Price a haul truck bid by checking driver hours, the filing route, taxable gross weight, and filing dates separately.
Key takeaways
- Measure each route from the driver's work reporting location.
- Check the return time before pricing driver hours.
- Count taxed vehicles and use each truck's taxable gross weight.
- Put filing dates and separate cost lines in the bid.
Each figure is tied to the rule text it comes from, so you can check it against the source before it goes into a bid. Rules change, and a number saved from last year's bid may no longer match the current page. Treat the linked pages as the authority and the figures here as the place where each one lands in your estimate.
This post is written for estimators who build the bid and for owners who review it. It covers the driver-hour line, the filing route, the tax line, and the due dates. It leaves out fuel, insurance, maintenance, and the other costs of running a truck. It also does not decide whether a particular trip qualifies for an exemption. That depends on facts about the operation that only the operator can confirm.
1. Measure the radius from the work reporting location
The first figure is distance. According to Motive's short-haul exemption entry, the short-haul exemption is a provision in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. It applies to drivers of commercial motor vehicles who operate within a 150-air-mile radius of their work reporting location and return to that location within 14 hours. Those drivers are exempt from the RODS requirement, the rule that otherwise requires a record of duty status.
Three parts of that sentence shape the bid.
First, the radius is measured in air miles, meaning straight-line distance rather than the miles a truck drives on the road. A bid built on road miles will overstate the distance the rule uses, which can make a qualifying route look like it fails. A route that looks long on a map can still sit inside the radius once you measure a straight line from the start point to the far end of the haul. Ask for the straight-line figure on each route instead of pulling it from a navigation app, and write down where the figure came from.
Second, the radius starts at the work reporting location, not at the job site or the customer's gate. Confirm which site your drivers actually report to at the start of a shift, and measure from that site. A haul from a pit to a plant looks like one trip, but the test is measured from where the driver reports. The yard or depot in your bid is part of the calculation.
Third, the test follows where the driver operates. A site added to the route later can push a truck outside the radius even when the original haul was inside it. If the owner adds a second pit or a new dump point, run the radius check again before the schedule changes.
For the bid, write the check into the route sheet: the reporting location, the farthest point on the route, and the straight-line distance between them. If a route fails the check, price it on the assumption that the driver keeps a record of duty status, because the exemption no longer covers that trip.
Dispatch records and driver logs from past trips can test these assumptions. They show the distances and return times that actually happened. Use them to check the route sheet, and say in the bid which trips the figures came from. The owner can then see that the radius was measured on real operation rather than on a guess.
2. Check that the driver returns within 14 hours
The second figure is time. Check the return time as well as the route's distance before pricing driver hours.
Check the regulation text for the clock's start point and what counts toward the return window before you bid a cycle time as a driver-hour figure. A bid that starts the clock in the wrong place will be wrong by an amount you may not notice until the trucks are running.
For pricing, allow for the full return window rather than treating each cycle as a fresh clock. Build the cycle from its parts: the wait and loading at the pit, the drive out, the wait and dump at the destination, and the drive back. Total those parts, then check the shift's planned cycles against the return window with room to spare. A bid that assumes every cycle finishes at the average time will fail on the first slow day.
Margin matters because the parts of a cycle are not all predictable. Queues at the loader, weather, a flat tire, and a slow dump can each add time. Price the cycle with an allowance for those delays, and state the allowance in the bid so the owner can see what it covers.
Breakdowns raise a related question that the cycle time does not answer: where a disabled truck can be taken. State towing rules differ. North Carolina's wrecker statute, for example, allows wreckers to tow disabled vehicles to a place for repair, parking, or storage no farther than 50 miles from where the vehicle was disabled, as described in the General Assembly's statute. Read the full text for the state where the job runs before you price a tow, and do not assume the distance is measured from your yard.
Record the actual cycle times once the trucks are running, and compare them with the bid. If real cycles run longer than the bid assumed, the difference shows whether the margin was too thin or the schedule needs review. Share that finding with the owner early, while there is still time to change the schedule, rather than at the end of the month.
If the planned return falls outside the window, review the schedule and record-of-duty-status cost before settling the bid. Do not assume that adding a second driver establishes an exemption. Confirm the operation's qualification before choosing a staffing plan, and show any added driver cost separately. For related labor costs, review crew paid-time and overtime costs.
3. Count the taxed trucks against the 25-vehicle line
The third figure is a count. The Internal Revenue Service's trucking tax center says e-filing is required if you report 25 or more taxed vehicles on a Form 2290, and it is encouraged for all filers for faster processing. The IRS trucking tax center is the page to check for the current wording.
This line changes how the filing is done, not only what it costs. A fleet just under the line and a fleet at the line sit on different sides of an e-filing requirement, so the admin line in your bid can move with the count.
Count trucks, not drivers. Count only the vehicles the form will report as taxed, and write down the reason for any truck left out, so the number can be checked later. If the owner has a spare or a unit that will sit in the yard for part of the year, ask how the form should treat that unit before you settle the count.
If the bid is close to the line, state the count and the filing route in the bid itself. The owner can then see why the admin cost is what it is, and can ask whether adding or removing a truck would change the route. Trucks added in the middle of a year also change the count, so flag that possibility in the bid rather than leaving the owner to find it later.
Filing preparation takes time too. Gather the list of trucks, their weights, and their first highway-use dates in one place before the filing window opens. When the figures in the bid and the figures on the form come from the same sheet, a mismatch is easy to spot before it reaches the owner.
Illustrative example: total the taxed vehicles
The total is 20. Update the bid's vehicle count and confirm the filing route using that total rather than the original list. Keep each truck's weight and first highway-use date alongside the count.
4. Use each truck's taxable gross weight in the tax table
The tax depends on weight. The IRS trucking tax center says to use the Tax Computation table on page two of Form 2290 to calculate tax from each vehicle's taxable gross weight. The same IRS page is the source for that instruction.
Two points follow for the estimate. First, the input is each vehicle's weight, not a fleet average. A mixed fleet with trucks in different ranges on the table cannot be priced with one number for the whole fleet. An average can land in a different range from the trucks it is meant to describe, so it hides the detail the table needs.
Second, read the amounts from page two of the current form. This post does not list tax amounts, because those belong to the form. A bid should cite the form and the year it used. If the bid was prepared from an old copy of the table, the tax line may not match what the owner files.
If a truck's weight changes, for example after a configuration change, update its entry before the number reaches the bid. A weight that was correct when the fleet list was made can be wrong by the time the form is filed, and the table line for that truck can change with it.
The working method is simple. Build the sheet below, group trucks that fall into the same line of the table, look up the tax for each group, and sum the results. Keep the sheet with the bid. An owner or auditor may ask which weight was used for which truck, and the sheet answers that without a second search through fleet records.
5. Set the filing date from first highway use
The filing date is the fifth figure, and one event sets it. The IRS trucking tax center says taxpayers must file Form 2290 by the last day of the month following the month the vehicle was first used on a public highway.
That date runs from first use on a public highway. It does not run from the purchase date or from the day the bid is signed. Trucks that enter service at different times carry different deadlines.
For the bid, the date belongs in the schedule. Ask the owner when each truck first runs on a public road, because that is the event the rule uses. The rule is tied to public highway use, so a truck that works only on private haul roads may not follow the same timing. Confirm how the current form instructions treat private haul roads before you assume either way, and note the answer in the bid.
Add a column for first highway use to the fleet sheet, fill it in from the owner's records, and calculate each due date from that column rather than from memory. The bid then shows the owner the same dates the filing will use, and a missed date becomes an easy question to answer.
Trucks added during the year bring their own filing dates, and those dates may fall sooner than the owner expects. Put a filing date for each truck in the schedule, and update the schedule when the fleet changes. A bid that gives one date for the whole fleet will hide the trucks added later and may leave the owner short of time to file.
Confirm too who on the owner's side handles the filing. The bid can state the dates and amounts, but someone at the owner's company has to act on them, and that person needs the same figures.
6. Put the figures into the bid as separate lines
With the five steps done, the bid has four pieces to assemble: driver hours from steps one and two, the filing route from step three, the tax from step four, and the dates from step five. Keep them as separate lines so the owner can see which figure moved the price when a change comes up.
Separate lines also help after the bid goes out. If the owner changes the fleet or the haul, you can see which line changes and by how much, without reopening the whole bid. Each line states its figure, its source, and the date it was checked, so an owner can trace any number back to its rule. An owner who can trace a number has less reason to question the margin, and an estimator who can show the trace has less to defend when the job is reviewed.
Before the bid is sent, check the figures against their pages on the day you price the job. Use the source checks before pricing a rule to organize that review.
This is not legal or tax advice. Confirm the current rules on the linked pages before you send the bid.
Next step today
Take a current haul route and write down its reporting location, farthest point, planned return time, and the fleet records needed for the tax line. Ask the owner to confirm any missing input before you price it.
Related guides: North Carolina truck size limits: 3 checks for a haul bid · Daily or weekly overtime? 3 state rules for bid hours · Oregon July 1 raises: 3 rules for pricing bid labor hours.
Questions about haul truck bids
Can road mileage replace the radius measurement?
Use straight-line distance from the work reporting location for the radius check. Keep the measurement with the route sheet so the owner can review it.
Should the bid use an average truck weight?
Use each vehicle's taxable gross weight for the tax calculation. Keep the truck identifier beside its weight and matching table line.
Who should confirm the filing schedule?
The person handling the owner's filing should confirm the schedule. Give that person the same truck list and first highway-use dates used in the bid.