Daycab Owner Operators

Im currently in cdl school and have a few questions about the life of daycab owner operators.

1) Can they make a decent living even with alot of the regional and local market covered by companies like Estes,JB Hunt,Conway etc 2) Do they find their loads through freight brokers? 3) Do they have to own their own trailer? 4) Is it common for a daycab o'o to lease their truck with a company?

Im basically looking for the full A to Z about daycab owner operators.

Hey Robert. Well I've gotta be honest - we very much discourage the idea of owning or leasing a truck here at TruckingTruth. In fact, we would consider tying someone to a telephone pole if it was the only way to keep them from buying or leasing a truck.

Turning a consistent profit in the trucking industry is so difficult that even trucking companies with thousands of trucks that have been around for more than half a century find it very difficult to do. A fella like yourself coming into the industry brand new and not knowing the first thing about it has pretty much zero chance of turning a worthwhile profit, if any profit at all.

I highly, highly recommend you put the idea of owning or leasing a truck completely out of your mind forever. But if I can't get ya to do that, at least forget about it for a minimum of one year so you can learn how to handle a rig and learn how the trucking industry works. Trying to learn a new trade in a new industry and start your own business at the same time is pretty much financial suicide and will likely lead to a nervous breakdown.

But if you'd like to learn more about becoming an owner operator , check out the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association website (OOIDA). They're the best place to get started with your research.

Robert, we are O/O's of a semi, we pull a flatbed, and run all lower 48 states. The only O/O day cabs we see, and they are very very few, are pulling local seasonal produce from farm to processor. But to help you understand a little about making it as an O/O, with a day cab , i'll help you with some basic pointers. As an O/O, its all about money coming in. You will have truck payments, tags, permits, license, taxes, maintenance costs, and the big one FUEL. So to keep up with all these expenses you will need all the miles you can get. Running all lower 48, you should get the miles. but driving day cab, lets say within a 300 mile radius of home, you won't be getting enough miles. Now I put that radius at 300 miles, because going out, and coming back home should about burn your drive time at 600 miles total, unless you are fond of sleeping in a day cab. I've don it, I do it every grape season, I wouldn't recommend it for getting any real rest. OK, so your limited to your distance, and now you would be looking for runs to make. You would need a broad base of brokers to keep a day cab busy enough to pay for itself.....and we haven't even started talking about paying for your bills at home .Locally, most freight is shipped by well established companies. I don't personally know of any in my neck of the woods that takes on O/O's. There may be some out there, but the logistics are all wrong. You would have to pull company trailers, and it would be seldom that you would drop and hook. You would find yourself burning up your clock time delivering, and unloading freight at alot of places. Most day cab freight is LTL , and/or local delivery. So I doubt that being a O/O in a day cab could even be a reality. Basically, it comes down to the bottom line for O/O's...Times= money...and you have to make the miles to make the money. You won't do that in a day cab running local freight...Sorry.

Not only do you have to find a truck and gets tags,permits and insurance then there are the fees associated with getting your own authority. So right off the bat your into major debt unless your independenly wealthy. And after all that and this part is completely separate from the start up cost involved with a truck....its recommended that you have a minimum of $10k in cash for fuel maintenance and the like to cover cost since it can be up to a month before brokers will pay their bills they owe you.

And if you go with a used truck to make things cheaper then you got the expenses of research. Having the truck dyo tested and having a EMC report pulled from the truck BEFORE you buy can be up to and over $1000.

So at the very least you will be in debt from $30k to $150k and that's even before you start hauling freight.

Do yourself a favor and start out at a company first before you even consider owning a truck.

Well, these responses have definitely broadened my horizon. What about Intermodal?

I just want to chime in and say that with every person I've talked to about being an owner operator , they were so adamant that I don't do it that it almost felt as if they were begging me to avoid OO as much as humanly possible, and I have never mentioned even wanting to be an OO. So, for what it's worth, there's my :2cents.

I wish the best of luck to you and I am sure I will follow up on this thread to watch your story unfold!

I just want to chime in and say that with every person I've talked to about being an owner operator , they were so adamant that I don't do it that it almost felt as if they were begging me to avoid OO as much as humanly possible, and I have never mentioned even wanting to be an OO. So, for what it's worth, there's my :2cents.

I wish the best of luck to you and I am sure I will follow up on this thread to watch your story unfold!

Thanks for those encouraging words Jerry. I never really thought about being an O'O either until one day when i saw a pair of used Freightliner M915A3's at a dealership near where i work. You don't see any of those in the civilian field. I just thought they were such good looking trucks and had ideas of maybe driving one for a living. Now I just don't know.

Even doing intermodal , you are STILL limited to around 300 miles out, and 300 miles back....unless you want to sleep in your day cab.