"freight is slow"

The larger the # of available trucks/drivers means that they can take every load they get their hands on. It also means that a large # of drivers get shorter miles. I was with a company that worked this way and they tried to rotate us drivers with less seniority so we would have good weeks and not so good weeks. The problem was it led to great weeks where we would roll over 3,000 then weeks where we would roll barely 1,500/1,800. Of course they tried to tell us that it would all average out somehow it seemed that the average never came out in my favor. I found a small company to work for and made 12,000 more my first year with them. The down side is having to wait a couple hours for backhauls but seems a pretty small price to pay.

 

it also means a very large feight base

 

I'd suggest as mentioned hang in there til it picks up or switch. many do seem happy with dedicated if your employer has it and a spot open. sometimes there's wait.

I'm not one to bounce from company to company. I dont like doing that

 

Our company is doing the same thing, slower loads, still hiring trucks, to compensate for the inefficiencies of dispatch.
If trucks A and B are both empty at different towns an hour apart, and both towns have loads to be picked up. They'll send truck A to town B and truck B to town A to make it look busier than it is. Nobody gets paid empty miles. Now that they have two hours lost productivity they have to hire another truck to make up for the lost time.

 

You are right. Just google the cass freight index and you will see the winter months have a drop in freight. Starts to pick up in March and April.....so there should be improvement in the next 2 - 4 weeks.

 

They are all going to say that when they don't have something for you, if your 100 miles away and someone is 80, guess who is getting the "freight is slow" speech

 

a 100 mile run was proposed earlier to pick up a shipping container and take it to a rail yard. then what?

start my clock for a local run and wonder where I'm going to park once complete? back it planners I do otr..

here I sit

 

I am sure there are a lot of poor excuses given by dispatchers for slow freight. one is when they have loads that are not real good, but want to take care of their customer, they want new drivers who will take these loads until they figure out they are not with their time, then the next newbie will get a chance to take it.

we get most all of our loads from a real big steel mill. my dispatch will take anything for any price just so he never makes mad the shipper. although we will tell him we do not want these loads, answer .. well if we don't take them then someone else will & they will get the good stuff too. we recently were told by dispatch that he was told we had to run for $40.00 less per load.

non of us liked it. I mean that is $200.00 a week less for doing the same thing as before. told all of our local drivers I will be willing to hold out & refuse to haul at the lower rate, but we all have to stick with it. no one but me will hold their ground. we were doing these runs for a couple years. I simply stated, let's give dispatch 2 week notice, in case he has some he has obligated himself to, then well tell him after the 2 weeks back to the old rate, & that he can tell the shipper it's us. blame it on the drivers.

I did find out that if the steel mill get the loads shipped cheaper than the current rate it goes into the profit sharing for the steel mill employees. so it's in the best interest for the 1 giving the loads to trucking co to tell them they have to cut their rates. it is usually the truck payment folks who will haul for anything as opposed to us paid for guys.

 

They don't? Interesting.