Truck Driving Job Without Experience?

Old School:

It is an absolute joke that you think drivers in here are working for .04 cents a mile - you have got to be on some other planet or just willfully ignorant.

Mr Kopan was thinking about ten times that:

Just to let you know they are paying 0.5 for all drivers so there is now way i will start driving under 0.4 like a lot of people here.

This should have been clearer with the added zeros:

Just to let you know they are paying 0.50 for all drivers so there is now way i will start driving under 0.40 like a lot of people here.

I was talking 0.30/0.33 with him earlier today.

Koban, you said in one place your friend's company requires 1 year experience and they pay "0.5 for all drivers". There's a contradiction here. You haven't even got a license yet and are set on that 50¢, but you can't work there without one year's experience. How will you make 50¢/mile before your first year is up?

I said 0.4 not .04, even if i made mistake in my comments i hope you are not serious

About O/O, I guess i just have different view of life, I always try to do better. I dont want to offend anymone i said but i think a lot of people dont have the g**ts to try it cause you have familys and lifes you dont want to put on risk.

Kopan, I've got all kinds of guts - I was self employed for thirty years, owned six big rigs all at the same time - I've spent most of my life being a risk taker, made and lost several fortunes multiple times - I get it.

Today's business climate is just not conducive to being a profitable O/O - that is why Brett brought up to you the very real statistic that there are far fewer owner operators on the road today than there were thirty five years ago.

An owner operator needs a specialized niche, and those things don't usually last long - you just can't keep a secret like that hidden for very long.

Take this scenario: You have got your own truck and you are needing to get paid 1.75 per mile just to be at the break even point so you can make your payments, and keep up your truck while taking home a little bit of scratch each week to pay your rent. Your broker is sending loads over to billy bob's trucking service because they can do it for 1.50 a mile - he is making more money every time he uses them, and then one day that shipper discovers that one of the big boys like Schneider will do it for 1.20 per mile, so they drop the broker completely! This goes on every day in this business - it is brutal out there. If you are going to purchase a truck you'd better make damn sure you have a good solid plan in place and a few back up plans also, because I promise you they will be needed!

If you are a company driver like I am today you will almost always be in a very nice new or close to new truck, you will have constant work if you can prove yourself able to handle it - you will have the chance to get your feet wet and learn a lot about the business while getting paid some really good money. I know several owner operators and only one of the seven that I am thinking of is making the kind of money I am right now. All of them are driving old trucks that are on the brink, because they simply are not making any profit that they can put away for their future needs - like a replacement truck so that they can keep at it.

When we give you industry wide established facts and statistics, you seem to think that your friend "Bubba" is a more reliable source. That is what is irritating about your responses. I'm seriously hoping you are smarter than that when you do decide to get into the owner operator business, because Bubba down the street, who once drove for Prime is not going to be able to help you at that point, but we will still be here, and still be able to give you some good solid advice.

You're right, I don't have the guts to go O/O. I have the brains to know better and the brains are better than the guts. I'm not going to work a seventy hour week and then have to spend another ten hours getting my taxes and business information squared away. I'm not going to sit in a broken down truck and wonder where will the repair money come from this time? How long is it going to take to get back on the road? I will never wonder when I can replace my old truck that keeps breaking down for something newer. I won't be worried by a couple small weeks or wanting to take home time (which doesn't get paid for.) Because, whatever larger company I drive for will take care of all that. They'll repair and replace the rig, pay for it to get washed and maintained, give me loads to haul, pay me each week and they can handle all the business taxes and cost of owning that truck. And I will care about that truck because that's where I live and only a slob doesn't care about their truck it has nothing to do with if they own it or not. And, I'll be a number on a DM's board and prove to that DM that I'm a good number to pick for hauling. I don't need my boss knowing how my great aunt Mavis is doing. I'm there to work not to form an extended family.

I have no problems taking risks. I'm quitting a job I've done for almost four years and moving from a city I love to be a truck driver and I don't even know if I can drive yet! But, that's a smart calculated risk. I'm not just throwing a dart and hoping it hits the target from 53' away.

As I said before you cant never do better if you just think that the truck will be broken down every week. Btw about where is the money for repair coming this time im not that stupid to buy truck with my last money i will always leave 20-30k on side for any case. I can see you are Realist so you will continue driving for someone else and you ll be happy thats who you are. I will be happy for a while and then i will try it. Im writing here all day and nobody told me why is O/O so bad(i read some other questions on the forum about that though) Because of spending more time on paperwork? Because of spending more time on taking care for the truck? Because the bigger companies can take the loads for less money? Ive spent few days in my friends(dispatcher) office and see how everything goes. Most of the loads he gets are for 2$ per mile sometimes the load is good and he gets even 3$. They are breaking even with around 1.30 to 1.50 so there are still 0.50 left for them(plus the 12% they are taking from every truck). So im driving my own truck for 2$ per mile im paying myself 0.5 plus the 0.5 left im looking at 1$ per mile. Driving with partner 5000 miles per week seems really good to me. I just cant see the problems, Im not being smart just tell me what am i doing wrong or where am i miscalculating and dont say bigger company will eat you because there are so many dispatcer companies and loads you can choose.

When we give you industry wide established facts and statistics, you seem to think that your friend "Bubba" is a more reliable source. That is what is irritating about your responses. I'm seriously hoping you are smarter than that when you do decide to get into the owner operator business, because Bubba down the street, who once drove for Prime is not going to be able to help you at that point, but we will still be here, and still be able to give you some good solid advice.

You never told me the established facts and statistics, you just said its not good to be O/O this years, the reason you told me its not a fact cause i ve been to dispatcher office and saw how is he doing everything hundreds loads to choose every day, to every state and with fair pay. I can see by your posts you are little bit angry i didnt mean that but i will never know if i dont try it right so lets wait and see? I'll get back to you in half year and let you know my experience. Btw my friend Bubba who drove for prime 4 years ago is now driving for small local company with around 15 trucks and he is putting his third truck(he is driving one, his brother, and the new one idk) on the road next month with 50% down on 70K, bought a 200k house also with 50%. So you can stay in the company truck and be happy with your life and say that being driver for someone else is better.

Kopan, I'm not the least bit angry... further more I find it amusing that you even think you could anger me.

If you must ascribe an emotion to my responses then let it be that I am incredulous...

Incredulous that a 22 year old young man who came in here with a disposition and question like this:

Hi Im 22 i made decision to become truck driver. So I found school and im ready to go next week. But i will finish the school in 2-3 weeks and i started looking for a job and i havent found one company which is willing to hire unexperienced drivers, only 1 year experience or more. So how am i suppose to make the experience than? Do you know any companies which are hiring new drivers?

Is all of a sudden an expert on being an owner operator!

Heck, you don't even know how to find a job as a company driver rookie wannabe, and now you are ready to risk all kinds of capital and jump in with both feet just because you've been in a dispatchers office. You seem to be the kind of person who thinks he is a rock star just because he's been at a concert!

When you first introduced yourself I thought "well here's a guy who is just looking for some help" - that is the kind of folks we help every day, and most of them benefit greatly from their association with us. But it only took about three posts from you before we realized that you already have all the answers.

It seems you just came in here wanting someone to encourage you in your folly... and that is something we just don't do.

So im driving my own truck for 2$ per mile im paying myself 0.5 plus the 0.5 left im looking at 1$ per mile. Driving with partner 5000 miles per week seems really good to me. I just cant see the problems, Im not being smart just tell me what am i doing wrong or where am i miscalculating

Kopan, I've been in this industry for 22 years now. Old School ran his own business for over 30 years and part of that business included owning a bunch of trucks. That's over half a century of combined experience in trucking between us. If you could make a profit of $1.00 per mile don't you think we'd be doing exactly that? Do you think we're telling everyone to stay away from leasing or owning trucks because we don't like the idea of everyone doing so well?

Trucking is a commodity service. That means the only thing that matters to the customer is price. They want the cheapest rates they can get. They don't care how much chrome someone has on their truck, how big the engine is, or how much you love what you do. They just want to move it from A to B as cheap as they can. When you have commodity pricing it means there will be little or no profit in it. The average profit margin in the trucking industry is 3%. That means for every $100 you bring in, $97 is going right back out. And that's average, meaning half the people don't even do that "well" if you can call that doing well.

For the 8 1/2 years I've been running this website I've been 100% against leasing or owning a truck and always made that clear. To this day not one owner operator or lease driver has come here to demonstrate to us how successful they have been and how wrong I've been. Not one. And to give you some perspective, this year alone TruckingTruth will get about 2.5 million unique visitors. We've had millions of visits over the years. Where are all of the success stories? Where is even one long term success story?

I've proposed many times over the years that someone show up and demonstrate to us how they've been successful over the long term as a lease driver or owner operator and all I've ever heard in response is crickets chirping. So I'll propose the same thing to you. If you're successful as a lease driver or owner operator you come back here after two or three years and share your numbers with us. We'd love to see how you've done it.

But even if 10 or 50 or 1000 drivers came here demonstrating how successful they were, where are the millions of others that have tried it over the years? How did they do? And remember, you can be highly successful in business for many years and all it takes is one big mistake or one really bad year and your accounts are drained dry. You're starting from scratch as if you just opened the business yesterday. It can all be gone in a hurry.

Guys, I know you desperately want Kopan to understand, but he is clearly the type of person who cannot be dissuaded from a position he has already convinced himself is correct. There is simply no point debating because the debate will just go round and round in circles. It's like a political debate on Facebook. There is no convincing, no conceding of valid points, no change of heart or mind.

So I say to you, Kopan: go ahead and go for it. Show all us lazy company drivers how it's really done. Show us how to get ahead in this industry, this economy, this country, this day and age. Quit trying to prove to us why you're right with vague generalities and estimates. I don't want to hear any more of it until you come in here with some hard numbers that YOU PERSONALLY have created. I want pictures of bank statements (personal info removed of course), quarterly tax reports, etc. And I want a picture of your truck. I want to know EXACTLY how you are being successful. Go do all the stuff you're talking about and then you can come back in here and show us and prove us wrong. Until then, it's all just talk. The word of one complete rookie against the word of literally hundreds of years of combined trucking experience on this forum.

Brett I just want to thank you for this site. There is a wealth of knowledge on this forum and I have been listening unlike Kopan. I know because of this forum that company driver is the smart way to go. So a big thanks to all!

Try this website:

[Link removed by Moderator after discovering it's pirated software]

Don't post stolen software. Quit being cheap and actually purchase the game. Developers spend time to produce these games and it's *******s like you that take food from their kids by stealing it.