Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread

I would call them whenever I was home (every month or two), but recently had been transferred to an AP manager who seemed interested in making it right. I didn't explicitly threaten to sue, but I cited the CCX ruling in my demand letter.

No, and I hope to maintain that record.

My parents have sued in small claims numerous times for rental & real estate issues, have always prevailed, and rarely collected -- at least from individuals. I know they usually could have done more to collect, but at some point their time become more valuable than the diminishing chances of recovering anything.

Here is one better:
http://www.scopelitis.com/scopeliti...ier Must Get PaidFact or Fiction Tauscher.pdf

 

I started this thread in November 2014 -- arguably the best month for dry freight in what was probably the best year for dry freight. So I thought it might be interesting to look back from the perspective of July 2015 (arguably the worst month and what has been only an above average year)

It is funny, but I have been studying rates and lanes pretty intensely since I wrote the above, but 8 months later I have surprisingly little to add to it:

Monday mornings are still generally bad, but Fridays are hit and miss too -- particularly for longer runs out of average (or worse) markets. I usually do better booking a long weekend run on Thursday.

Holidays are also hit & miss. I booked my best run the day before Thanksgiving, but wound up sitting over July 4th trying to repeat that success...

Mid afternoons are still my favorite time to book, but very early mornings (5-6am) and late nights can be very, very good if you happen to be right where you're needed.

I still occassionally fall victim to seemingly good load/truck ratios, but have learned it is better to search for loads within 200 miles of a city going anywhere and then search again for loads coming from anywhere and delivering to within 200 miles of that city. Not only will that give you a better local load/truck ratio, but you'll get an idea of the freight volume too.

The market still does not appropriately value weight. If you're in a bad area and destined to take cheap freight, you might as well make it light...

Re: freight brokers -- one of those small brokers I was so jazzed about wound up in bankruptcy, though I did recover most of it. I did have some misgivings that I ignored, however, so do listen to your intuition...

Extra stop & driver assist loads are still overvalued by the market imo. When in a bad area, I almost always wind up getting a load requiring a little fingerprinting. Lately I've been trying to string together partials too.

Grocery warehouses are still my least favorite destination, though some do pay reasonably well.


New additions:

The party in the better negotiating position essentially pays a convenience fee when booking loads in advance. When in hot markets, take your chances and book the day you empty. When heading to a bad market, book your return trip in advance...

Try not to post your truck in a bad market -- you won't get calls & you just make the load/truck inbalance look worse. Instead set up load alerts and call the moment an acceptable load comes up.

When you do post your truck, especially in a hot market, be ready to turn the key and go. Check your fluids, sweep your trailer, have your logbook up to date etc beforehand.

Don't book long loads out of bad markets. I still occasionally do this and it grinds on me for the entire (long) trip... Breaking it up into legs will cost you a little more time, but could double the effective rate...

In a bad market, a partial often pays almost as much as a truckload. Piecing together multiple partials can be worthwhile if you don't have a schedule to meet...

Sadly, I have made little improvement in all these regards. And to that list I'll add:


I need to take a little ego out of negotiating. You definitely need some ego, but too much can be worse than too little. I turned down a load over $50 last month. 38 loaded miles, 100 miles away, it was 10pm and I wanted my "daily minimum" of $1000. Broker was willing to do $950 max. 10 minutes after we hung up, I should have swallowed my pride and called back to book the load -- $950 on 138 total miles is still good money! Instead, I sat that day, the next, and then took a ####ty load to a ####ty market apparently in an attempt to punish myself.

Don't negotiate when groggy or driving. Get their info, pull over and/or put yourself together, and then call them back when the playing field is level.

When you aren't going to make a deal, don't be afraid to ask for more info. "Sorry we couldn't come to an agreement -- I'm not familiar with the area so just out of curiosity what do you... (have in it, move it for, etc)" I don't ask this enough, but when I do I'm rarely disappointed -- folks tend to let their guard down once you're no longer in adversarial positions.

I need to do a better job negotiating for TONU and detention in advance of signing rate confirmations.

I need to put more effort into finding direct customers.

I need to do more networking -- maybe create some sort of co-op for the times I find decent shippers who won't work with just 1 truck at a time...

 

And in CA neither party is allowed an attorney in small claims court -- which large companies hate. They have to send a company officer down to waste a day over a trivial amount, so they often just don't show.


In other news, I'm paring back my office expenses. I had been spending $105/month on the Internet truckstop load board and had planned to just go with their basic ~$35 subscription. But they recently took away the refresh button and now want to charge extra to show the latest results.

It isn't a big deal, but just another example of the economies of scale favoring big fleets. Had it been a brand new feature they were charging for that would be one thing, but taking away a feature and then trying to charge for it pissed me off so I canceled. The lines were busy so apparently I was not alone... Besides, I almost never encountered a load on ITS that wasn't already on DAT. I did like their user interface better though, and their rate trending was useful. But ITS also crashed every few weeks so meh no big loss...

Likewise, I'll bump member's edge down from the $45 version to the $35 version -- I have a better feel for rates and never really liked DAT's rate feature anyway.

I also got rid of Significant (~$5/month ap letting you sign pdfs on your phone). Adobe reader & adobe fill & sign now do that for free.

And I'm thinking about getting rid of efax ($15/month). Aside from spammed messages, I get & send only the occasional fax and would be better off paying as you go. But I do like having a permanent fax number... Considering options...

Skype is getting the boot. $3/month plus my bank charges a $2 foreign transaction fee (skype is based in Luxemburg). I'm in the unusual position of having limited voice minutes, but unlimited data with verizon, so early on it made sense to use that data to make calls where I might be on hold for long periods. But the frequency & duration of those calls has gone done considerably now that I have been established for a while...

Offsetting those savings is a website ($25/year) with satellite tracking ($5 one-time fee) -- inspired by former? TTR member @dannythetrucker http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/threads/live-web-tracking.289316/ So far customers have commented favorably on my version, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to translate that into additional revenue.

Anyway, nothing earth shattering, but combined it ought to save $1200/year, mostly from ITS..