Flatbed or dry van?

Discussion in 'Landstar' started by Travelworld2067, May 22, 2018.

  1. Travelworld2067

    Travelworld2067 Light Load Member

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    If goal is to come to landstar with my own truck would there be better rates with standard 53 ft flatbed? Or with 53 ft dry van? Where would i make more over the course of 10 years? At landstar?
     
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  3. Blu_Ogre

    Blu_Ogre Road Train Member

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    More than likely over the long term Flatbed should have higher pennies per mile.

    Depending on region, Van currently may yield more $ per day on more specialized freight.
     
  4. RustyBolt

    RustyBolt Road Train Member

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    At Mercer.:D
     
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  5. Justrucking2

    Justrucking2 Road Train Member

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    Depends on the agents you hook up with. They can make you or break you. There is quite a bit of ugly over there.
     
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  6. Buckeye 60

    Buckeye 60 Road Train Member

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    I have done both and to tell the truth when you add everything together they pay about the same . so it's what you want to do . I do dry van and have a few agents that I do most of my work for . for example I am headed into Vermont for Thursday this load I was in Indiana and called an agent that has loads coming out of where I was close to and called them 4 days before I was to deliver there and the agent knew that she had this load going in that direction but the details were not finalized but I took it so that load never made it to the load board. .... the Vermont agent has 2 to 4 loads coming out of there each week usually 1 per day I called and told him I would be up there Thursday and give me one ..... at the moment I do not know where it's going but it will be from Omaha to San Antonio and he will give me a call tomorrow and should give me a choice between 2 loads . and that gets me home for the weekend . now both of these loads pay good and neither made it to the load board . I have a few regular loads that I do that go around 6 to 12 times a year . I also have 1 customer that texts me a week or 2 ahead of time to make sure I have time to do his loads and we work out the scedule then call the agent to do the rate and honestly he charges more than I would lol but I do loads of the boards too but try to do loads that are landstar loads or at least ones I have done before . I have 95% of my hassles on the 20% of loads I do that are double brokered so I try to avoid them as much as possible and especially the loads that are listed by several agents and at 4 different prices that should tell you something. my feelings are it's not so much the loads you take that make you successful it's the ones you don't
     
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  7. Blu_Ogre

    Blu_Ogre Road Train Member

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    This is major, Please read the above and commit to it like a very painful life lesson.

    There are exceptions --- but those need to be learned. Like a Desperate shipping broker that has almost no assets for Haz/Tank and needs a truck, so they are trying to get a truck by posting the load every where.
     
  8. Buckeye 60

    Buckeye 60 Road Train Member

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    the easy way to tell those types of loads is the time left on the pickup if it's short on time it's probably a desperate agent and when it has a couple of days it's usually trouble. ... but my major problem with me on loads is unloading and loading time I am not patient with morons taking 3 hours to do a simple pull off . last load before Christmas was a load of pallets all the same item going from 1 plant to another plant from the same company. . well the pay was ok but they took 3 hours loading and almost 4 unloading and they were not busy at either end this wasted a whole day . I will get detention time on this but not enough to make up for a lost day ..... in general I will avoid loads with appointment times unless I know the load ( 7 or 8 am are usually ok ) early am appointments useually mean groceries and that means wasted time. now I do a lot of equipment moves and that requires time but usually I work that in with a 10 hr break. . those types of things you can understand taking time . I guess it boils down to what works for each individual. I have been doing this for awhile and I am 60 years old so not going to change unless I absolutely have too ... what is a bad load to me may be alright for someone else
     
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  9. Blu_Ogre

    Blu_Ogre Road Train Member

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    One again well said.
     
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