...Our payment agreement is that I recieve 20% of the run pay(total pay of the trip from shipper to consignee, minus the DH and FSC) Is this a fair amount or am I getting shorted?? I normally end up driving 75% of the run miles. Another is should I have an active say in what loads are accepted and what loads are turned down? I mean it is his truck and all, but I am not out here for the joyride. I wanna have that little slice of pie that is being sliced and quartered and then split in half. And where is a good free place to look for load opps(outside of what FDCC sends us)? My last question is just today I drove 600miles of a 823mile trip to get to a better board (or express center as FDCC calls it, I ran a van for Panther) and should I ask that my driving be somewhat compensated?? I know that getting to a better load place means quicker load offers and hence making better runs but driving that far on his "whim" should mean that he should offer to compensate right?
Seems most drivers get 40/60, or 60/40 of the revenue from the carrier. The lesser percentage doesn't pay for fuel. FSC is not included in that split, since it is to help offset fuel costs, and the driver getting the 40% isn't paying the fuel. For a team, that would translate into 20% each. Half as much revenue, but more load opportunities for teams. Maybe longer run offers as well.
Some carriers add a small deadhead pay per mile to help with the cost of fuel in getting to the shipper. From the numbers I've heard, that amount doesn't necessarily even cover the fuel cost just to get to the shipper.
When a load is offered, it needs to be determined whether the money being offered is worth the miles that will need to be run, including the deadhead to the shipper and to the layover.
Therefore, whatever run you and your codriver took which necessitated deadheading some 823 miles to a better layover spot afterwards, hopefully would have paid enough to make that feasible. If not, the person paying the fuel was probably not a very happy camper. That would mean you, in effect, were already paid to drive those 600 empty miles you drove to the better layover.
This business isn't a business where you get paid a flat rate per mile. Sometimes you get paid more and sometimes less, and you have to hope that at the end of the month, quarter, or year, you end up making enough money to satisfy yourself that it was a reasonable return for the use of your time, effort, and goals in life.
Like Nitecreacher said above, if you have no vested interest in the cost of fuel or truck, then of course any paying run is money to you, but not necessarily money to the overall profitability of a load.
My guess is if you're new and inexperienced, and you're second-guessing decisions and counting how much time each of you spends doing whatever needs to be done, to make sure it's equal, you're not going to go over too well as a co-driver.
It'd probably be better if you just sit back, do what's required, listen, take notes (mental ones), and learn all you can from your experiences, until you too are an expert. Things may start to click after awhile, and maybe some lightbulbs will turn on at some point, when you'll say to yourself, 'ah ha, so that's why we did this, or why we didn't do that'.
