I've been getting lots of emails from people asking how I'm doing so I thought I would post it here.
Actually I'm doing better than ever. I'm not sure if it's because so many truckers are going of of business but I've been in many bad area's that have paid well. I was in Montana the other week and the number of loads available was 250 and the number of trucks within a 100 mile radius was 20.
I think you've heard me talk about a woman broker that I dealt with a lot in the past. Well, she has agreed to find me loads for a 5% fee so she's been doing all my paperwork and I pretty much do nothing but drive. She's been in the business for over 25 years so she knows where to send me and where not too unless the customer pays more for dead heading out. She sure keeps me hoping. She works from home so she has the time to devote to doing this instead of part time when she has the chance.
She's a free lance broker for a few brokerage houses so this works out well for her since she gets new contacts from shippers every time I get a load. My loads have nothing to do with her company by the way. They are all in my name only.
She's looking to taking on 2 more people and possibly make it a full time job since just doing me as turned out to be so lucrative.
I've been doing a lot of long runs at least 2,200 miles. I've also tried to pick a load that's under 30,000 and doesn't take up my whole deck and picking up LTL loads along the way. Most weeks I've been grossing $8,000 to $8,500 on around 2500 miles.
Starting out on a long run with a decent rate starts to add up when you pick up LTL's along the route for $1.00 per mile.
I've been heading up to Canada a lot and getting paid full rate to dead head sometimes over 1,000 miles back into the U.S. to a better paying area. I tell the brokers this and they just about drop dead. I say fine and that I'm not interested. Most of the time they call back. They can't find anyone that doesn't have a criminal record and the proper Canadian paperwork and insurance.
I'll tell you one thing. All the horror stories I heard about heading into Canada is all a bunch of crap. They are not a bunch of Nazi's and it's very relaxed. You show up, walk over to the broker, get your paperwork and your gone. I was led to believe in the past that it was like one mistake and they ripped your truck apart. NOT TRUE. It's easy.
I'm in Cortez Utah at the moment with some very high priced custom machinery headed to the Mexican border. I will be off loaded and another carrier will take it across the border to deliver. The stuff is in excess of $400,000 but they didn't ask me to increase my insurance. It took them 3 extra hours to load me and I was given $300 more for detention. The plant manager came out and made them take parts off and crate them up. He was afraid my tarp would bend the parts.
