Butch and Dora Colvin drove team for 18 years before retiring this year. Dora says treating co-drivers kindly is the first step in fostering a successful team relationship. “All of us are short tempered every now and then, but you have to just stop and think about what you’re saying,” she says. “A quick apology sure beats having someone upset with you.”

Owner-operator teams are in demand as fleets dangle top rates and sign-on bonuses to move high-value, time-sensitive loads.

Team owner-operators Michael McNeely and his wife Cheryl are riding high. As freight heats up, they and other teams are cashing in on growing driver demand and increasing rates. While the McNeelys specialize in transporting service-sensitive government freight, they are often called on to move time-sensitive dedicated loads that pay top dollar, even as the work sometimes disrupts sleeping and eating habits.

“But when a load is hot,” Michael McNeely says, “the numbers can escalate quickly,” and driving team is usually the only way to get these high-dollar loads to their destination.

Fleets are offering premium mileage rates and sign-on bonuses of up to $6,000 per team for new team operations, says Gordon Klemp, president of the National Transport Institute, which surveys fleets quarterly to measure compensation packages.

Among fleets hiring owner-operator teams, Klemp says 32 percent are offering sign-on bonuses. A year ago, no fleets were offering such bonuses. Team pay “will likely move up a little more aggressively than that for solo drivers,” he says.

Teams’ time advantage over solo drivers, due to hours of service limits, gives carriers the opportunity to increase revenue because some shippers will pay higher rates for expedited service, says Dana Bibb, assistant truck operations manager for Mercer.

Mike Hinz, vice president of driver recruiting for Schneider National, says the carrier pays team owner-operators 90 cents per mile and a 100 percent fuel surcharge. Another 2 cents per mile is added as a “utilization and safety incentive” if the team runs 22,000 or more miles in a month.