People must be desperate

I felt real good doing all the way. Never been back they can keep it. Sooner we give it to mexico or it falls in the sea better of the we'll be. Ca. is the dog's tail thats trying to wage the rest of the country along doomburg land. My post was not directed at you , but since your another 1 that likes to work for LESS than FREE go for it , I am sure CALIF was taught a lesson .

 

Not the O/O picking them up but the bottom feeder companies.

 

You don't have to be a economist to see what is happening (the big picture), its a monopoly the biggies can afford to take cheap freight because they have another 10,000 trucks making up for it. Us little guys (small business) who can not afford to run that cheap gets screwed. Don't worry this administration is all for the small business they will help us.

 

Yop, they'll help us alright...

 

The mega carriers have nothing to do with low rates. They have plenty of their own dedicated and 3PL's that they pull for over $2 mile that they do not need to haul $1 mile crap. JB, Schneider and the others have their own brokerage firms. JB Hunt did not put that load on one of their own trucks, but most likely brokered it out to an outside carrier/independant.

The one's hauling $1 mile stuff are the one's with big truck notes, lots of payments, and have to keep rolling. Also those who do not know what they are doing. I've spoken with dozens of drivers just sitting in Baytown, TX and Florida who had been there 2 days and "finally found a load going out".... and the load wound up being some super cheap stuff.

 

Everyone talks about low rates but how much lower can a rate be than 2000+ miles for less than FREE that some posters seem to be proud telling about?

 

They are for business alright if you're a multi-million or billion dollar company. They could not care less for small ma n pa business. As far as this cheap freight goes all you have to do is look at Uship. A shipper advertises a shipment for say $500 you will have 5 bidders going down to $80. They are their own worst enemies.

 

Every model is different we all make tough choices and all of us has different ways that work Sometimes I find it hard to imagine where a 2,000 mile deadhead makes sense but I once did 1,100 miles from Rhode Island all the way home to Tennessee. At the time I HAD to get home and managed to get myself stuck in the northeast dinking out some so-so short haul trips. But everything I could see coming back south was grabage $1.00 - at one point I decided to pick up a partial paying $500 somewhere up near Rhode Island or Conneticut and running it down to Washington DC for a same day drop. The partial only paid $500 that was the most they would budge. I thought to myself, ok it will pay for some fuel for the drive home.

Then I started to think about all the traffic and tolls down I-95 corridor and also that there was no way I could get down to DC in time for same day, maybe in perfect traffic, but who has ever been thru that stretch in the middle of the day without ever seeing a cluster somewhere on that stretch??... ....Then I also thought about cutting thru the woods over to, I-93 and across I-84 over to PA then down I81 avoiding any tolls all the way home empty - which is exactly what I did... There is no way that $500 partial was better than deadheading home in that situation, since I had little time to play around and needed to go.. It was a tough choice but you know what, a couple of months later after some solid rates on good lanes that deadhead wasn't even a blip on the radar...

I don't think every time that would be the best move but in my situation it was the only choice really. At one time or another everyone finds themselves in that situation one time or another.. A big 1,000 or 2,000 mile deadhead hurts in the moment but one or two of them in a year's time, emergency situation, is not a bad business move and not going to kill you. Even now my deadhead runs 30-45% some weeks. Deadhead is what you make of it on the rates you're able to get... I don't see that high deadhead percentage as detrimental at all in fact I'd much rather drive around empty than to haul $1 a mile, having some joker slamming in and out of my equipment with their cheap freight, from one good load to the next..... ..to heck with that..

 

No they put it on their own trucks....I have seen that first hand. I loaded aload from one broke paying 2.50 a mile and jb hunt pulled in and took the load I had called on prior that was 95 cent mile and everything including his contact numbers where the same as what I had been given. It was pure luck I had found out. the driver came up to me asking some info on how to load and start giving him adivse. asked him what he was getting and he tells me the weight and that its 5 coils. I asked him if it was going to woodburn KY and he said yea how did you know. I start reading off the info I had gotten on the load and everything matched. So yea the Megas take the cheap loads. They still run DAT boards for loads and a few others including their own. And as long as the keep it up and just write it off as a tax lost and fuel stays like this it will stay hard to make it and only get harder....just like in 06 and 07 the megas didn't care and even stated that they did not care about rising fuel prices they had millions in fuel bought and stored. but a couple years later they all ran dry and had to start paying higher prices and started complaining about fuel pricing. and they still had a discount. the fact is they have a major backer and money to play with. JB hunt made the comment years ago that if a truck makes 1 dollar a year they are happy.