last statement, I cleared over $27,000 for the month of October after fuel, insurance, plates, etc for both trucks. And out of that I make my truck payments & pay myself & my driver of my second truck.

All in all I think I have it pretty good, as I have done my calculations till the end of Sept this year & am looking at a net profit with 2 trucks of 23% (about $80,000 before taxes) and the second truck was only purchased in May of this year.

Who do you wok for wildkat?

Grimshaw Trucking, based out of Edmonton, AB. We run excluseively Alberta & NWT

Good deal, Wildkat! 8) And on top of that, your $$$, starting looking like a real money! :lol: :wink:

The nice thing is we have a HUGE amount of miles. Our turnover for drivers (both company & owner-operator) is practically ZERO.

Many of our o/o's are on dedicated runs with minimum of 3,000 miles/week. Myself, I'm basically a floater, I go wherever, but mostly from Edmonton to Yellowknife, which gives me nearly 4,000/week. So I can't complain, they keep me busy, & it's basically 5 days/week, but when we get into our busy time (hmmm I don't think we HAD a slow time this year :lol: ) I've been known to go weeks without a day off & because our HOS, especially North of 60, is quite a bit different, we can really pack them on. I tend to average about 15,000 miles/month, but when we get busy, that's a slow month! :lol: :lol:

I might have to find out what it would take to get the equivalent of the CDL in canada and call wildkat a call if hilary gets elected. :D the wife said she wants to move if we get another clinton in the whitehouse.

As far as I know furbis, you would have to go through the whole training, etc all over again as we do not recognize the CDL up here, there is no real evquivelancy for it. Our licencing system is quite different, as it is illegal to hold more than one driver's licence here, & our system of licencing is done by "Class", for instance I have a Class 16 licence, Class 1 being for the trucks & 6 being for a motorcycle and that allows me to drive pretty much anything on the road. A Class 5 is a car licence & so forth. Depending on the province in which you live the licences are notated either by letter or by number, here in Alberta it is by number, and then there are several endorcement certificates that can be added on, for instance I have my LCV (long combination vehicle) endorsement, which allows me to pull extended length (triples, turn-pikes, rocky mountain doubles), but those are company specific as is what you call Haz-Mat (here is TDG) & those are taught by the individual companies.

I suggest that if that is what you want to do, decide where you want to go then check with the province's DOT website for specific requirements.

I'LL bet the weather up there going to Yellowknife gets interesting ???

thanks for the info, I think I will do a little reasearch, mostly for fun but you never know. my wife has a cousin who lives in calgary and her husband is a big wig with a oil drilling company there. so we have a contact there but it would be a huge undertaking to make a move like that.