CARB and Brokers

Since they retrofitted them yes it was stupid...

 

I was talking with a guy at a CTA compliance meeting a few months ago. Their company has 100 trucks. They hauled dirt during the construction boom. He said the economy has been so bad, they only have 25 trucks working but he was hoping it would pick up. I said "wow, only 25% of the fleet working. That's a huge nut to cover." He said all their trucks were paid off and that their real problem was that none of them were compliant. I asked him what they were going to do and he said either move the entire company to Texas or shut it down. Just one of a number of companies I've spoken with doing the same thing.

On the other hand, look at Dirksen in central CA. They run 57' trailers and have a huge presence in the 11 western states with their sister company Gardener. Interesting how the CARB laws have a exemption for any truck pulling a 57' trailer. Guess the ability to lobby and the right connections can make all the difference in the world. Who needs credits when you've got friends.

 

I have a hard time with them getting away with forcing retrofits and such on trucks, even when i lived in cali (over 10 years ago now) your vehicle could only be held to the emissions standards for they year that it was made. I think it should be illegal for them to try to force these trucks off the road or force a retrofit on them. esp when it comes out of many of these peoples own pockets. maybe if cali would take old trucks in trade for new ones truck for truck and they paid the difference (oh wait cali doesn't have any money) they must want there small trucking company owners to be broke like them

reminds me why i left that state and vowed never to return.

 

I have studied the lanes and seems that Phoenix is becoming a haven for California dry van forwarding, pushing West out of Phoenix seems to be picking up speed.

 

I don't know. It seems like maybe there are just less compliant trucks to haul the loads? At least that's what I feel is happening on the reefer side. Loads out of Yuma a couple weeks ago were gone in seconds, faster than I could call, but loads picking up just a little further in Cali sat for a while on the load boards.

 

I dunno, LS freight in Calif. is dead, dead, dead....in 8 years I have never seen it this slow outbound. I live in Calif. and run an 02 Century. I refuse to spend 15-20k on a retrofit that will cost more than the truck is worth....that is just a dumb business decision. I also am not sure I can justify buying a newer truck and facing another round of payments at 60 years old now. My 02 has been kept up and is running better now than ever with over 1mill on her. Right now my plan is to find storage in either Reno or Vegas and drive home, but eventually we will have to decide either to move out or I sell out and do something else. No way do I see rates staying high enough for any extended period of time to justify buying a new truck just to stay here. Just the opposite, if the mega's come in to cover the shortfall of compliant trucks they will do so at cutthroat rates and freight volumes now normally are spotty at best.....we haven't had a good solid steady year since 2006. In 2015-2016 you will have the Mexican deep water ports coming online as well as Panama Canal retrofit completed and the container ships will be bypassing the US West Coast ports as much as possible. IMO Calif is in for an economic shock like they have never seen. The only thing I see paying decent will be produce, and yes I agree you will see more and more storage and cross docking going on in the bordering states. Transportation costs will go up and Californian's will pay the price but the cost increases will not be passed onto the longhaul trucker as demands for interstate point to point services directly to Calif will dwindle and the shorter regional and drayage type specialists will capture the extra dollars for their services.

This is a sorry state of affairs out here now but the loons are firmly in control and are getting what they want......I cry now when I see what has become of my beloved state.....they have turned me they typical honest blue collar working man into a criminal now and I am no longer welcome in the land of my birth, at least as an American Trucker.

 

Sorry rangerbob, but your state is in it's current state of affairs because your citizens insisted on keeping on re-electing the representatives you have.

Your power is in your vote. MN isn't far behind you in some ways and it pisses me off too.