Had More Miles Running Local Than Over The Road

I think the lack of consumer spending is the bigger reason for the freight recession moreso than foreign drivers. I saw somewhere where it was estimated that its about 200k non domiciled CDL workers. Don't know how accurate that is, but it's still an American dominated industry, and I'd say by a pretty wide margin. The prices of everything keeps increasing, and folks' pay isn't increasing so I'm putting the freight recession on that. I'd even daresay the industry is still reeling from the pandemic.

All that said, you make a point about some companies having more freight than others. I think for drivers to find steady money OTR, a good question to ask a company would be about customers and the types of loads they haul. You'll always have to eat or take meds so reefer is always a safe bet. Flatbed always has more freight than drivers, and its starting to get warm in some parts of the country so that could boost that sector.

 

If Swift is your carrier, & you would like more miles...you could (on paper, at least):

• Switch to a dedicated freight account
• Switch to reefer freight
• Switch to Swift's flatbed fleet
• Switch to intermodal freight

All the above are available at Swift; inquire within, if interested.

Any of those should boost your mileage.

-- L

 

Walmart for example, cryo

 

Not normal. I was getting 3200+ week in and week out doing regional flatbed work.. company i was with will probably hire u out of abq , but not sure. Need flat experience. All west coast runs. Easy work

 

Are you saying running local doesn't pay as well or better than Walmart?

 

100% agree. I think, there was a LOT of careless spending during the flu. As a result, the post-flu slump isn’t going to go away, as people work toward paying for all they bought. As you mentioned, with pay being flat, there’s not going to be any extra to buy more on top of their existing debt, plus inflation. Great observation.

 

There are some local jobs that pay more, such as food service and LTL. But if you have experience you can make more with otr. That has always been my experience.

 

You could double your pay pulling reefers, but you posted you're not interested in reefers.