So I'm an owner operator officially now. A little over a year ago I was coming out of CDL school. I drove local for 6 months then OTR for another 6 and now I'm out here in my own truck. If I didn't wake up the last few nights thinking "what the did I get myself into" I'd be lying. I remember reading in the beginning of Steve Booth's thread that in the beginning he was calling GMAN panicking or something like that, well If I had his number I probably would be doing the same.
One thing I'm determined is to make sure that I didn't just by myself a job. So I probably will be doing a separate thread about the numbers I'm running; sort of like a diary but just for the numbers. It is good to see how to improve things and the help on this board is invaluable.
My first load which I'm still on was out of Miami which is real bad for freight right now (well I guess it always is). I got 10 pallets of produce with 3 stops. Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma. All to walmart dc's. Total mileage was about 1500 and it's a flat rate of $2150. It came to about $1.41 total per mile. Plus I am unloading it myself. One for the few minutes it takes to unload I'll take the money and two, it's a brand new trailer and I don't want them banging up the walls with the forklifts. One guy even commented how nice the trailer was and said most of them have holes in the walls. And thirdly I'm thin and fit and want to stay that way.
I should add that my first two trips to Walmart went well. I delivered to them before with my previous company and they were a pain, but I think, and it's only my first load so I can't state this for fact, but they don't like to have produce sitting around. I hope it stays like this.
As I know very little about what freight lanes are paying what, I don't book my own freight. I pay someone $150 a week and he runs my truck with his. He has I think 11. I have my own authority and I will be billing the customers on my own. He will not be putting anything on my truck unless it will go on his. He won't haul cheap freight, but nonetheless I will be posting my numbers and looking for feedback from this forum. I need to learn this stuff myself.
I will say driving my own truck is different than driving for a company. In the company truck I had the pedal to the floor (it was governed at 70) and now I'm doing about 62. One for better fuel mileage and two just easier on the truck. Honestly I feel for these fleets. I mean I consider myself highly responsible and I was never late and I didn't tear up the truck and turned it in cleaner than I got it, but when you are being paid $400 a week, it's hard to care. I certainly never stood on docks counting freight. For the money they paid me, I showed up on time and had no desire to go further.
Now this first load, I'm watching everything, taking the pulp temp. Even the idling, in the company truck I didn't shut the truck off. I just didn't care. Now I stop for two seconds and the truck is off. I did buy and APU and so far am glad I did. I set the comfort level I want and it kicks on every once in a while at night to mantain the temperature I want.
I have been paying for fuel with a credit card looking for the 5% back, but I just checked online and the TA coded my fuel purchase as a restaurant purchase. Dirty bastards. I don't know if that is the company policy but if so I will never fuel there again.
I guess one final thing, like I said I plan on doing a numbers diary of sort nothing really personal, but I will just add here one thing I saw today cause it scared the hell out of me. A truck in front of me rolled over. I mean to see that was something else. I guess he edged off the side of the road for what reason I don't know. He managed to get control of it but he was hauling some sort of water pump thing for the oil fields and I guess the water in the tanks started sloshing. It was all kind of a blur to be honest. Really I just saw a bunch of smoke and then I noticed the truck going sideways and then the trailer turned over and tood the truck with it.
The smoke was from the tires, the truck a little ahead of me in the next lane said it seemed like he wasn't paying attention and just edged the side of the road. I was hanging back so I missed the very beginning but watched it roll over. There were 3 guys in the truck. They all got out ok, and the driver was a little wobbly but I guess he was coherent. There was diesel fuel all over the place. Anyway an ambulance came and took the driver but didn't get far and stopped and the helicopter came and took him away. He was walking around at first but it could have been adrenilne. They shut the highway down of course I35 but it was only for about an hour. They moved the truck off the road and the firemen started hosing the road down and then a truck came with sand and then they opened it back up.
Like I said though, it scared the hell out of me. One false move and a lot can happen. Bad enough a truck getting smashed up, but obviously worse the body being damaged. Thank god I never even broke a bone in life, never mind have to be heliported out.
Well that's all I guess, I appreciate all the help I've gotten here and especially to GMAN who has been an invaluable resource to my questions posted here. Hopefully I'll be around for awhile and hopefully I will turn this into something. Like I said, I didn't get into this to just buy myself a job.
Thanks.