Getting Truck / Authority Beware - The Ship Has Sailed

The run the cheapest philosophy is what keeps a lot of these guys with old beat up Columbias, with mirrors held together by zip ties, squealing brakes and balding ties, etc, running down the road for a $1.35 all miles.

The day I have to do that, is the day I'll take early S.S. and do casual or peak driving for a carrier.

 

Have you ever tried to make a direct customer from a brokered load? Or do you just say #### it and plan on using brokers for ever? You could even start giving loads to other oo when you can't do them. What I read on the forums is true some are business men others are just drivers.

 

Correct. My average loaded miles only rate is 2.45 a mile. I average 16-17% deadhead miles. I have had months in the past where my all miles rate was 2.67, that was huge, mainly shorter hauls. You can run shorter loads or multi stop runs and tout an outstanding rate per mile but your overall revenue is going to be lower doing that kind of work. I mix those runs in but I focus on hitting my 21-22k revenue target at a maximum of 11k miles a month, I don’t want to run more than that a month if I can help it.
It’s a give and take with per mile rates on reefer freight. Rate per mile matters but so does revenue. The high paying 3 and 4 dollar a mile freight usually means extra days. If a one pick one drop pays much less per mile than the multi drop or the short run but daily rate ends up the same or greater on the longer haul one pick one drop, I’m taking the one pick one drop.
I run the same areas repeatedly and I end up with more revenue by passing on a lot of those big rate per mile loads. They pay that well per mile because they decrease utilization of the truck. I mix them in when it makes sense and I strike a balance between rate per mile and revenue, you will rarely achieve both goals at the same time.
What I’m hauling is not spot market freight either. 90% of what I do is Tyson product. In order to get their stuff it has to be through a carrier, that carrier will broker it through their brokerage, but Tyson does not put their loads out there to 3PLs or other pure play brokerages. Additionally, most carriers don’t broker it out either as it’s high volume business to keep their trucks busy. As a result my rates are not quite as good as what I can get on the spot market, but it’s not bad, and it’s very regular. I use one broker for this Tyson stuff who is with a carrier for Tyson. Every once in awhile he may not have something, in which case, I’ll grab a short load into a better spot for him and then grab another Tyson load. I may do only 3 or 4 load board loads a month.

 

Idk it was some dude in here crying about too many trucks on the load board and brokers offering shïtty rates.

 

I don't think anybody wants to run "cheap". Some folks are able to sustain their livelihoods at cheaper rates. For me, as long as it is more than 1.75 -1.85 per mile and I can run 10K miles a month I am still better off than a Chicago area OTR company driver paid on 1099. The end of 2016 - 3 first Qtrs of 2017 is what I averaged or even less. But I blame it on my ignorance, more than general poor rates at the time. I hope it won't go back to that low level too soon.

 

See, to me I figure if I can't do or acheive more than just sustaining my livelihood, why do it?

Sustaining your livelihood means you're one major breakdown away from bankruptcy.

Then again, you already know that

 

On a Sugardale load customer is top 5 pizza franchise. Load of bacon bits. 162,288.34 shipper gave me invoice with load comes out to 4.60lb on 39000 lb load. Very telling