$1.18 per Mile?

[dieseljockey]

I generally always work on percentage and run short trips within two hundred miles where I average around a $1.90 per actual miles driven pulling freight from the docks.
The majority of guys I talk with work by mileage based on the dispatch miles.. I was talking to one driver yesterday who says he works for $1.18 per mile including the surcharge.
How the Hell do you do this I ask
You are paying the company to deliver their freight
Diesel is around .78 per mile,
upkeep tires, PM, drive train repairs, trucking cost, works out to around .31 per mile operating cost,
you should be able to pay yourself a decent driver wage of around .$48 per mile, not counting health insurance, or anything else such as retirement-- now we are at $1.57 per mile
This still doesn't take into account truck payments, full coverage insurance depending on what you own. or putting away a profit for your business to upgrade or for replacement of equipment.
We should each be averaging at or around $2.00 per mile according to operating conditions today. Anything less than that we are not really in an ownership business at all

[ChickenHauler]

Seein RED Do the math, Five miles to the gallon diesel cost at .80 cents per every mile you drive leaves .38 cents left over at a $1.18 per mile. This guy isn't even makein payroll for himself or his family much less paying for anything else. No one can make it off these figures even if paid on hub miles!

[porttrucker]

Amen Brother!! I wish someone would tell me how to get the rest of these thick sculled morans to realize that so we could work together and change it!!!!

[slowpoke]

I own a small intermodal trucking company. Each one of you lease operators working the port terminals and inland rail should demand $2.00 per mile for your services. As long as the majority of you continue to take whatever lowball money is offered to move the containerized freight transportation rates will continue to depreciate in this market. You need to figure out a way among yourselves to collectively bargain without the threat of antitrust. In the past there have been several attempts to unionize the owner operator truckers and even set up a type of hiring hall operation like the longshoremen use in their work place. You should continue your efforts in this direction until a working model is in place to change the present system

[porttrucker]

Slowpoke is right. As long as we continue to accept these ridiculous rates nothing will ever change. There needs to be a contract in place between the drivers and the trucking co. to protect the drivers and ensure that the drivers are compensated fairly for the work that we do everyday!!! ALL OF THE WORK WE DO!!!

[chickenhauler]

I have been reading where one of these so called tree hugging organizations feel that bringing in the big fleets and hiring company drivers to do our work is the answer to green the ports. That's total bulls#*t by those who claim they want to help truckers but have some other agenda besides the enviroment on their mind. I'm not giving up my right to truck ownership!
I worked hard for years to buy my latest W900. I'm not taking a step backwards to work again as a company driver. If these large fleets can now magically somehow come to the port and get better rates to upgrade their own equipment for transporting the cargo than why can't that same money be shared with truckers who already haul the freight? This sounds like a back door plan to eliminate the owner/operator trucker completely from the docks. All we need is a gameplan to gain employee status recognition from the motor carriers to form a union or join one. We could then collectively bargain for a contract just like the ILA. Anything else is nothing more than a d**n sell out by some group that wants to take away our rights as an American trucker. >:

[freightshaker]

According to news reports, the brainstorm behind forcing big fleets to take over the drayage hauling business at US ports is big unions. Several powerful labor groups who are urging this new port program feel it's an easier route to organize company drivers than owner drivers. The tree huggers involved get new, more enviromentally friendly trucks on the highway,(that's another debate depending on who is selling what in the market) and everyone is happy except drivers who have worked hard to buy trucks. This plan does nothing but force each of us out of the lease owner trucking business. It's amazing that hundreds of these same truckers are the ones who asked for help from many of these folk in the first place. Have they actually stopped to ask what we needed done or is this whole thing now all about a mission to gain membership for a particular group? The American trucking Association is going to launch lawsuits to try to stop this action by the west coast ports. It seems the ATA is the only one interested in protecting our right of truck ownership at the present time. They even want owner operator truckers to join with them. Although the ATA has their own motor carrier agenda of keeping the independent contractor status alive it's better than giving up my right to any ownership and driving a company truck. The question is "where is OOIDA on this BS?" I called OOIDA and they assured me that this clean air plan by the LA port authorities doesn't matter because they consider it to be only local city trucks involved and this doesn't effect their core OTR membership. OOIDA needs to wakeup because this is the beginning of the demise of all owner operators who haul out of the ports. The association also better realize many thousands of OOIDA container hauler members are going to be very upset with the decision to remove lease operators from the intermodal trucking business while they do nothing. This new system I'm reading about not only includes just local city trucks but every OTR truck that pulls containers meeting the standards of calling on the port terminal properties. A campaign to rid the country of intermodal lease operators is an assult upon the American trucker and our pride of ownership. Before this is over with it will include every major port terminal and rail yard in the country. If motor carriers under this new plan will be able to afford to come into the port terminal, and increase rates making it possible to update or buy newer trucks than why not just pass a percentage of those earnings along to the lease operator to buy the newer equipment needed? Many motor carriers would just as soon keep their owner operator program intact and pay more money if their own revenue will increase. Most trucking companies today own fewer trucks and many don't want any rolling stock at all to contend with. Those same companies would continue to use lease operators to move the boxes like they do now only able to pay better rates. What gives anyone the right to determine who will own the trucks that move the containerized freight just as long as trucker can meet the standards set forth at the port terminals? There seems to be a lot more to this than meeting enviromental or clean air standards.

[pkd5757]

The big companies want to come in because the free Grant Money will be there. Imagine getting up to $80,000 towards a new truck. d**n! Where do we sign up! Well that's what's going on in LA. That's why the employee status was put in, so we can't be part of it. Well we've been here for 2-3 decades hauling for sub-standard rates, and now it's time for us to cash in!!!!!! I told Hoffa, Chuck Mack and any other ass-ole out there that I'll put up one hell of a fight if they want me out of the piers. Deregulation made me an Owner-Operator and I'm staying that way. We have the opportunity to have the same conditions as the Longshoreman do, and we have to step up and take advantage of it NOW. How many Billions of dollars do the oil companies get to NOT make things better? Maybe we can get a small part of that money and subsidize the owner-operators that HELP supply the nation everyday!

[pete379]

Check out this [ftp]http://cleanandsafeports.org/ [/ftp]. This is one dangerous tree hugger group that wants to do away with the rights of owner operator truckers to haul containers according to the ATA. Hopefully they'll stop this bunch of wacko's out in California. According to their web site they are surrounded by dozens of happy truckers who are all excited to give up their trucks just to drive company owned trucks. I find this whole thing to be bull$#*t staged by this group as a big PR scam to convince the public that owner drivers are the problem with air polution. Who are these people linked to anyway? What is in this for them? There seems to be more to this than cleaning up the port air polution on their mind.

[BaltimoreRoadranger]

OK everyone, fuel is now costing around .90 per mile to operate a class eight diesel tractor on the highway. We need 100% of a mandatory fuel surcharge passed down on all freight. I know to well how many of you feel about big government being involved in the truck transportation business but it's time for Washington to pull their head out of their a$$ and to act. There needs to be some regulation put back into this business to level the playing field. This industry is never going to correct itself or self regulate anything until the last trucking company closes the doors.
As so far as pollution at the waterfront, just raise the rates and every trucker can afford to purchase the engine upgrades or newer equipment. Why force the owner/driver out of business and give specific fleets a pay raise to go back into the harbor drayage business unless there is another hidden agenda here? One size shoe doesn't fit all and many companies now can't find enough qualified drivers willing to drive a company truck for any amount of money. Why create additional problems within this industry if employee recognition seems to be the goal? Why does some enviromentally green group not want truckers to own their own business? Why would these people care who owns the trucks if their true goal is really to clean up the air pollution inside the harbor city?
There are many owner/operator truckers now in other parts of the industry as union members.
I would have no problem becoming a union member as long as I remain an owner/operator. Granted, the system needs some major adjustment at the piers but no one needs to destroy the livelihoods of thousands of hard working individual American truckers proud of truck ownership. I certainly didn't spend the last twenty four years of my life working to own three trucks just so I could to turn them into scrap iron. What, go back to driving for some company that took my work from me? No thanks, that's about as stupid as working for fuel money.

[CountryGirl]

Don't even think about bringing that truck replacement plan here. I won't support anything where I have to give up my right to ownership in America! This is the kind of silly help we don't need. These are clearly people who don't understand truckers or our industry.

[twistlock]

Who the Hell is this bunch of dangerous individuals? These people want to take away the right of ownership from truckers?
www.cleanandsafeports.org/
This crap makes me wanna to join up with the ATA. Nows that's bad

[BTJ]

Next they will take our land for the collective good of the people. This is a stupid decision made by this port with advice from what sounds like idiots with an agenda over there on the left coast. Good luck making that plan happen out here! I worked hard for what little I own. I don't plan to give it up so easy to start over driving a d**n company truck.

[shortstuff]

I don't see this happening. Rid America of OO's? I don't think so. Work on the rate structure at the ports if your gonna require OO's to run brand new equipment. Put the big thinkers of this plan behind the wheel and welcome them to the real world of trucking. All this stupid crap will do is turn drivers away from working with any organization that promotes such nonsense.

[robert k]

well i see they made this happen in california. if this truck emissions crap makes it to the east coast there will be a lot less truckers working the ports or anywhere else. a new truck? that is a joke. i do see the port of charleston, sc keeps advertising for truckers to take advantage of a grant to purchase a late model truck. i cant believe drivers fall for this but i see a few have trashed their trucks to receive the ten thousand dollars toward a newer model. doesnt make any sense at all to get rid of a truck that is paid for with no mechanical problems and take on big payments today.