What is going on with all the cheap rates from brokers on van freight ??

**codyschmidt** · 08.03.2012

Why is it when disel fuel is on the rise That the brokers rates are on the decline??? It has been a tough week trying to find a load out of South Carolina that would make it worth starting the truck to go pickup!! Come heavy Robinson was paying $1.10 a mile on loads out of the Carolina's or Georgia going to Texas,Arizona or Neveda...Landstar was not paying much better around $1.30 a mile going to the same. I was looking at all loads going anywhere... but I did call on alot of loads with the miles behind them to get me through the weekend driving instead of sitting at the truckstop..
One particular load was a short haul from Florence,SC to Muncie,In 700 miles and some change and the broker wanted to pay $1050 , which is around $1.50 per mile but the load weighed 44,500lbs and that would have sucked the fuel out of the tanks trying to pull it up the hills to get it there...not much left over once I would have paid for the fuel.

Another load from landstar going out to Phoenix from Georgia was 1885 loaded miles and they wanted to pay $1800 for the load, less than a dollar a mile, the broker said "but it is a light load"...You can guess what I said to the broker on that one! What is going on with this cheap freight and why are trucks pulling the loads???

Two weeks ago I left out with a load from South Carolina that finaled out in Salt Lake City, Ut that paid $3.75 a mile (4stops) took 4 days to get empty but the rate was good. When I got empty last week , I spent 2 days in Salt Lake City trying to find a van load out, with not much luck finding something out of Utah, I checked the load boards for freight out of Vegas and it seemed like I would have better luck from there, So I set out for Vegas with the thoughts of slot machines in my head and was planning on staying the weekend, When I was about 5 minutes from the Petro on Speedway Blvd, I got a phone call on a load I had called on earlier in the day and the broker would pay the $2.50 a mile for me to take this load to South Carolina...So with my slot machine bubble bursted from the ring of the phone, I went to pick it up..

So did I just get spoiled with a $3.75 per mile load out and a $2.50 per mile load back to South Carolina to now notice that brokers are paying cheap rates to move the freight?

**NWMAXI** · 08.03.2012

its not just van freight it is flatbed as well. and all the brokers are telling me is fuel is down so rates are down... wheres my gun.........

**FLATBED** · 08.03.2012

Lately its a CRAP SHOOT on rates , broker called 3 times this morning with $1.35 / mile freight , told him to buzz off , this afternoon same guy calls , almost did not pickup the call , but did.

Suddenly he has some $2.40 mile + FSC freight that needs to be covered ASAP

and I had the available trucks

**camaro68** · 08.03.2012

I often wonder, who some of these trucking companies are owned by. Are they foreign owned and don't have to pay income taxes. Kind of like your local foreigner who owns a gas station. So they can run on low rates and make a profit. Just makes you wonder. Something just doesn't seem quite right when fuel is high and rates low,but yet the lowballers keep rolling.

**codyschmidt** · 08.03.2012

Yeah..I am trying to figure out who the lowballers are that keep taking this cheap freight and screwing it up for the rest of us...the loads I mentioned in my post above did not stay on the load boards more than a couple hours and they got covered.

Funny how the broker gives you a low rate in the morning when you call him on the load.... and then when the shipper gets ready to close and the broker is in a bind to get it covered then it is o.k to give the higher rate.

**FLATBED** · 08.03.2012

Lot take the Low $ to cover the cost of relocating equipment to better paying areas it covers their costs , others have NO clue on what their costs are and work for nothing.

**Sly Fox** · 08.03.2012

Originally Posted by FLATBED

Lot take the Low $ to cover the cost of relocating equipment to better paying areas it covers their costs , others have NO clue on what their costs are and work for nothing.

That's the problem. Rather than deadheading for good freight, they'll take fuel money to get there.

**VisionLogistics** · 08.03.2012

Friday afternoon and Monday morning are better times than mid-week mornings since the bloodsucker, er, brokers are trying to cover loads. Also toward the end of the quarter when shippers are trying to boost their shipping numbers for their quarterly reports. Funny how so many forum users say "you just need to do something different with your truck" yet a ton of drivers are either sitting waiting for a decent rate, or hauling cheap to make the payments / pay for fuel. I have some direct freight and no equipment payments, so I can sit a lot longer than some, but still find that those down times are becoming more and more lately.

**dannythetrucker** · 08.03.2012

I gotta tell you, you can get $2.20 out of SC all day long with a flatbed or stepdeck, and that's just a starting point. up to $2.80 on expedited loads. think about it.