Beep Beep Roadrunner

is that a good thing or a bad thing it seems like you had a lot of control over where you want to do and where you want to go what is going to be the difference that you're not going to be able to book your own loads

 

In the new contract they want us to primarily run T2T. Occasionally we would end up at a final destination somewhere delivering to an outside truck company's terminal, not a RR terminal-- say like 500 miles from the nearest RR terminal. In those cases we used to be able to get on the load board and book a nice load for ourselves. Some guys stuck strictly to the load boards and ran zero T2T. Last year RR bought up 500 trailers and started all the new IC's on the trailer pool rent program. This was to keep the guy strictly in the T2T lanes as much as possible. In other words it would not have been 'cool' to run broker freight with RR trailer too much-- maybe just to get back closer to a terminal. So in the new contract they took the ability for us to book our own loads. Partly because they are tired of paying outside carriers to move their freight but the in-house RR agent/brokers were losing our business so RR made it so we run T2T or use in house agents to book the loads for us.

I don't like it, personally I like to look at the load board myself instead of someone looking at it for me blasting me 12 loads at once with pressure to accept one at their first price offer. You up-negotiate the rate but seems like every time the load is 'booked' or the customer left for the day or some such odd. Then they say they will call you back. Makes one wonder if they are really searching for a cheaper truck to haul it. Little games like that. Whenever I have booked my own they always went down perfect. Always asked for more money and always got it no games like being sent to a shipper and they have no idea who I am or why I am there (RR agent did this to me I think to let me know who is boss after the guy had me sitting for 2 days because I wouldn't haul his 44k hazmat for $1.60).

 

Do you get TONU in this instances?

 

No he wouldn't pay it, his 'solution' was that magically there was another shipper a couple miles away that had a hazmat load (again for $1.60) but he promised to get me $2.25 on my next load to make up for it. I saw later what he was doing was a little game playing. He got me to start my 14 hour clock, here I had been sitting for a couple days trying to get more money out of his load offers and such. He did actually get me closer to $2.5 on that next load afterall which I was happy about but discovered that other O/O's were getting $500 more for the same load commodity, pick- up and delivery location I was doing. That was the last time I worked with that guy. I didn't go back and chew him out or complain about the money, I just stopped all communication with him and started booking my own loads with a loadboard after that. I hope he made enough money off me to fund his retirement. I am a big believer in Karma.

 

RR will love you running BR. I don't like ELD's, I ran one for over 2 years. But I think it is coming for sure mandatory for everyone.

 

Stay away from Bruenger. What once was a good company now sucks thanks to RR. After 14 years at Bruenger I am quitting.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

I just left Bruenger last fall. It has went to crap, literally crap. Bruenger is following RR when it comes to brokering a load. seems that RR is having all the sister companies they purchased follow suit by discouraging IC's from brokering their own loads. This seems to be the tread with drivers I speak with from different companies including RR itself. What this does is reduce an IC revenue significantly annually. However, RR has made the Fortune 500 list three years and counting. We're talking about billions of dollars they're profiting from and not passing it to the drivers. It seems to be take take take and not give.

 

I'm with you. I'm thinking of just getting my own authority and booking my own loads. I'll just make sure I have called reefer unit that way I can haul dry and refrigerated/frozen and fresh produce. What you think?

 

OK looks like my next run is Livermore CA to Indianapolis IN. Tractor trailer is parked up in Lodi CA not too far from the house. So will have to run the trailer over to Livermore tonight (Wednesday) and drop it then come back and park bobtail in driveway. They will load it between tonight and tomorrow night. Should be ready to roll out about midnight Thursday night/Friday morning. Probably run I40 out to avoid snow and ice over I80.