We're the reason rates are down

Glad I don’t study like that guy lol

 

And yet drivers are on here complaining about the rates being too low. Rates are down but still a very profitable environment to operate in. Where is this fine line between profit and greed?

 

A guy asked me today at a small truckstop in Oregon, (with his strong Hispanic accent) "what can we do about these cheap rates"?

My answer: Just don't run them.

He looked shocked...

 

There's very few barriers to entry in truckload. Anyone with a little money down and decent credit can buy a truck, fill out some paperwork, and POOF! he/she is an owner-operator. The guy manning the deep fryer at McDonald's may see trucking as a step up: POOF! four weeks later he's now a truck driver running team miles on a trainer truck. After his training at CR England, they offer him a lease purchase with no credit check and no money down, POOF! another lease-op hits the market.

Rates go up in an up cycle but then capacity pours into the market. Those rate gains get wiped out when the cycle turns down because now there's too many trucks and people haul loads just to pay bills and keep creditors off their backs.

What will the future bring? More foreigners working for peanuts to ease the "driver shortage" and more autonomous trucks. They've been test running autonomous trucks on the Ohio Turnpike for awhile now and as the technology advances, who knows what trucking will be like in 10 years?

 

Yep it's a "free" market all right. The govt is free to increase capacity with foreign labor until freight gets hauled at or below cost all the way from the coasts. All that matters is they collect sales tax on that Chinese garbage

 

I sit if the rate isn’t high enough. I don’t expect a crazy amount, but some stuff is ridiculous.

My girlfriend who does dry van saw a load going from Laredo to Houston with 2 stops for $600. She called to see if she can get more (needed to get to Houston anyway) and someone picked up the load already for $525.

350 miles. 1 pickup 2 deliveries for $525.

Are you serious?! Who would take that!?

 

4 guys in a truck looks good when you're used to two on a camel

 

The simple answer is to price freight going into Florida high enough to make it worth the trouble of getting a cheap load out or losing a day deadheading out. No one forced you to take the cheap load to Florida in the first place. That’s your bad decision, don’t knock others that run back cheap. They’re going back for $1.25 to get another $4.00 mile load.

 

Things aren’t as bad as brokers are trying to make it seem. I was in Ohio last week, plenty of loads. Same in northern Indiana, Just have to look and make calls. Don’t panic and take anything, turn it down. Unless you need it to get to a better load paying $$$ No matter where you go all rates depend on supply and demand. Higher eastbound and less westbound, North and south is a little different depending on seasons, right now south is dead. Next month it will pick up.

 

so, they'd be running for $2.62 for all miles. Why would that be bad?