Getting Truck / Authority Beware - The Ship Has Sailed

If that's the case, let's get rid of election since it hurts us every 4 years. Let the Emperor rule for some longer.

 

One of our biggest direct customers (ships out of Chattanooga market to midwest, NYC, and S FL) also has a contract with Coyote. The last 4 weeks they have been giving most of their freight to Coyote to cover. When we asked that what the deal was (we have an On Time Delivery rate of 97% over the last year), we were told that they were willing to risk the inevitable service failures because Coyote has been covering the freight on the spot market for 25-30% less than our contract rate (which is not astronomical).

 

So we have a surplus of capacity while also having a driver shortage? Trucks still don’t drive themselves so I have a hard time believing those conditions could exist simultaneously. If we had a driver shortage pay, benefits, and working conditions would be much better. It’s no surprise that most drivers want to get their own trucks and the main reason is because they have been underpaid and overworked and treated like crap. All these people moving from company driver to owner operator does not increase capacity, it just changes the ownership of that capacity.

 

Idk but from time to time I’ll check all equipment on J.B. Hunt 360 and a lot of these van loads are equal to higher paid than flats! Dog gone lol... I’ve seen some of the most disrespectful flat bed rates lately from the likes of dsv, and a few others. I think one was a full load of loaded cable reals from the Tulsa area to the Houston area, about 550 miles offer rate was like $600. Called on another out of midland to Oklahoma, 44klbs pipe, need dunnage and padded 4ft pipe stakes, 450 miles paying $500 LOL... jeeeez I tell ya... then once I tell them the rate, all the sudden I’m the rude one hmmmMm

 

This has always been the case in my experience as well, although I never understood that. Are shippers just nervous on potential laws/changes that could be implemented based on election results? If so, I would think there would be a huge push to get the product out before something were to happen.

 

I haven’t noticed any difference. I run AR to the Northeast and SouthEast, to Midwest, and back to AR. General reefer freight, nothing fancy. I’m still running around 22k a month in revenue and 9800-11000 total miles a month. My average rate for the past 3 months is 2.10 a mile on all miles.
Running general freight, you aren’t going to break the bank like some people claim. At my current level, I’m doing very well. I focus on efficiency, newer equipment, and driving down maintenance cost and time with my specs. I’m able to put back 2800-3200 a month after all expenses, including my pay. My goal is to be the cheapest carrier I can be and still maintain my profit level. All the brokers and shippers care about is price. Whoever can provide the cheapest price and operate at the greatest level of profit wins.
Even if the market tightens up throughout next year, it will still end up at a higher equilibrium than previous years. You have the boom and bust still but the overall market is slowly climbing in favor of carriers and owner operators.