Crystal, Stacy or Mel, or anyone else who knows about trucking

Here's the deal, we have a semi and I want to hire someone to use it to go pick up a huge load of hay for me in SD, about 32 hours round trip. Of course we'd pay the gas but how much would we pay the driver? And how do I make sure that even though they'd have our semi, they don't take off with my hay? And how do I even go about finding someone to do that? Or is it more standard that to hire someone for something like that, they'd want to use their own truck and how much more would that cost?

We found a screaming deal on hay and want to broker it but don't really know how to get it here It's cheap enough that it's worth the cost of getting it here I just don't know how you find someone to do it.

I have absolutly no idea. Maybe place an ad in the local paper, do you have a local daily paper? Because it could be in the next day.

I googled truck driver hiring and it came up with some websites. I also googled how much they make and it said about $750 a week, but I think maybe you would pay a by the hour thing.

Do you have any businesses near you that have lots of truck drivers? Near us we have a stockfeeds yard and a big milk factory so there are a fair few local truck drivers. Perhaps you could visit a local factory or shop or something that you know has truck drivers and ask if anyone would be interested in doing this job for you. Maybe someone has the week off or is looking for some extra money.

I think to stop them from stealing your hay, you'd find out there name, address, maybe even drivers liscense number or something. So you can contact the police...any legitimite person isn't going to mind giving you these details.

Good luck...my advice isn't very good but hopefully it helped a bit, lol. I have family who farm and they have always made there own hay and supplemented with brought hay, but it's always delivered by the company they purchase it off. It's good you found a good deal.

This post has been edited by Nina J on Sep 7 2008, 03:56 PM

Thanks for the input, I had googled freight companies but they wanted a lot of money....I'm a little scared to put an ad in the paper with DH out of town, I don't want people coming to look at the truck when I'm here by myself but I guess I could get the basic info over the phone and just try to narrow it down for him.

I have to ask DH but I know one thing is the insurance, are you insured for another driver on the truck? and what about insuring the load? I almost think it would save the headache for someone to use their own truck.
Also here its $4 a mile is what the truckers getting. I think I would also be worried about hiring just anyone without checking their driving record. if you hire them and they have an accident and hurt someone would you be liable for damages?

here we have a flying J truck stop, if you have something like that what about posting an ad there?

Dh said he would be nervous about using anyone else, is there a company that can sub contract their drivers for this? maybe ask the people selling the hay if they deal with anyone on a regular basis?

Our policy does cover other drivers, but the truck itself probably isn't as nice as some guys have so that might be another reason for them to use their own. We have a huge truck stop in the next town, I think that is the way to go. Does $4/mi include gas, or do you pay gas on top of that?

gas on top of the $4/hr.
dh said if we were closer he would do it!
sometimes I think he misses just going out and driving. He liked to see the country that way.