It's a Team's Life
Backup Plan
We have had one delay after another on our truck repairs and each time there is a problem time adds on to when our truck will be finished. The shop foreman that was keeping track of our repairs has been diagnosed with a serious disease and our truck has been somewhat in limbo. The truck has not generated any income for eight weeks and with out a back up plan our emergency fund would sink rapidly.
If we were at home we would be checking on our truck often and making the 100 mile round trip at least once a week to check on the progress.
This could happen to anyone at anytime and as an O/O with a truck payment the incident could have put us out of business if we were not prepared. We maintain an emergency fund that up to this point has been used for repairs not for down time. This accident could not have happened at a worse time as we had just taken three weeks off getting repairs done around our house. We ironically had ordered parts for our lift gate as one cylinder had developed a leak and it was time for preventive maintenance and we had the whole lift gate gone over and reconditioned to new. Needless to say while we were home we spent a lot of money on repairs and enjoying R and R.
We came back on the road and hauled one load and were on our way to pick up our second load when the incident occurred. We have since found out positively that the driver had no insurance, had no drivers license and our insurance with our deductible will have to pay for everything. We are now out a truck and out our deductible and looking at our backup plan.
After the shock wore off we immediately looked at our backup plan and needed to make a decision do we use our emergency fund solely and stay home while truck is being repaired or do we run as drivers while our truck is in the shop? We questioned the shop and learned that this was not going to be a quick fix and decided that we would rather work then stay home.
We called Expediter Services as knew we would not be in a truck long and we would not put them in a bind if a good team came along that would stay with them. We talked to Expedite Services about what had happened and our plans and they were agreeable to work with us. We liked the idea of going with Expedite Services as we could continue to run the freight we had been hauling and that they would respect our knowledge of the business. This has turned out to be true and half the time we have forgotten this truck in not ours. We still get great fuel mileage, we still take loads that make us money, and we are constantly monitoring the truck for peak performance.
We plan to be in our truck within the next week and while
the Cascadia “Incognito†has been wonderful we are looking forward to getting
back into our Cascadia the Caffcadia!
Bob & Linda Caffee
Leased to: FedEx Custom Critical 

TeamCaffee

Saint Louis MO
Expediters 7 years been out here on the road 12 years
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle; 

Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;

Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;

Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.