Income Potential

Load to truck ratio is still sky high for flatbed and we are in the slow season. There’s no shortage of anything. The economy is doing great.

 

I'll make 55-60k this year. I got my cdl november 11th 2014. I'm pretty content doing what I'm doing..... But a six figure income sounds too good to be true.

I know myself it's if your only making 45k per year your doing something very wrong.

 

Load to truck ratios drop when the amount of trucks available increases without an increase in loads moving. When this happens rates drop, company drivers pay rates may not drop but will often stagnate and they sit more often and take a cut in pay due to running less miles.

 

Flatbed load to truck ratios are 4x times lower than they were just 6 months ago and are down 54% over what they were at this time last year. Unfortunately if it continues this is a direct indication that o/o's rates will be dropping, company driver pay will be stagnating, less companies will be needing dirvers, and there will be less miles available to run. All good things come to end.

 

The load to truck ratio for flatbed has been at record levels the entire year. Including now, it’s higher than it was last year. Yea, the capacity has tightened as it always does this time of year... and yet, if you stay east of the Rockies you’ll have zero problems running nothing south of 3 per mile. Rates are down compared to earlier this year, but not by much and that’s regardless of the load to truck ratio. Not sure where you’re running but unless it’s west of Denver, you’re making money.

 

Wrong.

 

Where are you finding these numbers because seasonally adjusted numbers are out and there is no capacity change going into the last quarter.

 

if you make your mind up that you're going to get a cdl, word of advice you better have atleast a few months worth of savings in the bank.. between school and training hours i'd guess it would be 3 months till you even get to your own truck. not to mention the learning curve after that.
if i were you i'd try and see if you can lower your payments like everyone else is saying before anything.

also you're going from a career you spent all this time going to school for, to a career that requires nothing more than a hs diploma. it would make more sense to me finding somewhere you can use your schooling. tons of careers out there that don't even really care about you major, only that you have the piece of paper.

 

Those are not correct numbers. Ultimately DAT have absolutely no idea what loads end up being negotiated for. Likewise, not every truck gets posted. In fact, most don’t get posted because if they did their phones would melt.

Likewise, DAT doesn’t have every truck or load.

And lastly... your own graph shows that freight has been triple what it was last year... but you’re worried that rates may fall a bit. In a year when you should have already made 2-3x what you would have last year and definitely the year before.

Talk about first world problems.

 

Ya whatever buddy.