Discussion about weight and # of miles driven in a year

TMC? Maverick? Western Express?

The list goes on and on...

 

You nailed it!

Plus there are companies out here that think since they can haul 80k the rate should be based on 60/70k. Sorry but if it doesn't pay enough on 40k it don't on 80k either!

 

The ATA is backing it for a reason. Less Drivers = less costs. When the western states raised the gross limit everyone thought they were going to get rich. What happened was less trucks/drivers were needed and then competition squeezed what little extra profit was gained.

 

Oh just sit back and enjoy the show! Most of those companies don't haul the heavy loads now and they're allowed to. Werner (contract carrier for AK Steel) was hauling 25k single coils less than 4 miles. They could have hauled 3 at a time but won't buy the permits. Driver was hand tarping each load. So the fear that all of a sudden they're all going to jump on the heavy loads which requires more axles seems out of place. If they won't simply buy a $125 permit good for 90days what makes anyone think they're going to pay $6,000 to add an axle. Sure over time the newer equipment might get phased in but so did 53' vans and 48' flats. We used to haul everything on 40' flats and we make more money now than we did then so everyone calm down, the sky isn't falling.

Your going to have that regardless of the weight limit. Adding more trucks doesn't automatically make the rate go up. For me it helps because i can move the same amount of freight with less equipment. For example who here thinks it's intelligent to have a B-Train loaded with lumber come from Canada, drive all the way through MI then have to split the trailers to come to Ohio? It's ignorant, all it does is make my house more expensive to build because of the added freight. The number one group against the added weight is the railroad anyone want to guess why? The same people who complain about the "damage" the steel trucks cause to roads in Ohio would be the first to complain when the mill closes because they couldn't compete in the market.

Would we be better off if trucks were limited to 60k and we doubled the number of trucks on the road? Just curious as to what solution you guys would come up with? I guess we could leave the limit at 80k make all freight rates double and also double the taxes you pay to build more roads. Would we be better off then?

 

Lets just remove the gross weight limits, that way every thing becomes "cheaper"

 

I know your being sarcastic but I actually somewhat agree with that. Just make axle weights sort of like MI. If you want to haul 80k go ahead, if you want to haul 97k add an axle, 114k add another and so on. You can say the weight limits in Michigan caused the rates to drop but there are FAR more factors that contributed to MI's demise. The weight limits in MI used to be higher (169,000 for 13 axles).

Even with the higher limits up there only a fraction of the total trucks (5%) actually haul that much, the same it would probably be for the rest of the US if the federal limit was raised to 97k.

 

I think if the gross weight limit was raise to 97k that 100% of the trucks would soon be pulling 97k. Shippers would demand the extra weight and if your equ. can't haul it somebody else would. Then as soon as the majority could haul 97k rates would sink due to competition. It happened out west and history has a way of repeating it self.

 

Buy a fram tag in Ky and it goes from 6000 to 36000, so the next time yo see an S10 pickup with farm tags just think of all the loads that little dude could haul LMAO

 

you want to see load limits...come to ND, and see what damage trucks can do in short order. This oil is taking a huge toll on our roads........noone seems to want to pay for it! Imagine that!!

 

2 is getting rough in places.