Rates are crashing and fuel to the moon!

You’ve not hauled a lot of beams have you? 5’ front OH and 5’ rear OH is a hell of a lot easier to deal with than 10’ hanging off the ### end. Not to mention the weight distribution. Plus that aluminum headache rack will fold up like a beer can. They even come with labels saying so.

 

No, still leased on to the same company. Don't plan on getting my own authority. How about you? Still at Schneider?

 

Headache racks are mostly useless, decoration only and give drivers a false sense of security because they think that piece of metal will stop whatever is sliding towards them. A load that is secured properly won’t be moving anyway. Like my old boss would say “there’s no such thing as a shifting load, only a load that either wasn’t loaded right to begin with or it wasn’t tied down right”.

Also a bulkhead on the trailer would mean you can’t overhang the front and that isn’t ideal when hauling overlength stuff.

 

I’m not at all familiar with the states that load goes through. But running around out in the northwest our two biggest pains when hauling 60’s or longer were Washington and Wyoming. Every other state we ran in you didn’t need a permit for 60’s and even 66’s you were good unless you had over 10ft of rear overhang in Utah. I loved hauling 60’s out of Oregon down to SLC. Keep the rear overhang under 4ft and we didn’t need to hang lights or put flags on the corners.

 

Check your securement often. Is the only thing that will save you.

It's not a secret that bouncing down the highway rattles the loads and makes securement loose.

 

You guys just live to argue around here. Putting the driver in danger because he can't stop the freight from foward movement so the broker can save the price of shipping is weak.

 

I pulled a flatbed for 10 years running 105k gross and I can assure you that the rack on my truck was 100% decorative. My boss had them built because he liked how they looked. Guarantee it would’ve done zero to stop forward movement, my boss would say it’s just one more thing to cut off you before they pull you out. Also, you must’ve ignored the part about a bulkhead on a trailer prohibiting front overhang. I don’t live to argue, relying on metal to save you from an improperly secured load is foolish.

 

Decoration. Just like every other headache rack. If they actually did anything they would be required on trucks with a flatbed.

 

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!!! Hoping for a better freight year in 2025 for all!!!

I must say, it's already looking better. I'm so used to seeing everything paying $2.50/mile and under on the boards... Seeing this heavy hitter on the board today gives me hope!!! $4.71/mile C'MON!!!!

 

Pretty good rate for a 3 stop with 8’ drop tarps!