Owning A Truck/Driving For A Company

So I was talking to some truckers and the guy says he owns a rig aka truck that he has a guy drive for him but he also drives for a company and he says he makes good money doing both. I didn't go into detail of how is this possible but have any of you done this before or know if this is possible or plausible?

Michael, I have met some company drivers who also own a truck of their own and have someone else driving it. I think it is fairly common, but not necessarily abundantly common. The way this usually gets started is a guy decides to be an owner/operator and starts struggling at it right out of the box. So now he wants to change his mind, but he is stuck with a note at the bank, or leasing company and he can't seem to unload his truck for the money he's got into it so he gets a driving job and then hires a friend to run his truck so he can keep the note paid.

The truly successful independent truck driver is a rarity in today's market. It is just about impossible to compete with the buying power of the large carriers who can negotiate the best price on everything from fuel, to tires, right on down to individual parts for their trucks. I can guarantee you that when a person starts bragging about how they have a truck or two of their own, and they are also driving a truck for a company, inwardly they are wishing they could just figure out a way to get rid of the truck they own without losing a bunch of money in the transaction, but truck drivers are such proud Alpha Male types usually, that they just keep on lying to themselves and their friends hoping they can save some face.

I don't recommend you trying their business model if that thought has crept into your head. If you want to learn this business, be a company driver for several years before you try any other aspect of it. And save a lot of money during those years as a company driver, because you will need it after you make that first truck purchase. I've owned six big trucks, I know what a pain and a drain they can be.

Old School nailed it. If the driver was doing well with the truck he owned, he would be driving it. He couldn't make any money owning that truck so he took a company job and found someone else to at least keep it rolling so he can make the payments on it.

And you'll almost never hear of anyone who owns a successful business "on the side". Not one that makes a worthwhile profit. Competing in business takes every last bit of energy, time, and money you can muster. If you're not focused on it you'll never get anywhere with it. So don't be fooled into thinking he came up with something clever and now has two incomes coming in. That's not the case. If he was making a worthwhile profit off the truck he owned he would buy 50 more and either drive one himself if that's what he enjoyed or he'd stay home and manage them.