Brokers, Please explain the plummeting rates these days.

The only people that I know that get round trip rates consistently are speciality haulers or short haulers. It doesn’t take much rate when a round trip is 80 miles.


In either case you are playing a different game than people who are doing long/regional haul load board freight.

 

80% of them are allergic to work.

 

The only times I don't get consistent rates are when I'm trying to go somewhere specific, because it cuts 47 other states out of the mix. Other than that, I just follow the money around until I feel like going home.

 

Lol, that's why I'm not worried about inviting them. The 20% that can put out are more than welcome in my book.

 

Best training that was avalible. Good job Sir!

 

Well the issue is there are too many sheeple in the industry that know nothing other than "baaaahhhhh". Idiots saw 3-6 dollar a mile rates and started hoarding equipment at any price, hence the reason for insane equipment prices because nobody loves idiots like the dealers do. I know plenty of people who bought Volvos for 270K + Vanguard Reefers for 120K, hiring drivers for .70-.90 cpm. Now that those idiots have screwed themselves by steering in to a financial trap, they will haul for any rate just to minimize their losses. I know most of them are currently hauling a full load from WA/OR to PA/MD/VA for rates like 4000-6000.

If more people in the industry had at least some self-respect or an IQ higher than a moose, they would never buy equipment at such inflated price tags. I understand inflation and rising costs, but 100K more for the same truck only a year later? Yea you don't need to be a genius for that one.

Not to toot my horn but in my case, I immediately paid off the remaining balance of my truck and parked it. Only willing haul for a decent rate once a month just to pay the insurance and that's it. Rest of the free time I'm using to work on the truck/trailer and spending quality time with family. Not going to stress my self for pennies or deal with 3rd world peasants at every fuel pump. Hell even as a driver I wouldn't drive whenever there would be a truckers protest. I understand not everyone is in the same boat but if more people shared a similar outlook, shippers would think twice before setting a rate.

 

Yes, they can buy themselves motorboats and go to high seas to find more sought for fish.
The business approach and reality of the least specialized freight is much different from other kinds.
The higher you are on the specialty ladder, the more you can command. You cannot, however, expect the same behavior from the level of the en masse straw hat fishermen.

 

You could, if they had the same business acumen that these O/O' s did. When prices changed to a point that business was unsustainable, and they parked the trucks en masse, that would change the balance you refer to as supply/demand. The only problem currently, is that there is always someone not showing good business acumen running desperately, thereby allowing brokers to have more supply than demand, and play the low freight game. If those drivers instead behaved like they were worth something, your job would get a whole lot more, shall we say, ..interesting? But alas, businesses need 3rd world dummies, as usual, to dilute the actual costs of things. Like labor, they do the same with trucking, and cheapen the value...that is also part of the supply/demand game...these O/O have chosen NOT to play that game, and have a realistic self-preserving business model, rather than becoming one of the burgeoning numbers of bankruptcies.

 

And right now the fish aren’t biting. Lol.

 

NOT playing the game is how you end up in bankruptcy. Playing the game well is how you stay in business. I think, and maybe not anyone on this thread, that there will be a lot of trucks getting parked in the next year, unwillingly. I hope that these guys don't have such a high over head they can last not making any revenue, but there will be a lot of O/O who won't. and a lot of them aren't going to understand why rates went down when fuel went up.