Comments By Sid V.

Hi Dan, I don't know if this will help but I'm a visual person.

Put your hand out flat with your palm down in front of you. Your fingers is the front of the truck. Your palm is the rear of the trailer. Move your fingers to the right and your palm moves to the left and that's how your truck and trailer will move vice versa.

Hi CM59,

You'd be surprised how little repairs costs if it's not a mechanical failure. A truck backed into me at a truck stop and ripped a hole in my hood. It only costed $1k for a dealer to bondo the hood up. So i wouldn't beat myself over how much putting a door back on would cost.

In the future, one thing you could think about is not tell your company and go to a TA and ask them how much the repair is going to cost. I've done that too. I drove out of a bay and bent the rim on a company truck. Instead of reporting it, i just told them i'd pay for it. The whole thing costed less than $300 and i didn't have to deal with anything put on my DAC.

Davy,

The answer to your question is pretty complicated. What your describing is what happened last year in trucking. Everything was going up by small percentages and we were all passing it along to the consumer. Michael is pretty spot on when he said he was grossing $8k a week.

The problem is wages didn't match the inflation and now everything is coming to a head with gas prices crushing the consumer. You can only raise prices so much until there's no more to squeeze. Consumers stop buying, less freight has to be moved, and rates go down. It's just supply and demand.

Hi Michael,

There's really no secret, inflation is high, gas is high, people arnt doing a lot discretionary spending. Therefore freight is low, supply of trucks is high, demand for trucks is low. You've been trucking for a while, where were you when the pandemic hit? I was in dallas and the rates got as low as .75 cents a mile. Imagine taking a trip from dallas to chicago for $700.

The people that are taking the loads are people that have paid off equipment. Personally, i haven't ran for 3 weeks and it's in my opinion it's going to take at least another month to really flush out the system. People that got into $250k trucks are going to find it really tough.

In an up market you go out and run for the money. In a down market you go out and buy equipment when everything is cheap.

Hi Ivan,

Wait a couple weeks and go to hireright website and get a copy of your DAC report and see what the carrier put on it. If it's listed as a preventable accident then you're going to have to disclose that in your job application.

Here's the website: https://www.hireright.com/

Derek,

Consider some things. First, insurance and the FMCSA will not allow you to expand that fast. You have a limit of putting on one or two trucks a year. They won't let you build a fleet right away. Secondly, the more trucks you have the more your insurance cost. A lot of the time you make more money having less trucks because of this.

Lastly, and most importantly, think about the liability. If any of your drivers get into an accident it effects you and your company a lot more than the driver. The driver gets a citiation and you can fire them, but if the accident is severe enough you and your company are getting sued, over something you had nothing to do with, so you're going to have to set up an LLC, and payroll and hope nobody will come after your personal assets. Not to mention that your CSA score is at the mercy of other drivers. Once your CSA score gets low enough, brokers won't work with you.

I would reconsider your idea of sitting at home and dispatching and soaking up revenue, at least at the start. Not until you've built a fleet and that takes years of experience, hard work, and dedication.

Hi Derek,

I'm glad to see you have such good goals at your age. The biggest suggestion i have for you, and i know its kind of cheezy, is to sit down and write a business plan. That means contacting insurance agents with vin#'s, getting a copy of ryder's lease, researching the lanes you want to run, where you're going to get your loads from, contacting ooida as to how much to get your dot and mc numbers, etc. And only after you have everything down on paper can you see if it's even worth it.

Secondly, you need to be free of any financial obligations. Car loans, mortgages, credit card balances, student loans, hospital bills. etc. No debt. Thirdly, you need to save up, in my opinion, 50-60k. Cash in a savings account. If you can save up more, the better. Fourthly, you need to keep an ear to the freight market. You don't want to come out on a down year and get crushed with low rates.

I will tell you, most owner operators buy a used 3-4 year old truck, pay it off and buy a trailer. The reason is the sheer buying power after paid off equipment will outstrip any security you think you are getting when you're in a lease.

Good luck on your plans and keep focused.

Hi Brandon,

I got a warning on an inspection for the same thing in georgia. I passed in the left lane with a sign that said no trucks and received a lane violation.

It gave my carrier a couple points on our CSA score and didn't effect our insurance premiums at all. Honestly, the industry cares about out of service violations a lot more than these little slap on the wrist things.

As far as the job hunt, you should have a copy of your MVR, PSP, and your DAC report. All can be got online with minimal effort. Some places weigh violations are much as citations so be prepared for them to count it against you. But if this is the only thing you have on your record for the past 3 years it shouldn't make or break anything. Good luck and be careful.

Hi Jeremy,

Usually a warning you get on an inspection isn't as bad as a citation that goes on your MVR.

As far as i can tell, warnings and csa scores don't raise your insurance premiums. Insurance mainly goes off the driver's MVR. However, what does get effected by a low csa score is the ability to get loads. A lot of brokers won't work with you when they look up your company and you have some out of services on your record.

I've also never heard of a driver on probation. They usually keep you or get rid of you.

Have a positive attitude and keep be careful out there.

If you see anyone out here driving unsafe or acting inappropriately get their dot number off their door and look them up on the safer website and call their company and see how funny their saftey department thinks it is.

Here's the website: https://safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/CompanySnapshot.aspx