Well yes and no...
The issues with week #1 were:
Late delivery of lease vehicle by lease company, resulted in a lost load.
Driver hitting a branch resulting in a partially destroyed box and a few shippers not wanting to load into a open box (more lost prescheduled shipments (what do you mean water and electronics don't mix !?!... it wasn't raining.),
Got truck back to shop and it took the lease company almost 3 days to get us a replacement truck ... it may have taken them longer had I not threatened to lease a more expensive Penske just to get the driver rolling.
In all we grossed $1500 out of a scheduled / anticipated $5200 week (these are gross figures before expenses and broker / agent cut) so basically we lost money....
The issues with this past week (week #2) were :
Late start ( because of delay in getting replacement vehicle from lease co) caused us to sit an additional day and the and a half until brokers / agents could get us a load to get us back on the $$.
The late start forced the driver to leave at midnight to try get back in "sync" with available prebooked loads ...yes chasing down loads and plenty of dead head....sigh ...well had to do it to get back on the money trail
Day 2 of second week ...loaded up and headed out to drop...driver under pressure to have it all happen smoothly because a $4 / mile 3,000 mile run awaited them after the first load was completed.
Friday....AM ....driver complained of brake issues....said they didn't feel "strong" as before resulting in a need to swerve to swerve to avoid a vehicle...ugh...
Told driver if brakes were that bad he needed to find out why and drive extra cautiously or call for roadside assistance from lease co...
Driver pressed on....only to round a corner ( out in the middle of nowhere ) to be flagged down by the man only 20 minutes from offload point....
DOT man gave driver grief over lack of a proper log book ( they had time of service sheets) ....(they were supposed to get a log book and learn to fill out book and I think they got hit up for not having a med card too....double UGH
DOT put driver out of service for 10 hours and escorted to them to motel.
Driver missed offload and has to wait until Monday AM to offload BUT worse yet we will miss the Saturday noon pickup for the big $$ run...
Being a problem solver I suggested to broker / agent I would grab one of our local trucks (or even rent one since our back up truck has the shakes and that needs to be figured out) and drive to meet the driver at their hotel 6 hours away...I would offload all the product from their truck into mine and I would sit at the hotel until offload time Monday so the driver could leave and get the big $$ run Saturday noon (today)....
Broker appreciated the idea but luckily managed to get the big $$ load delayed by offering a delay discount to the shipper....whew, I really didn't want to drive up there to sit until Monday and I didn't want to miss out on a big $$ run .
Anyways, since the driver had to spend 3 nights basically in a hotel until the Monday drop ....I tried to help him find cheap living so I asked him to text me the location of his current motel (not nice and expensive) , the address for Monday's delivery , and to kill time while waiting I tried to find him a place to get a DOT physical today....
I suggested he take the forced down time to learn how to find cheap living (airbnb , expedia, truck living etc), learn how to fill out a paper log book (we probably should do ELD but baby steps I guess) , and find a place to get a DOT medical...
Anyways, after getting the info from the driver, I learned why the brakes weren't "working" .....
The shipping manifest indicated cargo weight was 15500 lbs ! WHOA ... A little much for a non CDL truck ;-O
With that, I told driver to sit tight and NOT drive the 40 minutes (one way) to get a DOT medical ....Didn't want to risk getting scaled...
Told driver to offload Monday THEN drive to get DOT physical ....
So there is week 2 so far (our week technically ends on a Thursday since that's when we started) .....
In summary, Other than an accident , getting caught with bad logs , no med card , no DOT # on truck , and fortunately not being scaled (may be a little over on weight) ..... It hasn't been too bad I guess BUT I suppose we can only get better !
Side Question regarding our big $$ run (which I know nothing about other then the pay and the miles) ...
Being that I learned we may be a little overweight on this load (for a non cdl truck) , what is the best way to handle the possibility on the big $$ load us being a little over on weight again ? Load and go and hope for the best or ??? (I Really need the big $$ of the run but prefer not to have to give it to the man if we get caught a little over weight).
Second question :
I think our driver got a couple tickets (or at least he made mention of the Med card / Log book violations) and the DOT officer got our DOT # (even tho it wasn't on the truck)...
How does that affect our company or does it really affect it other than the potential fines ? ( I think I saw some companies on the FMCSA Safer site and they may have had violations too but is that a real biggie?...I mean do they pull DOT # s and authority after too many violations ?
Is there a standard fine per pound over weight (when I say over weight I mean over 26K since our truck is a non CDL truck and our drivers are non CDL).... I do know some CDL (they drive local for me) BUT they don't want to go OTR and none of our trucks is a rated heavier than 26K except for 1 but that has mechanical issues and will be sidelined for a bit still....
I'm looking to insulate myself / the company from driver issues by making them lease the vehicles and getting insurance in their names (of course their pay will cover their costs ultimately) but that way if they get into accidents etc my insurance won't have to take the hit ...,theirs would.
