Deadhead percentage.

[theoldprof]

For you guys and gals who are paid a flat rate, such as Panther, is there a percentage of deadhead to paid miles you use to quickly calculate a good/bad load. This is assuming you are going to a place where you can probably pick up a load. In other words, under or over 15%,25% or 30% or whatever deadhead will help you decide if you will take a load.

Thanks.

:+ :+

 

[Jack Jackson]

Even though we are paid a percentage I think our system will work for anyone.

First you need to know how much it costs to run your truck per mile. See why people keep bringing that up. It helps you to know if you're going to be doing a load for profit or just out of the goodness of your heart.

1. Add up the paid miles and deadhead miles and divide that into the total pay. Example: 400 DH plus 1000 paid = 1400 into $2000 = $ 1.43 mile.
This load would pay us 48 cents a mile to drive the truck. We take it

2. If the load is going near Chicago or the East Coast (we would probably be pre-dispatched before we got there) we will settle for about 10 cents less a mile because we know we wont be sitting long.

3.The longer the load the more it has to pay per mile. Example: why waste your time on a load for $3500. that goes 3000 miles ( $1.17 mile) when you might get three loads in the same amount of time that each paid $1000. and each load goes 700 miles ($1.43 mile again).

4. The final example is if you want to excell in this business, you must take care of the customer. It's Friday afternoon, you're worn out, all you want to do is take a nap. Dispatch calls and says "you're
the only truck available to do this load. It pays $200 with 200 miles deadhead and 80 miles to delivery. we really need you to help us out on this load." 71 cents a mile. We took the load.