Owner-driver Chris Coman says the key to survival is to
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demand a rate of a pound a mile and not work for less. He also insists on being paid weekly.
• Owner-driver Chris Coman has not had an easy start to his haulage career. He bought his first truck in July last year, and by March the company that used to be his biggest customer had still not paid him. He is now trying to recover £7,500 through the courts.
Coman, of Netherfield in East Sussex, has learned his lesson. He now insists that the firms he works for pay weekly and this is the case with one of his largest customers, PR Transport of Uckfield. He has also done his sums, calculating that 60p/km (£1 a mile) is his break-even point. Anything less is a waste of time and diesel, Coman says.
He is concentrating on domestic work. He had a go at international haulage but found it did not pay after checking his costs on a run to Spain with shampoo from a Procter and Gamble factory in Manchester. The load had been allocated to Freightmasters, and by the time Cornan got it, it had passed through two other freight forwarders. The outward rate was .£665, less the Channel freight charge, one way, payable 45 days after production of a clean CMR note and invoice. For his return load Coman found 17 tonnes of iceberg lettuces being sent by a Spanish exporter near Murcia to Covent Garden in London. The rate was £1,650, payable 30 days after CMR.
The route he took out was Dover to Boulogne, then autoroute via Paris, Lyon, Perpignan, La Junquera and Barcelona. Tolls made it more expensive, but it was quicker than A-roads. The return leg was through Madrid. lrun, Bordeaux, Tours, Paris and Calais. The total distance for the entire job was 5,109km and total revenue £2,315. This worked out at 45.3p/ km (72.5p/mile). Road tolls, ferries and reefer hire had to be deducted from that.
Coman, formerly a driver/builder with a construction firm, bought his ERF E14 twin-steer tractive unit for £49,000 (less discount and with a maintenance contract with the dealership). He had to remortgage his house to find a £10,000 deposit for the finance company loan. As he waited for his 0-licence to come through he approached a number of companies for work, but at first he was only working three days a week. Now, however, he is working five days. He takes good care of his loads, and customers are now beginning to come to him. And Coman is confident he can survive.
El by Laurence Kiely