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bonuses. A year ago, no fleets were offering such bonuses. Team pay “will likely move up a little more aggressively than that for solo driv- ers,” he says. Teams’ time advantage over solo drivers, due to hours of service limits, gives carriers the opportunity to increase revenue because some shippers will pay higher rates for expedited service, says Dana Bibb, assistant truck opera- tions manager for Mercer. Mike Hinz, vice president of driver recruit- ing for Schneider National, says the carrier pays team owner-operators 90 cents per mile and a 100 percent fuel surcharge. Another 2 cents per mile is added as a “utilization and safety incentive” if the team runs 22,000 or more miles in a month. Team driving is more productive for an owner-operator business, says Don Lacy, direc- tor of safety for Prime Inc. With more miles per month, the team more quickly covers fixed expenses, such as truck payment and insur- ance, resulting in higher net income per mile. “With a team, you can essentially run unen- cumbered,” Lacy says. “Nobody makes money while the truck is sitting at a truck stop.” Some Prime teams net more than $3,500 a week, Lacy says. For some cross-country expedited loads, it’s not uncommon for a ship- per to pay $8,000 one-way to ensure quick delivery, he says. “Sometimes they’ll even give you $2,000 just to deadhead out there to get the load.” While it’s more efficient to get more revenue with no increase in fixed expenses, the flip side is that maintenance costs – along with other variable expenses, notably fuel and tires – are accelerated. Brian Hale, an owner-operator from Sunset, Utah, says when he started his team, he knew his truck would wear quicker than originally anticipated when he bought the truck in 2009. “I went ahead and bit the bullet to have the engine recertified and got an extended warranty so that if something does go wrong, I have it covered,” he says. Scheduling maintenance is no different for teams than it is for solo drivers in terms of miles, says Steve Bredigkeit, director of owner- operator support at Boyd Bros., but the miles turn faster. “You just have to be aware of when you’re scheduled for oil changes, and you have to set up a maintenance schedule,” he says. Downtime can be much more costly for Dividing the pay Not all teams are spouses sharing the same business and personal finances, so how team pay gets divided can become a “bone of contention,” says Steve Bredigkeit of Boyd Bros. “There are a variety of ways of attacking the problem,” Bredigkeit says. “There can be some real nega- tives, but nothing that communication beforehand can’t mitigate.” Fleets normally pay “to the truck” for an owner-operator team, says Gordon Klemp, president of the National Transport Institute. It’s a simple matter when the truck is owned by a two-person business, such as a married couple with joint finances. Robert and Kathryn Keeran, an owner-operator team from Tampa, Fla., are leased to FedEx Custom Critical and co-own their truck. After they’ve paid the bills each week, they pay themselves the leftovers, Robert Keeran says. In other cases of “to the truck” payments, the owner would pay the other team member according to their agreement, usually based on miles. If the owner-operator has a small fleet, the employees would be paid in one of the typical methods used for paying company team drivers: Split pay: Pay is split evenly between drivers. Each pay: Each driver is paid accordingly to the miles he or she drove. An owner-operator can choose to use split pay with a non-owner team driver. That’s how Brian Hale handles payment for his co-driver Randy Feik. “I wanted it to feel fair, and it wasn’t worth the headache of keeping track of who drove how many miles exactly,” Hale says. teams than for solo drivers because of the freight demands and frequent higher rates. “You’re making more money, so you might want to spend a little extra to make sure you don’t get stuck on the side of the road,” Mc- Neely says. Lacy says team driving works ideally when suitable freight is available to support it. The highest earners at Prime drive team, he says, but they have to find the right loads to maxi- mize their advantage. Good communica- tion does a lot to help a relation- ship, says Kiersten Coleman, who has driven team seven years with her hus- band William. “It gets tough being in a box together 24-7,” she says. SEPTEMBER 2010 OVERDRIVE 25 Bruce W. Smith