Starting up

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OWNER AND FLEET OPERATORS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

I am a self employed HGV driver (amongst other things) and have always wanted to own and operate my own vehicle(s).

This comes from being taken all over Europe and the Middle East with my father when I was growing up as he is a long diatance HGV driver.

I have read a lot of negative things on here about starting up and people going bankrupt etc.
I am yet to meet a poor owner operator. I know you have to put in a lot of hard work, maybe have a bit of luck and a decent truck to start with.

Any feedback, ideas, information would be much appreciated.

I have looked in to this and noticed an advertisement by Maritime Transport on a “buy as you work” deal.
Anybody have any experience of this? Good or bad

2

Hello Peter, welcome along. If you’ve never met a poor owner-operator, feel free to meet me. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yes, you can make a reasonable living at it, but not, I’d suggest on the Maritime deal which involves paying top dollar for a truck to do bottom dollar work.

I’m sure you’ll get plenty more feedback soon.

3

I can assure you there’s plenty of poor ods out there n there usually ones who go for things like the maritime scheme
There is money to be made if you get resnoble paying work and are sensible in your costings not going overboard with finnance repayments etc I started 5 years ago with a 20 grand bank loan I don’t regret it however I did have some resnoble work line up

4

Thank you for the replies so far.
Looks like not many people speak highly of Maritime.
Being an owner operator is something I am looking in to but will not jump in to.
I currently earn £1600.00 per month after tax in my employed job, on top of that depending on how many rest days I have in a month and staying within my working hours I can earn anywhere between an extra £400.00 to £700.00 driving on top of my employed wage.
With that in mind would you say working as an owner operator (driving myself) would be beneficial?
I don’t expect to make millions but believe transport could pay with a bit of luck!!!

As for Maritime the rates are approx £1.35 per mile or a job rate depending on distance for containers and £1.40 per mile for general curtain side work.

Is this average for a sub contractor?

Would be interested to see what the likes of P & O, ECS, Interbulk etc pay, all companies I have had experience with.

Again any feedback would be much appreciated.

5

Peter4543:
I am a self employed HGV driver (amongst other things) and have always wanted to own and operate my own vehicle(s).

This comes from being taken all over Europe and the Middle East with my father when I was growing up as he is a long diatance HGV driver.

I have read a lot of negative things on here about starting up and people going bankrupt etc.
I am yet to meet a poor owner operator. I know you have to put in a lot of hard work, maybe have a bit of luck and a decent truck to start with.

Any feedback, ideas, information would be much appreciated.

I have looked in to this and noticed an advertisement by Maritime Transport on a “buy as you work” deal.
Anybody have any experience of this? Good or bad

Peter, you’ve never met a poor OD as all the ones you haven’t met have gone bankrupt.

Don’t run for Maritime. I’d say that to my own son if I had one.

As a general rule of thumb, I did say general, you want to be on £2 per mile (or more if you were born under a lucky star), all miles to do well at it with direct customer work.

Eddie runs at about £1.60-£1.70 per mile on long distance, one hit work, you may be able to get a higher rate than that with extra drops, demurrage & various other bits & bobs.

On the whole subbing on a traction basis to other transport firms will pay you a good drivers wage, maybe less, maybe more. I personally do my utmost to stay off this work. I’d rather do primary rate one way work on my trailer & takes my chances back loading him.

With the upswing, & DCPC deadline looming, now is the time but please don’t run for carp money from day one or you will have many sleepless nights.

Do not run for less than £1.50 per mile on traction unless you want to be another has been. Other factors may play like if you are hitting it right everyday, double shifting him 24/7 & even then you may be a busy fool.

10 years O/D/small haulier.

If you start & do well, fair play. Always, always, always ask yourself what if it goes pear shaped tomorrow? Or if your customer decides they’re not going to pay you for whatever reason, that’s always a laugh!

6

Peter4543:
Thank you for the replies so far.
Looks like not many people speak highly of Maritime.
Being an owner operator is something I am looking in to but will not jump in to.
I currently earn £1600.00 per month after tax in my employed job, on top of that depending on how many rest days I have in a month and staying within my working hours I can earn anywhere between an extra £400.00 to £700.00 driving on top of my employed wage.
With that in mind would you say working as an owner operator (driving myself) would be beneficial?
I don’t expect to make millions but believe transport could pay with a bit of luck!!!

As for Maritime the rates are approx £1.35 per mile or a job rate depending on distance for containers and £1.40 per mile for general curtain side work.

Is this average for a sub contractor?

Would be interested to see what the likes of P & O, ECS, Interbulk etc pay, all companies I have had experience with.

Again any feedback would be much appreciated.

You’d be better off finding a higher paid driving job peter, hoyer are after chaps in west London for fuel at £18 per hour, probly not tramping but, most blokes would do a fair old commute for that wedge.

There’s smarter ways of getting there unless you have diesel in your blood & are addicted to running your own, like me.

I personally think blokes are nuts running at £1.40 per mile (I’ve done it myself for a year odd in the recession, more fool me.) the other firms you suggest will pay the same as maritime, they all pay the same on that type of port work. (With some exception before someone points that out).

Change your focus. Chance your arm at local firms with decent work, special vehicles maybe / special trailer, separate yourself from the herd to stand out.

The risk & Agro do not equal the money on poor traction.

7

I have been a Owner Driver for 20 years now and you have got to be prepared to take the good times with the bad. Always save for a rainy day some weeks you might earn some bloody good money other weeks you might make nothin as in you might have a break down etc. The going rate at the moment for traction work from the ports Is around 1.35 to 1.37 a mile depending on area and firm you work for.

Hope this helps if need any advice don’t be afraid to pm me.

8

Last but not least, generally if you are ringing them (you won’t be the first), it’ll be carp money as they’re doing you a favour.

If they ring you on the other hand…

These firms know blokes like poncing around in their own big one, they feed off that interest.

9

Thanks again for the feedback.
You are all slowly putting me off the idea!!!
I will continue to research and see what I find, but I certainly will not jump in head first and run for poor rates.
I said I am yet to meet a poor owner operator and I stand by it, maybe they are the lucky ones and made money “when times were good”

10

You can make a reasonable living on traction although you’ll never get rich at it. I sometimes do my own work, I look on subbing as my bread and butter and my own work as the jam. Admittedly I would prefer a bit more of the jam but I still earn enough at it to make it worth my while.

It’s not just about the rates though, it’s about what you pay out. A 10-reg Renault Premium will do the same job as a 13-reg Volvo FH. There will be a small amount of extra maintenance but the finance payments will be thousands less per year. A good fuel card will cost thousands less per year than an expensive fuel card. If you have your own money to put into it, you are at an advantage already as interest on finance is expensive.

I’ve got to say, although it’s grief when things are going wrong (and when you have bad luck, you seem to have a good long run of it :confused: ), I do overall enjoy running my own truck far more than I enjoyed most jobs I’ve had, and for me personally, quality of life is an important consideration. If it all went wrong tomorrow, then I’d never regret having done it, and unless my main customer went bust owing me two months money, which is unlikely in the extreme, then I’d still come out well ahead.

So my advice would be first and foremost to stick with a good employed job if you have one, if you do put a truck on the road then get a non-badge-snob truck which is four years old, get a good deal on fuel prices, look for work which pays a little better than the bottom tier and above all credit-check anyone you think of doing work for.

11

If you’re only making £1600/month as a s/e driver then you’re doing it wrong. What’s that before tax? £2200 ish or are you ltd? If you’re ltd and doing average driver hours of 55-65 per week with no nights out you should be invoicing for around double that amount.

12

I don’t make that as a driver, if you look at my first post I am employed (not driving), I work 4 on 4 off. On my 4 off I drive if work is available self employed as I carried it on from when I did drive full time. It means I pay NI twice but hardly any tax self employed as my allowance is taken up by my employed job. I only work for people I know in the industry I don’t chase work. I normally make anywhere between £400 to £ 700 a month driving on top of my wage. Hope this clears it up.

13

Play it safe.

Unless you have two things in your favour:

Age therefore Time

and

Steady and consistent work already.

I’d try agency before going O/D.

14

hello everybody. this topic is a year old now. i was curious if anyone has any updates on rates? for owner drivers. i am thinking buying my own truck(s). i work as ltd driver now. and as an average i can do bout 3.5k to 4k (vat included). based in birmingham area.

15

Checkout recent thread of costings, that may help you

16

My first thoughts are don’t do it!! but if you have to go for it, try to work direct for a customer rather than subbing, less than £1.50 per mile, in my view, is suicidal, don’t go for the low hanging fruit such as container work, these companies advertise week after week for a reason!

If you can, specialise, do something that not every other bugger is doing. I specialise in a vey niche market, especially for a small haulier and I still have jokers coming into it and decimating the rates. I’m, in most cases,able to charge what Ideem to be a fair rate for what I do, therfore go in at around £2.10 per mile or £55 per hour depending on the distances involved. This makes me a reasonable living off my three trucks but being specialist I have specialist equipment which costs more to buy/maintain and I have to pay my drivers a good rate on top but in my sector I’m able to run the trucks 24hours per day at certain times of the year which is something else you could look into perhaps, it makes better use of your kit but comes hand in hand with increased operating costs and depreciation of equipment but does effectivley cut in half your other costs such as insurance and tax etc.

I’ve been going for ten years now and have fluctuated between two and seven trucks and am still no closer to my Bentley and nice house in the country but am better off than if I worked on the cards for someone else even taking into account the endless stress and headaches!!

Just go into it with your eyes open and good luck!

17

AlexH, I could have written that exact post myself! :laughing:

18

Hi.
I am new to this .
I am thinking buying one or two truck to start transport container, haulier bussiness curently i run a building company but for same reason all rate on building going down badly.
Any one have experience to inform me how the transport , haulier bussines market is ?, ideas, information would be much appreciated.

19

Gldirect:
Hi.
I am new to this .
I am thinking buying one or two truck to start transport container, haulier bussiness curently i run a building company but for same reason all rate on building going down badly.
Any one have experience to inform me how the transport , haulier bussines market is ?, ideas, information would be much appreciated.

Hello mate,
If you take some time and read more on here you can find some useful information and get some answers on your questions as well.I’m also new here but I read a lot of what ppl say/share and I’d say that it helped me to find the answers on most of my questions.

From what I understand you run a building company but due to rates are going down you’ve decided to change to transport company and buy one or two trucks…so far so good. My friendly advice to you as a start up point is this, before you attempt to buy any truck/s and start earning millions is to get your Operation Licence done and once you have it then you need to find clients to work for and then you can start thinking of buying trucks.

Wish you luck.Dont give up

20

Hi.
I m looking for parking space(2 artics) in Tilbury/Grays/Purfleet(must be vosa approved op.centre)
any help welcome.
Thanks