Team Driving....Is It The Right Fit For You?

The first thing people think about when wanting info on team driving is more miles. Two people driving in a truck means more miles therefore more money but is that actually true? The answer may surprise you.

When looking at team driving lets keep this post strictly to what most people are concerned with when first coming into the trucking industry....Miles = Money.

There are two type of teams trucks. The first type is to strangers/teammates and the second type is husband and wife/money going into the same bank account type of team. Most new people coming into the trucking industry fall into the first group as most companies like CRST and PAM and many others make their drivers team up even after training. I am going to compare this post against a solo driver.

Most "first type" teams roughly do between 4800 and 6500 miles per week. To make the math easy we will use 5000 miles a week as an average which is mostly true. The pay can vary from company to company but a lot of trucks get paid .40 to .50 cpm. Again to keep the math easy lets use .50 cpm to the truck. Key words here are To the truck. That means if a team is doing 5000 miles per week the miles are split between the two drivers in the truck meaning each driver drives for .25 cpm. 5000 miles @.50 cpm is $2500 dollars a week. That split in half at $1250 per driver each pay period BEFORE taxes. Each drive ends up bring home between $700 and $900 dollars a week depending on your home state tax rate. Sadly now a days most team with the rare exception are doing closer to 4800 miles per week and some are closer to 4000 miles per week.

And then there is the team drivers individually you have to look at which I will not go into on this post cause that would require cause that is a whole different topic.

Now lets look at solo company drivers which I am one at this time. Solo drivers do pretty well also and have their truck completely to themselves all the time. In this part for solo drivers we are going to use a governed truck of 62 mph to set the miles. That would be 62 mph for 10 hours would be 620 miles per day and if you use the 70\8 day rule of the HOS that is about 4340 miles that can be legally done by a solo driver. That would be 620 x 7=4340 that can be legally done.

The average for a solo driver is anywhere from 2300 to 3200 miles per week so lets use 3000 miles per week to keep the math simple and put this solo driver at .35 cpm. That's $1050 dollars each pay period and bring home $700 to $900 a week depending on your home state tax rate.

So in this example teams do more miles than a solo driver as a whole but each driver brings home about the same amount of pay. Now we can play with the numbers and "what-ifs" all day long so I will use an example from real life.....my own pay scale and mileage I do each week. Now you have to take in account that I have been driving for 15 years plus and I am on a dedicated account which not all solo drivers are on.

I drive for J B Hunt. I am on a dedicated account hauling paper products for Georgia Pacific. My trips vary only a little bit but my average miles is about 3000 miles a week @.37 cpm which ends up being 3000x.37 cpm = $1110 dollars each week. And when you take out the taxes according to my checks I average $888 dollars take home a week.

Now each driver reading this can compare team vs. solo driving and have a general idea to start with to see how they want to proceed with their own driving career. Except for my own personal mileage and pay the numbers above were taken from talking to drivers on the road doing solo and team driving so in a sense are true real life averages.

This is very helpful information, Guy. It clears things up for me. I was certainly under the impression that team driving paid at 1.5 as much as solo, but it seems that on average, this is not the case. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but this helps to put things in perspective. Thanks

My company starts us at 22 cents a mile, miles split. That is CRST. Now after 3 months, that goes to 23 cents and at 6 months, 31 cents. Now we sometimes have good weeks where we get close to 6000 miles, but 5000 is average. The other thing you have to realize about team is you are on a duty without being on duty a lot, to help things go smoothly. One of us is always getting out of the bunk to help the other out. Plus sleeping while the truck is running is never as good as when it is sitting. A rough road is going to bounce you around back there. Once I pay off my contract, I plan on going solo. I look forward to the day when I can stop after one shift and really rest.