Detention on produce loads...

So some of my customers, mainly people who move melons, pay quite a bit more than the normal rate for a dry van during their season. This is (quite understandably) because they typically don't pay detention and have a horrible reputation for loading people quickly.

If I offered to pay some reasonable amount for detention (probably no more than 25 bucks an hour because I worry about people intentionally slowing down loading above that point) would any of you be willing to offer the broker a discount on the line haul in exchange? If so how much?

If enough of you seem to think it's a good idea I'll grit my teeth and collect a season worth of loading/unloading info so that I can figure out what it should cost.

Just so we're clear this would just be an option offered to people when they booked the load. I wouldn't be demanding that they agree to this, but if they don't I'm probably not going to pay detention no matter what. I know the customers won't pay me, so I feel that I should absolutely be compensated for the risk I'd be taking on behalf of the truck.

 

Adverse selection is a #####.

 

Alright.

I'm not particularly married to 25 an hour... It's just a number that I felt was low enough that nobody would intentionally hold up loading to get. I could see upping it to 50, but it's important to realize that detention is never intended to cover a carriers lost profit, but mostly it exists to give the shippers/receivers an incentive to hurry the #### up. And lol at comparing what the truck grosses when rolling (and accumulating fuel, maintenance, and depreciation) to detention rates and expecting the latter to be anything comparable to the former. I don't think I've paid more than 50 bucks an hour for detention in my life, and that was on port stuff out in Long Beach.

As to everyone #####ing about the nature of hauling produce... You should get paid accessorials when something that wasn't agreed to when the load was taken happens. My customers pay TWO TO THREE HUNDRED dollars more than other shippers because of the commodities they ship. When the guy on the other end of the phone pays you 2-300 dollars more than what the more normal loads pay because shippers in his industry are slow to load and won't pay detention you don't have the right to double dip and get detention anyway. Sorry. That's how contracts work.

I'm very clear about how detention works when I book a load with people. I feel that if I disclose exactly how it works in advance and they made the choice to book the freight of their own free will I haven't done anything wrong.

Basically I'd be willing to take some of the risk off of the truck in exchange for reducing the risk surcharge a bit. That's the whole idea here. FWIW my wife thinks this idea is worthless and has made it very clear that she's not going to be the one tracking the loading and unloading times on 1000+ trucks this year lol.