1,300 dollar fine for a glider in California

I have been in heavy inbound areas, every load that hits the board for two or three days, and everyone of them less than .80 per mile, and not one would budge when called. Because of the sheer volume of their business, the mega carriers are profitable by only clearing a few dollars per load. If it cost more for the megas to operate, they'd be going out of business and owner operators would be flourishing. It's the opposite in today's market.

 

With big carriers they don't figure costs like a single owner operator or small fleet does. For them everything is a revenue source and feeds profit centers. They could care less what the spot market rate is, they bid work months out at flat rate contracts for "up to a certain tonnage", not even divided into specific loads, then they figure out how best to move it. Why do you think there is cheap freight on the boards, usually a large carrier is the one offering it up, either directly or thorough one of their associated brokers.

As for only saving the insurance cost, that is chump change compared to the other bulk savings they get. There are a lot of other savings when buying in bulk, from the cost of the equipment and supplies to the fuel cost. For example, most large carriers can buy their trucks new for almost what they sell them for 36 months later, meaning they used that truck for almost nothing, especially if they get a lease driver to pay for it. As for their per mile rate, they base everything on a target margin (usually 10%), meaning if they sell $1 billion dollars in services they expect to retain after all costs $100 million in pure profit, easily done when credit and equipment cost little to nothing.

Think about it, they divide their operations into profit centers such as the truck leasing division, the repair shop, the brokerage, the "trucking company", even recruiting as they will share leads on drivers with other carriers, why do you think when you submit one application you all of a sudden get 10 calls from other recruiters. For example, the garage charges back all the warranty repairs to the manufacturer (why they always have new trucks), the leasing company buys the trucks then writes off the ownership costs, and they even move a load at profit on some occasions, but actually moving freight is not where most mega carriers make their profits. Knight has a back office service company that runs the safety and administration departments of about 500 other smaller carriers, Celadon provides financing and fleet leasing to a few thousand mid size (500+ trucks) fleets, US Express provides consulting and management services for a few dozen other carriers they don't own but partner with, and so on.

 

In easier terms,,What meisno is saying is..

"The Brokers aren't paying enough to offset added costs to upgrade my equipment to be profitable"

And I beleive it.

I sure as Heck couldn't operate or upgrade my truck to run california at what brokers can get away with do to their business 101 ethics and stranglehold strategies

 

Ok, since some are convinced its the megas that pull cheap and not independents then they must have no problem with all the small carriers run by immigrants. After all, independents don't run cheap freight right?

 

I'm a CRST driver, and when I went on my lead drivers truck a year ago, he was doing a lease purchase. The load sent out to us always had a dollar figure and I gotta say the cheapest I every saw it was around 1.40$. Although we are team so I'm not sure if that effects cost... I'm assuming it's more expensive to have a team pull your load. If I remember correctly I think it was for Fedex too. I don't know what this guy was thinking taking it...

 

You ask why because most of the truckers are stupid to put up with it

 

You can have the CA market. Nothing would ever make me buy a carb compliant truck. I wouldn't buy one with any emissions bs.

 

I was stopped in Nebraska by sheriff . just checking DL Got warning for headlight

 

The article didn't say he had a glider, it said he had a new truck with an old engine.

In other words, he had apparently done an engine swap.

 

A glider IS a new truck with an old engine.