For about 5 years in the mid to late 90's, I was a owner/operator with a Toronto based expedite freight company. I owned my own F 350 Ford cargo van. All of my deliveries started in Canada, and my destinations could be anywhere in the lower 48 States. Expedite freight is the highest classification of goods, usually very high value, and it just HAS TO GET THERE, as soon as possible. A typical shipment might be a jet engine part for a commercial aircraft that was stuck on the ground somewhere, and the part was coming from a source in Ontario or Quebec. The company owned it's own fleet of trucks, vans and airplanes. As a o/o I was paid 70 percent of the amount charged to the customer, and my company got the 30 percent share. A usual per mile payout to me was $3 a mile. Out of that amount I paid for all my costs. As a business owner, I was able to deduct all of the costs I paid out such as fuel, tolls, insurance, repairs and food and motels while on the road.
It was a type of freedom that most people will never experience. As long as I answered my pager within 10 minutes, day or night, the company would send me the details of the pick up location, the destination location and which US port of entry I had to go to, in order to get the shipment cleared by US Customs. Once I was in the States, I had to call my dispatch officer every 4 hours ( using a 1 -800 phone number ) with my exact geographical location, so they could update the customer about my estimated time of arrival. I had to figure out my route, using the US road atlas trucker's book, so that I was driving the shortest possible route. Bear in mind that in many cases I was going to a place I had never seen before, in a State that I had never driven in before. Add the fact that in many cases I was driving through the night, and you can see the complications that I faced.
Now for the fun part....Once I had delivered my shipment, I could call back to the office in Toronto and tell them to "put me to sleep " meaning no more jobs would be assigned to me for at least 24 hours, so I could sleep and eat and fuel up my van. I had a new type of pager, that worked off of a satellite system, so as long as my van was not parked underground, the pager would work. Once I had slept and ate, I would call in and ask " any work for van 107 ?" Which was my call sign.
I once sat in Arizona for 3 days, waiting for a load going back to Canada. Canadian based commercial vehicles cannot carry freight from one place in the USA, to another place in the USA, which is illegal. The exact same rules apply to US based trucks in Canada. During that 3 days of waiting I did the usual "tourist things " and really enjoyed myself. I called in once a day, to check with the dispatch office. Nada. On the 4th day I said I would head east towards Texas, calling in every 12 hours. The next day I got a call for a load in Houston, going back to Quebec City, pick up in 18 hours. Made the pickup, got the Canadian import papers and headed to the border at Detroit/Windsor. Then on to QC. That run took me 9 days, and paid me a total of $6750.00 less my costs.
That job allowed me to make what I considered to be a really good annual income, while seeing the US . After 5 years, the 125,000 miles a year started to wear me down, and I got out of the expedite freight business. I still think of that period as a good time in my past. Jimb.
