My Rant As A Independent Carrier

Texas generally is better for business all around. Gotta love the Lone Star

 

Your right. Most fleecers have not, or cannot, do the simple math that tells them they are working for less then company driver wages at $1.25 per mile. They most often get into the situation based on a dream and whatever BS they heard at the lunch counter.

Most mistakenly believe that the money, the $.10cpm or whatever, they got socked away in a maintenance account is actually 'their money.' In reality it is just a down payment on a portion of the maintenance their truck will require.

The key to the mega's pulling an average $2 a mile, is that is an average. If a load pays well enough going into a location, they will take a loss on a load getting out of that location. And a lot of their OTR loads are really just dedicated loads for which are covered by the OTR portion of their business. Sitting a driver and beating him out of layover is no big deal to them anyway. Those are situations that most O/O will not deal with.

 

This is what we need to avoid, when we saturate capacity, we all lose money. One of the solutions is to have means testing for new authorities and to ensure that they have the right capital for the operation, not marginally day by day capital.

 

Internet issues here, double post - sorry.

 

Un-american. You can not save anyone from themselves, you of all people should know this.

 

Stricter new entrant insurance requirements should help with that a little.

 

Un-american?

Hardly.

I know what you are saying but it isn't about the owners, it is about their drivers who suffer more than anything else and the market which ends up forcing others to accept the low rates.

I see it as a problem that trickles down through the system and those trying to do something they shouldn't do in the first place only aggravates the problem more.

How many threads are created by drivers who have been screwed compared to those threads by owners admitting they couldn't handle running the business?

 

Yes it can help, the one thing that really is a problem is insurance and if you look at the liabilities that they and their underwriters face, much of it can be mitigated through stiffer qualifications.