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It's third and long on the parking lot line by the dumpster. Here's the snap! The quarterback hides the ball in a lineman's butt crack.... he walks it in for a touchdown past a befuddled defense who knows not who to tackle!

Excerpt from my blog today: Drivers in a truck stop TV lounge generally chat about the game and cheer the exciting plays, but you have to be careful about what you say. Most if not all of the people in the room drive for a living. Until the game is well underway and people have tipped their...

My truck is my man cave. And because it's on wheels, I get to take it with me wherever I go. :)

You are correct. The tables above show revenue paid to the trucks, and it is assumed that the trucks are team driven by same-household owner-operators. If you want to turn the trucks into fleet-owner trucks and put a team in each truck that is not same-household (two people, each of whom has...

Give me the numbers and I'll plug them into the table and show the results. For each truck, I will need: - Pay per mile - Monthly paid miles - Monthly unpaid miles But notice -- and this is important -- you are changing the subject. The Flat Rate vs. Percentage Pay thread began by comparing...

Kindly note that I said from the beginning that the table is over-simplified. In your comments you bump up against the table limits yourself when you talk about extra pay for pallet jack, etc. How do you account for those and other accessorials? In this simplified table, you don't. There is no...

I should have mentioned this in the original post. The monthly figures presume that the trucks are in service most if not all of the month. While that often happens, it never happens for 12 months in a row. In the first tables, out of service time is not accounted for in the one-year and...

Responses to various comments: 1. The distinction between WG and surface is not relevant here. This is a comparison of flat rate to percentage, regardless of the division within FedEx and regardless of carrier. Hypothetical Truck A runs on a flat rate. Hypothetical Truck B runs on a percentage...

See this thread: Flat Rate Pay vs. Percentage Pay

Which is better, flat-rate pay or percentage of the load pay? It is a common question, increasingly so since large expedite carrier FedEx Custom Critical now offers both options. Below is a simplified table that compares two trucks. Note the word simplified. Over-simplified may be the better...

You get out of your truck in a parking lot and an expediter wannabee stops you to ask questions. He or she wants to be a solo driver. You are a team driver. There is a lot about the business we can talk about, but when teams talk to solo wannabees, what do we not understand? What do we get wrong...

When team drivers talk about expediting to would-be solo drivers, what are we blind to? What do we miss? What do we get wrong?

That was my thought too as I read the post. I thought it was a smart move by a smart buyer to make the request, but it struck me as strange that the same smart buyer would take delivery of the truck and hit the road without getting the simple and reasonable request fulfilled.

Preferential treatment negotiated by fleet owners and granted by carriers is not uncommon these days, if it ever was.

Five Questions Prospective Expediters Should Ask Diane and I will be leading a workshop on this topic on Thursday in Monroe Michigan. It is part of the EO workshop series, Preparing YOU for the Long Haul (details here). We are prepared but also know that, being human, we might overlook...

Yes, it is allowed. Numerous expediters have shared their good experiences and the names of the shops.

I would not be too dismissive about what people think. True or not, drivers tend to act on their beliefs.

The assumption that FDCC has a number of trucks leaving has been stated by you and others but before relying on that notion as truth or as an indicator that something is wrong, it bears examination. I know for a fact that Diane and I left a couple months ago. I know a van driver who left...

I would not rely on this as an indicator at all. It makes sense on the surface but much goes on beyond a phone or e-mail response. If you did rely on this as an indicator, you might cheat yourself out of a great opportunity. When Diane and I were brand new to the industry and decided on FedEx...

OK, but I am mostly interested in things the Baltic Dry index and IATA say nothing about. I am curious about the unemployed people you mentioned who have vans parked in their yard and are putting them to work as expediters. Whats the word of those? And why would a carrier even bring someone...