Is this a sign of the times?
Posted on May 25, 2009 - 3:57pm by Everitt Mickey in Economy, Trucking
Way back when, before the Democrats destroyed the economy, I was sitting in a truck stop in Joplin Missouri. I noticed that there were an inordinate number of drivers walking around selling stuff. Chains, binders, flags, oversize signs, stuff like that. This was unusual for truckstops. What was unusual was not that drivers or “drivers” were selling stuff but WHAT was being sold and the number of drivers doing it.
Normally, usually at less reputable truck stops, a driver on occasion will sell a CB. “Drivers” will sell merchandise, after dark, with a weather eye out for security. Watches, gold “Mr.T” chains, electronics …..and not so much anymore, drugs. I’ve seen it all at one time or another. Not to mention lot lizards selling themselves.
This was unusual though. It turned out that TRISM (a rate cutting heavy haul outfit) had gone belly up. Trism dispatch was routing their trucks into the home terminal in Joplin and canning the drivers immediately upon arrival. Drivers were left afoot with no money. Word got out and the smarter drivers were going to truckstops first and selling company equipment in order to get money for bus fare.
Over this last weekend I saw it happen again. I was sitting in my truck in a parking lot and noticed the driver in front of me cleaning out his truck. I mean REALLY cleaning it out, everything. He then laid it all out in a neat row beside the truck. Then he began selling it. Cheap, really, cheap.
It seems he was an owner operator and did something that “safety” didn’t like. They routed him into the home terminal and had a “review” during which they “de-leased” him and repossessed his truck. He was buying his truck from the company he drove for. He had hundreds of dollars of equipment (half-inch chains, half-inch ratchet binders, strobe lights, flags, signs, as well as some personnel effects, (microwave, tv, radio(s) etc. which he had no way to transport.
So he sold it all. Right there in the parking lot.
I was reminded of TRISM.
I wonder if it’s a sign of the times?
Be careful out there.
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This may be a sign of the times, but more importantly, it is a symptom of a bigger problem. My guess is that this guy started being an “owner operator” like a lot of the rest of us, as a company driver who “buys” his truck from the company he is employed by. Not only did he put no money down to “buy” his truck, but he didn’t know what to do with it once he got it.
My point is, if you go into your new business venture like an employee you are bound to fail. If he had bought his truck with cash, or more realistically, by saving up a down payment and getting a real loan, he wouldn’t need to have a fire sale on the equipment that is (was) his livelyhood. A strategy like this does not have a direct connection to how the rest of his business is run, but enough smart, critical thinking breeds an atmosphere that nearly guarantees success.
The bottom line is, we either need to educate potential owner operators more, or raise the bar for entry. Perhaps through responsible lending.
Responsible lending is why these guys are attracted to companies that do this. They can’t get a regular loan or lease and are sucked in by the lies from companies offering trucks with no credit checks or down payments.
It’s just too much control for me. The same company decides if you’re going to work enough to pay your truck payment, but you can’t take your truck to another company. Too many red flags for me.
Ah, December 19th 2001, way back when, before those darn Republicans screwed up our country. I was about to MT out somewhere in Michigan. Beep. The Qualcom tells me that I’m out of a job. I barely made it back home with the truck. My intention was to hold it – the truck – hostage until I got my money. I delivered the truck to the Trism “graveyard” in Jacksonville and was handed a check. I ran to cash it. I was lucky.
PS/The carrier said several factors led to its Chapter 11 filing, including recent periods of high fuel costs, difficulty in obtaining qualified drivers, industry-wide increases in insurance premiums and reduced shipping demand.
The loan sharks within these carriers see these guys coming and set them up! The carrier I used to work for would hire kids off the street with the promise they’d train them and then sell them a truck within a year.They’d fill them full of the bull with high figures, train them in sight of a bunch of chrome-encrusted KWs. They were absolutely sure they’d all be millionaires and could spend three-day weekends at home. You’d see them a year or so later, cleaning out that shiny truck, out of a job, no truck, home repossessed, wife and kids gone, still owing money, dis-disillusioned but still not knowledgeable enough to know what went wrong. Then, they’d sell the repo’d truck to the next guy at a hefty profit.
There’s no way a beginning driver will ever know enough in a year to run his own truck and actually make a business out of it. The leased owner-operator is the cheapest driver a carrier can get: no maintenance, no workers comp, insurance, unemployment, medical benefits-and no legal hassles if they decide to cut the size of their fleet. They can force them to run the most unprofitable freight-because that’s all they’ll give them. Only the smartest, the wisest survive-IF they get advice from someone outside the company who knows the business.
But, the slimiest thing I saw them do in recent years was to create a ‘partnership’ with the military-they’d go in and offer the separating soldier a purchase deal within six months. . .and use their separation pay to pay for training and down-payment! And they had the nerve to call themselves patriotic! What scum!!