Tag: independents

Business

Get your own authority: How to tackle the basics of filing, insurance, more

A step-by-step guide to filing with the U.S. Department of Transportation for motor carrier authority to run as an independent owner-operator. This guide updates 2014 and 2019-published guides as more owners continued to transition to authority in 2021.

November 25, 2019

Overdrive Radio

Even in a roaring market, think twice before joining the stampede

This week’s Overdrive Radio podcast features this talk, delivered by former small fleet owner and longtime radio host Kevin Rutherford at MATS, on prioritizing all the new risk and responsibility of trucking with authority, toward better income. Significant wild-card today: Inexplicably high cost of insurance for some carriers.

April 12, 2019

Channel 19

Beating back too many brokers’ wrongheaded mentality: ‘Keep the shipper happy no matter what it costs the carrier’

Addressing a freight broker's wrongheaded mentality with Overdrive Online. Get more details and other trucking industry news right here on Overdrive Online.

February 20, 2019

Business

Flatbedders’ income again outpaced van, reefer haulers in 2018’s first quarter

No surprise for many owner-operators who have felt these numbers first hand: Net income for leased owner-operators and independents in the first three months of 2018 continued to march upward, with operators across all segments taking home more in 2018’s first quarter than the same time a year ago.

June 25, 2018

Overdrive Radio

Profit — what this trucking thing is all about: A new, simple freight-bid calculator app

In the latest Overdrive Radio podcast, small fleet owner Scott Jordan intros the ICG ProfitCalc app for Android/iOS, a freight bidding app that allows users to input their own annual cost projections as a benchmark for load-by-load rate calculations, per-mile and per-hour, to ensure a chosen profit margin.

January 25, 2018

Channel 19

Owner-operators trend optimistic about business in 2017

We can take the optimism expressed in these results with a crunchy-good grain of road salt or sand, but for the first time in the few years, a majority of owner-operators think this coming year will be better than the last. Recent indicators agree…

January 7, 2017

Overdrive Radio

Kevin Rutherford’s case to brokers for stronger partnerships with owner-operators

Hear how Kevin Rutherford broke the ice with a roomful of brokers: “Many of my listeners think the majority of this room are lying, cheating scumbag parasites sitting in a room with a phone and an internet connection sucking all the profit out of the load.”

November 3, 2016

Business

Notes on being the boss

“For those of you who have unpleasant boss stories, or are living an unpleasant boss story, know that you’re not alone, and there are people who understand your desire to watch your boss be rolled in honey and planted in an ant hill.”

July 27, 2016

Business

2015 income: Owner-ops break $60K for first time, adding miles as slow-freight pressures mount

For the first in the 13 years ATBS has been tracking income data, owner-operator clients broke $60,000 in net income in 2015. The 2015 $61,167 income figure is computed as an average among all segments.

April 8, 2016

Channel 19

Driver before the truck in small fleet expansion

If the truck procurement/driver employment situation in small fleet expansion presents a chicken-egg type conundrum, operators would do well to focus on the driver first.

March 31, 2016

Business

Future of brokerage: Cargo Chief to bet on pay for time

Cargo Chief head Abtin Hamidi wants to “change the way freight [movement] is bought and sold,” he says — the company plans to launch a lump-sum pay-for-time model in its contracts with independents and small fleets.

February 9, 2016

Business

Time to re-regulate the filthy lies

Says Overdrive's Wendy Parker: "It makes my brain hurt to swim in such a swirling abyss of nonsense."

October 15, 2015