Landstar

I won't rule it out, he may have been in a bad market for his trailer type. But he should have been able to see any load posted to the board.

 

Dry van.

 

Some people can run a business, others need a dispatcher.

 

I'm not calling Landstar dishonest, I'm saying they make the drivers toe the line, but let the brokers get away with murder. Still, if you know how to run a business and are flexible enough to modify your operation to handle the freight realities you are faced with, you can make money. I have looked at getting my own authority and at some point in the future will probably do so, what I found is that what you clear with Landstar isn't that much less per mile than what you will make on your own.

Landstar is a big boy company. If you are sitting for days, it is because you are too stubborn to get yourself moving. You also were too short sighted when you chose a load that took you into a dead area. Sometimes you have to eat the loss and get yourself somewhere you can make money. In my case my wife works with the agents to find the loads, I approve the load and run the overall business. What we have been able to do is find an agent that looks for loads off of other boards as well. Basically he has a group of drivers that he acts like an independent dispatcher and keeps them rolling. What that means for us, is that we aren't limited to just what we see on the Landstar board. A good illustration is a video I saw of a driver waiting on a call back from an agent. His point was that you can't get loads because they forget about you. I can tell you from experience you don't wait so long that you loose out on loads. We wait no more than 30 minutes for a call back and look for loads in the meantime. After we book the load, if we don't get the confirmation within 60 to 90 minutes we make a followup call. It's your business, run it as such.

 

We don't have dispatchers, we just don't have to kiss agents rear

 

Cmon man, you know you have a dispatcher. Maybe it's under a different name. I know YOU know the system well and bay pass that person, but for the sake of argument you have one. There's some pluses to Mercer, I'll never deny that. A lot of guys come to LS thinking they'll do what they want, which they can, but quickly realize what they want to do isn't profitable (the reason their previous place DIDN'T do that) and then blame it on LS, instead of themselves or just the way the industry works in that lane.
For example, a lot of guys want to run areas where you HAVE to use rate averaging to make it to work, but won't run for 1.30 a mile on the bad leg, instead sitting for days and getting lucky or just deadheading back finally.
Others want to play gypsy and not develop some type of lane. That's a great way to low cpm.
I never kiss an agents butt and do vey well here. There are some here that go on power trips, but I don't do business with them.

 

No they don't dispatch me at all, they simply call and offer loads, its like a live load alerts, you actually run the show, you have final say. But you do have the option to give them say so over your truck. They a tally are far from dispatchers.

 

Not true at all..... Us folks that know what were doing double net salaries that guy's make leasing equipment to existing carriers.

 

Through the years I've read and listened to a lot of guys who told me how they are making all this great money. On the rare occasions when they tell me their real numbers, they aren't doing nearly as well as they claim. I'm not going to argue, if you're making good money, great, keep doing what your doing. Just count your blessings because most of the industry isn't that way. Shippers see transportation as a commodity and do it as cheaply as possible. They don't care about the long term, they care about the next load. If they can move the load for $.90 a mile then that is what they will do. No one is out here to offer trucking companies charity, or make sure we stay in business.

 

And shippers will continue to offer low rates along with the brokers as long as there's takers... No one hold you hostage and tell you you have to haul the cheap freight... Simply comes down to as long as her people and companies out here willing to haul it for that rate they will continue to offer it