If Economy Completely Tanks

Many O/Os are in trouble because of the poor choices they made when buying, or worse, financing which tractor.

I see way too many 379s weighed down with 10" wide 13' tall stacks, Texas bumpers, more lights than Vegas and a sleeper cab bigger and heavier than a industrial sized dumpster (full of more crap too).

If those drivers bought ProStars and T600s instead, they would be getting more than .0001 MPG and would have money left over after a run.

Non-aero rigs are going to disappear far faster than COEs after the length laws were lifted.
At least the COEs paid the same per mile even if they rode worse.

 

You can get good milaeage with classics if you slow down... no more than 55.
That means the warehouses of america (or the world in all) can´t be on wheels and containers.

 

Enter Russian oil to the rescue and forget Mid east... all you have to do is shake hands with Putin...well that might be quite hard to do...after all he´s a former KGB.
hint our diesel is as we speak at 2.6 and our COE´s aint especially aerodynamic IMO... but logistically efficient.

 

Slower Speeds, bigger total loads... Way bigger.
Not much improvement in the Otto engine technology, lifting Tag tandems but Not Team running..why ?
Because there ain´t gonna be Drivers willing to do that.
More Warehouses & better logistical planning.

 

Railroads are struggling to haul the meager 14% of the freight they haul the way it is. Their infrastructure has been crumbling for 40 years and there is no real way to resurrect it with-out an immediate cash-transfusion, where is that going to come from?
Freight has ALWAYS moved faster and more efficiently by truck, shippers aren't going to give up that "JIT" mentality without a bloody struggle. There are just some commodities that simply cannot be moved by rail and trucking is the only mode of transportation.

 

A good example of the truck vs rail...... truck is better idea.

A major Michigan Based office furniture manufacturer swalowed the Schneider sales pitch hook, line and sinker. Our company pulled all our trailers out of their yard because we couldn't compete with Schneiders lower freight rates.

Time passed...something on the order of two weeks.

We were right back in the door of the manufacturer and Schneider was pulling ALL their trailers off the property.

It seems that Schneider put a very important trailerload on the rail and lost it for a week.

 

Then I guess we're looking at mandatory teaming and no-idling laws for the next 3 to 5 years.

 

Today's Herald Palladium printed a flashback to 25 years ago: "The Michigan Employment Security Commission reported that the unemployment rate in the Benton Harbor-Berrien County labor market area dropped from 19.1 percent in December to 18.1 percent in January." In Michigan, 725,000 people were out of work. I sold my truck at that time because there were no good leases available. I still had work as a fleet driver although the layovers were longer.

They say there is a strong foreign market for today's repossessed late-model equipment. I don't think it will get as bad as it was 25 years ago although we import more of everything now.