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Owner-drivers provide hauliers with a flexible workforce able to meet

19th January 1995
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Page 40, 19th January 1995 — Owner-drivers provide hauliers with a flexible workforce able to meet
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords :

peaks and troughs in demand. But are they valuing themselves highly enough? Should they be more choosy about the work they take on? We talk to users and movers.

. neglance attee"owner

driversjyantadvertismtsmight be all that it takes to transform a driver with experience and spare cash in the bank into an owner-driver.

Demand for owner-drivers is constant: "They own their truck, look after it, do their own job and there's no-one to administer them. We tell them what we want done and it's done. the £60,000 or so we might have spent on a new lorry we can turn around and spend on a new crushing plant for example," says fleet manager Alan Bennett of Wimpy Hobbs.

For reasons like this, many of the big materials supply companies have long since abandoned the majority of their owned fleets in favour of subcontracting and many have owner-drivers on contract.

Weak haulage rates reflects the availability of the work and the number of vehicles to deliver, but there is no shortage of people wanting to enlist for what can be a career with variety.

You get the swings and roundabouts. Owner-drivers like running to the Continent in the summer, whereas in the winter they don't want to go out of the UK. You also get the seasonal agricultural movements and the rub-off from some motorway contracts for people on tippers. We are looking for people on 32 to 38tonne traction units for container work around the UK," says Dave Tolliday, a manager at Ipswichbased Maritime Haulage UK.

Tolliday says his current minimum rate per mile for longdistance container work is 75p and this tends to be reflected in a straw poll around the companies of the area, but this is not a national guideline.

Over in southern Wales, general haulage rates are lower and the owner-driver can expect to work for figures of 70-72p per mile for delivering loads of steel around the UK. One international clearing centre quoted between 74-80p per mile for a continental journey originating from the area.

Judging whether work is on the increase is impossible just by counting the number of advertisements for drivers. While work offered could be new business it is also likely is it still available because the rates are so low However, Steve White, traffic manager at Dartford-based Davies Turner says continental work through his office is likely to increase over the next month or so as the result of a general increase in European traffic. He quotes a current London-MilanLondon rate for a 13.6m trailer at £1,800 nett, but this includes ferry rates paid.

A good rate? Well that rather depends on what your costs are.

Rob McHugh is managing director of Owner Operators UK, an organisation which offers support services to more than 400 members. He is prepared to bet that a random survey of experienced owner-drivers at any truckstop would find less than half of them aware of their actual costs.

For an idea we turned to Bristol-based logistics consultants DR.International. It publishes average costs calculated on an annual basis. While its 1995 figures are set to be published next month, last year's figures showed that an average 38-tonne gross (4x2 + triaxle) combination bought at £58,000 needs around £191 per day on average, say. to break even and a further 44.2p per mile to cover tyres, fuel and lubricants, service and maintenance.

Touting around

Rather than touting around playing the rating game, a safer bet might be to sign a deal with one company. At least you know where you stand.

A national advertisement by the Inter Forward group last October offered 30-day payments, a range of support services and better than average rates to owner-drivers in return for finding the right operators for its Homeserve division. Operations manager Peter Horsefield explains that it currently has more than 20 owner-drivers on the team and is recruiting extra drivers with 32 to 38tonne rigs for areas including Birmingham, Northampton and Croydon.

One of the first things to be done before accepting any new job, is to talk to people already doing it, says Rob McHugh. So Commercial Motor asked 27-year-old Lee Davis. an owner-driver for two years with Homeserve, exactly what he does and what sort of help he receives.

Homeserve installs top-range televisions direct to consumers from eight sites around the UK. Davis told us his early invoices were pushed through to help with his initial expenses. He was given full product training, the work is regular, as are the payments his standing costs are also covered if the vehicle is stood down because of a lack of work. This is rare and he says he has been able to expand his business, to the extent that he Horsefield says "The owner-drivers are paid only for what they do, and because they are paid well they try that bit harder than they might possibly have done if employed at an hourly rate."

There are penalties, however. "If, for example, a driver takes out 10 drops and brings two back, they will be charged for loss of revenue and billed for whoever else has to go out and do them," he says.

However, for every one company deal that appears good, there are others which might not work out "I've one member who pulled out of a contract to ARC in north Wales because he says he could not make a living," says Mick Binns, general secretary of the National Owner-drivers Association. Most of the NODA members are in the hard-pressed construction industry. "He took his lorry elsewhere but has since rung up to say he is going to sell the lorry because the pressure on rates is so bad," says Binns.

A telephone call is often enough to establish whether a company is bona fide, if a job is worthwhile and whether payment is likely to arrive at all. Ask for company details to enable a credit check to be run, suggests Binns.

"I've never been asked that, but you would think its the one that people ought to ask," says Ray Fennell, transport manager at Currie Transport Services (Bristol). He has about 30 owner-drivers on the books at present, working on new business. "They never ask about the differential between the rate we get and what we offer them, either," he says.

McHugh is not surprised. He says few take the trouble to ask the right questions or run credit checks. Too often, they seek advice too late. Binns says: "Someone made redundant from a transport company called recently. He obviously had a few thousand pounds in his pocket. He asked me for advice before he went out to buy a truck to start up on his own. I said yes, I've got some advice, don't do it."

7 by Steve McQueen


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