WTF?

Lol there are enough eastern europeans in white volvos in FL to take literally every load going back to the midwest 3 times. Good luck getting them to stand on principle with you.

 

How much are you billing the customer for this 700 mile load? Be honest ....

 

1500. She gives me FL outbound loads for the same rates as she pays during produce season to keep my lights on and to stop me from finding the motivation to cold call (obviously it's working because I'm sitting her chatting on a forum like a lazy bum every day). It's like 1-2 loads a week. During the season I'm getting those same loads covered for 15-1700 (to NC... IN pays more like 22-2300) and charging the customer whatever 200 more than the cover was. And I'm doing 50 loads a week not two lol.

EDIT: And I'm covering them for 1k because they are S. Florida to Southern Indiana which is more like 1k miles. Also all produce season rates are for 2016 which will hopefully be the worst year any of us see for at least another 5 years.

 

No doubt. To me that is the great tragedy of trucking. If we could stand together, even half of us, this industry would be amazing. That's why I say, the rates aren't going to happen and we all know that deep down. Doesn't take away that sting.

 

I'm surprised you haven't had a slew of service failures with who must be taking these loads ... either that or the customer doesn't actually care if the load arrives tipped over or at the correct temperature or on time ...any of that.

 

There are tens of thousands of different trucking companies in the US. It's a very competitive industry. You're basically wishing that all truck drivers would stand with you and demand more money...

The thing is... If you got what you wanted it would be a massive disaster for the country. Because truckers, once united, wouldn't stop at 'reasonable'. No you guys would act like the longshoremen out at the Port of LA and hold the whole country hostage. Suddenly you'd have to be someone's cousin to get a job trucking and it would pay 240k a year and the service level of every supply chain would go straight to crap.

Any time you start moving a normal good away from competition literally everyone who isn't actually in that industry suffers severely. Just look at the state of our country today. Try and tell me that it's a good thing that we have so many regulations in this industry. You're basically asking for more of that if you take your goals to their logical conclusions.

This is a pretty good industry. All of us make solid middle to upper middle class money. If we don't we need to figure out why we don't. Yeah it's not prestigious and nobody realizes just how much we all go through to get them their stuff... But we get paid for that too. I'm not sure reducing how competitive it is would be good for us at all. And yes I consider it to be 'us'. I'm not into adversarial relationships with trucking companies. Good trucking companies are the product I sell.

 

None. Great carriers one and all. I'm incredibly picky on the FL outbound. You have to understand I get like 10 calls within 2 minutes of posting FL-IN for 1000 bucks. If I wanted what you're describing I'm sure I could find some terrible carrier for 8-900.

I will add that just because you're a Polish immigrant from Chicago doesn't mean you run a bad trucking company. Actually my single biggest carrier is a bunch of Polish guys who do fantastic work for me during the produce season. I pay them 50 bucks a load more than other carriers and in exchange all I'm doing is sending over the paperwork. The truck always shows up where he's supposed to when he's supposed to, and delivers where he's supposed to. If anything is going wrong they tell me. If the load tips they have a warehouse in Chi town and they restack it before it ever gets to the DC and nobody ever knows any different. Simply awesome.

 

I have always found the loads where they can't seem to get you to go low enough are always filled with headaches. Shipper might not have a clue what you are there to pickup. Take forever to load it if they even have it ready that day. Receiver you are told be there for this time then you find out the appointment hasn't even been made. Maybe the product itself is pulping at a higher temperature and you know it is likely going to be an issue on the receiving end. Just all around a PITA. No thanks. There are always other options. It doesn't cost as much as you think to move an empty truck and I don't feel like I have been chewed up spit out and discarded.

 

The problem I have with the $1 per mile load is this. I can go empty to say GA and find something going to say IL or WI and from there another good paying load to IN if that is the home base and come out better than taking the $1 load. I don't know if these lanes are good or what they pay, but this is my experience. The example might be GA to PA to IN .... I have no idea. I know how it works in my world. And the SE is not a part of my world. Too warm for me.

 

Higher pay would be a small part my friend. Regulations, environmental rules and even truckstops could be designed better. Also, I don't view standing together as a loss of competition.
You say competition, who competes with the FMCSA? Would be nice if we had the ability to fill that role.