I can't imagine the shipper wouldn't require the broker to have insurance. Ultimately, the broker is liable because he has the contract with the shipper. His insurance or him may come after you down the road to collect to difference, but that's negotiable.

Every business has regulations, especially when there are those that want big Gov't. I know people in auto repair, nail salon, office supplies, etc and they all feel like to much regulation.

I bought a gas can a few months ago at Walmart and the nozzle had some screwy design to capture fumes. It was a major hassle just to pour gas from it. I too it off and just poured it old school. If some EPA guy came by he would have given me a hard time.

 

You think you guys got it bad. Try doing environmental work. When i pump a tank. They want to know the gallons, what was in it, if its getting pumped enough. etc etc. Plus all the DOT stuff on top of it.

 

Wow, we got an empty container stolen from our yard. Camaras were not in the right spot. I worked for a company as a driver and in 5 years, 12 vans loaded of Budweiser beer were stolen. The suspicion was inside job. Hopefully you know who is in your company. The Liberal stuff is true. If people (older) begin voting again, we wouldn't have these clowns in office! If people don't come out in 2014 and get rid of the traitors, this country is lost. The reason you are feeling conservative is because you have a business and the Authorities are trying everything to make it impossible for you to become wealthy in this country! Hope things work out for you.

 

The hits keep on coming. We had a truck rollover by a gust of wind today in Illinois. It was empty. I have had so much damage in the last few months it's beyond belief. I just hired a safety person and we are all working our tails off but it just doesn't seem to be enough. I mean we are not a one truck operation but mid 30's is not huge. I don't see why we keep having these problems. Unbelievably with all these massive damages, nobody has been hurt or (knock on wood) have we had a liability claim.

The guy that wrecked the truck in Atlanta, he filed for Workman's Comp, but that was basically fraud and we had everything documented and he's going to get screwed. By the way, we use the application that was originally used from the compliance department I outsourced to when I first got going. It is so thick I never even bothered to read through it all. But there were things he signed which he definitely didn't follow after the crash that does not make him look good. This is why I suggest outsourcing when you get started.

The day will come when we have to pay the piper, but unbelievably we are still a profitable company. I am meeting with a lawyer next week, as it seems that people see me as some target now, whether it's employees or outside people. I need to protect myself. This is gotten way bigger than I imagined. Yet I am in truth disappointed in the slow growth. I want to be up to 100 trucks as soon as possible. That's just my personality.

The new company is just about up. I have everything filed but the application is still pending. The cargo isn't listed on the FMCSA's website and I asked the agent about that and she said it's not required. Looking again it says it is not required. I don't see how companies can monitor if something happens if it's not there.

I'm looking forward to get into the intermodal business. It was weird, I send the main dispatcher/price analyst ( I hate titles, I even myself never sign owner or CEO or whatever I just put MGR.) to the monthly port meetings (I don't like those things) and he met the guy from FEC (the rail company) and I think they thought we were bigger than we are as he seemed to know who we were and said they were talking about us as they see our trucks all over Florida and wanted us as a customer. We are not prepared for that yet.

I'll say this, with the all the new insurance tightening and everything else I don't see how someone can get into this business now. Ryder has clamped down big time. I'm having trouble getting one stupid rental for the new company as they won't rent to new entries. Even though I am a good existing customer (my current company could get a rental) but they are looking at the new one as a new one. My rep has to speak to the head of credit because in truth the only reason I opened up the new company was changes in their current insurance policy which would prevent me from getting the UIIA endorsement (for drayage etc).

I need to hit the Powerball, well I guess we all do.

Be safe.

 

Hello all, Ive got a question for Merrick4.
If I am correct, from your posts it seems that you lease all your tractors. Did you find that the cost of repairs and maintanence of you own trucks was equal to the cost of full service leasing? Obviously it works for you. Im curious what does a full service lease cost per month per truck? How long does it last? What services does it include? Who pays for what insurance on the truck. Any other info you might think is relevent is appreciated also.
BTW, that is one interesting trucking story your living. Keep it up and Good Luck out there.

 

At this point I couldn't give you a good comparison. I've been leasing several years it seems anyway. I wouldn't be an accurate comparison either, as I was running used trucks before and now they are brand new. The days of the blown turbos are over. We just did have a transmission go but Ryder took care of it and gave us a sub which doesn't cost extra. So driver could still make money. As for the cost, each truck is a little different but I just pulled up the invoice (which was over $100,000) and I can give you an example. One truck cost $2419.70 fixed plus$268.91 for liability coverage and $172.05 for physical damage. Then the variable was $.0653 per mile for 8097 miles for a total of $3,389.39. This is for a 2014 Cascadia.

As for the terms of the lease, the can vary. If I remember you can get it for 3 years but they put those in the rental fleet. I like to get refrigerators in them for the drivers so I think the last one I did was for 54 months.

I am getting a quote this week on a new Cascadia Evolution. It's an automatic. We are running one now as a test and the driver was reluctant at first but he likes it a lot now.

Any other questions feel free to ask. Oh by the way, the driver who got knocked over by the wind is ok. He's been with me for a while. He's sore and I told him to go to the doctor, but he just to go home and rest a couple of weeks. He's bringing the trailer back and the truck is up there. It was actually a sub truck for his which broke down and they gave him another one to use to get back home. Another benefit of Ryder, we are never really stuck without a truck. He went to a hotel for a couple of days to rest and get his bearings back and we loaded him down today.

 

Hi all! I am new to the website and have just read most of the merrick4 story. HOW AWESOME..and good job, well done. I am the wife of a trucker and hear stories from him all the time about this driver or that driver. I got a sense of life on the road when my husband finished drivers school and signed on with his first company. The day he brought the company truck home was a nightmare. We stocked up on cleaning supplies and spent 2 days scrubbing out the interior of the truck. When that didn't work, I pulled out the stream cleaner and steamed the inside. Hubby was not lease/purchasing, at that time, just driving for a company. He, like you, takes pride in his job. Other drivers should pay attention! When hubby left that company to lease/purchase from another one, the drivers at the old company were fighting over who was going to get his clean truck. Dah! If someone threw up in their new Ford F150, they'd be cleaning out their drawers! It doesn't take a whole lot of time to sweep out a truck and wipe things down, stay organized.

Enough of that, I have a question for you.

Why do the "dispatchers" NOT monitor the weather? Example: With the recent cold weather/ice/snow in the southeast, were they not monitoring for their own purposes anyway? So why not help the drivers, since the dispatcher should know where the trucks are, and alert them to bad weather. Hubby was in TN this last week, waiting for a load to bring him home for the weekend. (He had to be home for a dental appointment this Monday) He received calls from the dispatcher over and over for loads that would not bring him home on time. Not once did the dispatcher tell him that the weather was going to be getting bad. (Hubby is now an O/O and is trying, unsuccessfully, to get the dispatchers/company to understand and accept that he wants to be home every other weekend.) In your company, is the company not liable for the safety of the driver?

 

As has been my experience with companies....

They have one thing and one thing only in mind....The bottom line on the Profit and Loss statement. Make it as big as possible. The driver is nothing but a tool just like the truck. Between that steering wheel and the nut holding it, there are a ton of regulations that must be complied with.

Unfortunately, unless it's involving EPA, OSHA or something like that, your husbands safety is the last thing of consideration to anybody but your husband and you. Weather is irrelevant to dispatchers. Their task is to ensure a load is on-time to the customer. Anything that disrupts that or makes it be rescheduled is a service failure and a hit to their own job performance.

And for the record, I am an independent O/O for a reason. It's amazing the look on a receiver or shippers face when they are told, "why don't you call my dispatcher and tell them the problem." and they suddenly realize that they are talking to you. Changes a lot of attitudes really quick.

Drivers in this industry are looked down upon as a second class citizen as if they are not capable of bringing themselves up. I see that attitude time and again. With dispatchers, brokers, receivers and shippers.

One thing your husband needs to realize is he is no longer a driver. He is a business owner. Plain and simple. It just so happens that about 25% of his duties involve driving. If he is not allowed to operate his business as he deems, then he needs to move or change his practices. If they are not letting him be home every other weekend, then he needs to change companies he's leased to. His truck, his rules. If he accepts what they say, then he has changed his business practices.

I mostly run my loads off of load boards, It keeps me busy enough that I don't have to be leased to a company. I have regular brokers I work with that keep me busy I am using the boards less and less. I am not making a million a week, but I am paying off debt and making progress. So that's good enough for me.

 

Ok this is an interesting topic. As for Roxie's question about the company being responsible for the safety of the driver. Well in part that is very true and in part very false. The true part, if the weather is bad it would be reckless to push a driver to drive in unsafe conditions or to make him run 1000 miles over night or stuff like that. We are also responsible for making sure he/she has good working legal and safe equipment to drive.

Where it is very false, well if a guy is on a legal load or sick or tired or anything else, and doesn't pull over well then the driver is responsible for his own safety. We always say CDL stands for Can deliver Late. Obviously we care about our on time delivery percentage, but we'd rather be late then have someone kill themselves or rollover the truck. Also if the truck is having problems and the driver doesn't report it, then his own personal safety is on him. Trust me, we fix everything, yet time and time again, well lets just say some of these guys have no sense. All they live for is the next paycheck without looking at the big picture. I guess in short we are responsible for what we have control of.

As for mndriver's comment that all we care about is the bottom line (and just to be clear I believe you are stating your position and not trying to be rude and neither am I), well I would tend to agree. So with that in mind, a wrecked truck or a dead driver, WILL affect the bottom line. So worrying about the safety of the driver absolutely does come into mind, maybe not for the right reasons but nonetheless it does.

As for driver's being treated like second class citizens. Look at the way a lot of them conduct themselves. I drove all over this country. Why oh why do people feel the need to throw pee bottles all over the place? Why is it that the true professional drivers would rather stop at a rest area instead of a truck stop?

Some of the guys make a lot of money but again they don't look at the big picture. They run and run and smash the truck and move on to the next company. But that's not just the trucking industry. My wife is a chief compliance officer for a broker/dealer (stocks, bonds etc) and she can't stand being responsible for these brokers. Because in the end all the brokers are worried about is making as much money as possible and if she doesn't catch if they do something wrong and Finra or the SEC comes in, the broker and her will be fined and marks on their licenses. The difference is a broker can just take their book of business and move on to the next company and be fine. But as a compliance officer, well they don't generate money, they are more like an insurance policy, so them having a mark on their record is much more damaging.

Finally I would like to comment about monitoring the weather. I admit we don't do that as good as we should but a lot of that is my fault. I am from Massachusetts. Hurricanes are a joke, snow storms are par for the course, we don't have tornados, earthquakes, tidal waves; nothing. So a lot of time I just don't take that stuff serious. Now look what we just had in Atlanta, one driver got mad at us, but I mean the mayor wasn't even prepared for how bad it was going to be. It took everyone by surprise, how were we supposed to know? But again I just have a tendency not to take that stuff serious due to my upbringing. My wife wants a house with a back yard and I don't want a back yard, for good lord there's crocodiles or alligators in the canals all over here. Not to mention snakes etc. In Mass, the worst thing we had was poison ivy which I got every year.

Good questions and comments. I am very open, feel free to ask anything.

 

There is a guy that used to be here on CAD that has a 2004 truck and spent 27,000 last year on maintenance and repairs. His truck is paid off. It makes a good argument if he's better off with a leased truck like Merrick and not worry about fixing things and just make the lease payment.

If he would learn to fix things himself he's save about 10,000 a year. That would change the debate of old vs new.