Cheap Florida freight

I won't run down there, but my girlfriend's father lives there, so he has no choice.

He does exactly what someone else said - he makes sure that whatever rate he gets going home will pay for him to deadhead out to as far as Atlanta if need be. Sometimes he's lucky and will find something out of St. Augustine or Jacksonville (he's located halfway between Orlando and Tampa) so that he doesn't have to deadhead quite as far.

Say no to cheap freight!

 

Yep outbound dry van freight is cheap here. So what? It's called supply and demand. Outbound dry van freight out of the northeast is cheap too. Boo hoo. Trucking is about averages. If you didn't come into FL for $2++ to the truck, you were foolish to come here. Bounce out to GA, be done with it and learn your lesson. If not, go drive for a cpm outfit.

When I pulled van, if it wasn't nursery, watermelon, etc season, I would fly home every two weeks from Baltimore ($200 RT on Airtran). It was far cheaper than coming down for a less than awesome rate and bouncing out. I would suck up all the high dollar NE regional freight during that two weeks and made a nice profit. Of course that was all grocery warehouses in Jersey and NY. You have to recognize opportunities and take advantage of them if you want to really succeed in this business. Or you can cry about it.

 

There's no crying in trucking!!!

 

There IS a lot of whining though...

 

Supply and demand..... Florida produces basically nothing but old people and hatians LOL

Seriously tho, FL is basically an island that needs supplied but has nothing to ship out but veggitables sometimes. Back when I ran FL, I would only take loads going in that piad over $3.00 a mile and they had to be light (under 30k) and then i would just deadhead back up to ATL or TN and get somehting out of there as I would make more $$ eating the fuel cost to get a $1.75 mile load than pulling a $1.00 mile load an extra 550 miles

 

That ain't just trucking.

Old joke in my other line of work:

What's the difference between a jet and a pilot at the end of a flight?

The jet stops whining.

 

My company has four of us in Florida. This should be interesting to see what we have coming back....if anything

 

Since i live down in Miami, south of Florida, i usually drive 3 to 4 weeks on the road to avoid those cheap freights, most brokers want me to drive to Florida, but if it's not 3 dollars mile i won't be interested, some times they call me back offering 2.8 to 3.

i have learn most carriers are really stupid taking 80cpm loads, they think that they are going out Florida with fuel free, lol, this is what i do.
i look for loads in Georgia and South Carolina one day ahead, and what i look is for a load with nice rate around 2 dollars, so i will drive empty half of the trip.

Example
Miami - buffalo, 1500 milles $1550 Dollars Reefer
Atlanta - buffalo, 750 Milles $1550 Dollars Reefer

it's pretty much the same rate to the same place but half of my trip empty, in this way move out of Florida, i really feel offended when a broker wants me to held the responsibility of the load just for fuel.

just my two cents.

 

Amen to that.

Next time a broker offers you a rate that "will pay for your fuel" ask him this:

"OK, it's a 2 day run, so on Thursday and Friday this week, I'll pay you $15 a day which will cover your gas back and forward to work. You'll work a 10 hour day and the gas money is all you'll get. So will you work for that??"

When he says "Naaaw..." then tell him that he doesn't seem to have a problem asking you to do the same thing.

 

Good one! I'll have to remember that.