Month End I don’t know about you, but I always enjoy coming to the end of the month. Why? Because I enjoy crunching the numbers to see how we did. Last month turned out to be a very good month for us. Having said that, we had to work very hard to make it happen. What I mean by that is that the flow of work did not seem to change from previous months; however, we found ourselves driving further to get to the work. Despite driving more miles than we average in a month, we sti...

Transitions Last week we found ourselves looking to the future. A retirement future. If the last several days are any indication, our retirement looks like a great time. In this blog, I hope to show that moving from one season of life to another does not have to be dramatic or scary. While there are many decisions that must be made, the process does not have to be difficult. The first decision must be: what does retirement look like? Coming from a colder climate in the Winter...

Slow Down Last week I talked about how the expedite business is a “hurry up and wait” type of business. This week was the wait portion of that phrase. Or was it? Let’s take a look at how the week went. Oh! And if you thought this was going to be about speed limits, you would be wrong. For those readers who are not familiar with the laws under which commercial truck drivers must work, I will give a brief explanation of them here. Any commercial driver (that is one who ho...

Owner operators are forever looking for customers… or should be. While you may have a good customer currently, however you define good, at any time, your customer can decide to restructure, change managers or CEOs or even just decide costs need to be reined in and they decide to go with a cheaper or less costly transportation carrier....

A Long Weekend While it is rare for us to get weekend loads, we are usually happy when one comes along. This past weekend made us rethink our position on weekend runs. Because of the type of freight that we carry most loads requires that one of us be on duty monitoring the load at all times. This means that each of us has to use twelve hours every day from the time we pick up the load until the time that we make delivery. Unfortunately, most of the places to which we deliver ...

Whether you’re the owner/operator of your own truck or Sprinter van, or perhaps you’re simply wanting to drive as an independent contractor, the following are some general rules to follow for both the novice and the seasoned vet. These are simply suggestions to help jumpstart your business, either as a beginning expediter or as a longtime logistics professional. Owner Operators The first thing to keep in mind is that you are the master of your own truck, so you decide wha...

Buying truck tires is always a pain. First you get a pain in the neck from researching the latest tire options. Then you get a pain in the keister from shopping for a reasonable price. Then, if you don’t have a trusted one, or are unable to get to it, you have to locate a reputable shop for installation…another pain in the posterior. Sometimes you just get tired of shopping for and buying tires....

Unexpected Week Last week was one of those weeks that came with many surprises. When this happens, things can either go very well or very bad. Fortunately for us, things went rather well. Have you had weeks where plans either did not materialize at all or unexpected plans presented themselves? How did you handle them? In the past, we would have waited until more expected plans would have presented themselves. Last week we decided to go with what came rather than waiting for w...

To Accept or Not Accept, That is the Question  As usual, last week was more of a wait and see game than a week filled with work. We did manage to snag one load for the week. This year is shaping up to be similar to last year in that some weeks we have more work than we know what to do with while other weeks we can’t seem to find work to save ourselves. Has this been your experience also? What do you do to fill the gaps? Do you take loads that may not meet your business goa...

Even before the driver-dreaded ELD mandates and enforcement of electronic logs, there was already an uneasy period of time in which drivers were either scared to death of what was the unknown world of satellite tracking and monitoring, or just brazenly naïve as to how damaging an unkempt HOS (Hours of Service) logbook could be in terms of determining their next trucking employer. That stated, drivers should always remain aware as to how their driving performance (past and pr...