Landstar Agent | Jim Burkett

To make such a shallow statement in the face of the things that I actually say make one wonder about your true motivation. Whether brokers are here or not has no bearing on the FACT that they are not necessary. They are very prevalent here in trucking and making it ever increasingly difficult for carriers to work without them at least some times. So, we work with them some of the time and when we share a bad experience so that you and others in this industry might know a little bit about them before you deal with them your first inclination is to attempt to discredit me with you incoherent comment about my using them.

Tires. You need tires on your truck no matter what. If the world stopped making tires tomorrow, trucking comes to a halt. If broker all shut down tomorrow, what happens? We are all better off. We all get full freight rate on shipments. So your tire analogy falls flat.

That said, there are many things in business that we all deal with that we would prefer not to. So, IF you know this wh would you make such a stupid ### comment. Finally, I will say that I am trying to make this industry better. you are either a broker or you are a member of the trucking sheep that believes that the status quo is as good as it is going to get. Move aside, and let us warriors make a better world for you.

Thank you for your time.

 

90% of the freight that we haul requires no appointment. On those loads where it is required that we make an appointment, we do. This broker admitted that he did not disclose this information. It was later discovered that they don't put the load up for pickup until they have a delivery appointment due to the crazy receiving schedule. So, we did our job. We've been doing this for 20 years. We know how to follow instructions.

As for the 2 days, We sat tuesday, wednesday and delivered on thursday night. That means that we lost thursday as well. We lost three days.
Amazing to me that you completely ignore the obvious issue of a broker going awol for 3 days and never even until this day, reaching out. What if we'd dropped his freight at a dock somewhere? Carrier 411 report. But he can ghost us on the very likelihood that no matter how badly he fuggs us over by refusing to followthrough, that we will deliver the freight. He also knows that if we dump the freight that LandStar will be on us with all 300 of their attorneys. And I have to explain myself to you??????
And, I'm not the driver, I'm the owner of 15 trucks, this is what my driver had to go through and I paid him $200 a day because it wasn't his fault.

 

Delivered Thursday at 2300ish.

 

Yes, it makes sense. There is more to it but it agrees with what you say so I won't waste the explanation. True, the driver does not get to decide BUT, if 200,000 O/O and another 100 truck capacity of small carriers all agreed to stop hauling broker freight at the same time, what so would the result be? There will only exist asset based brokers and eventually even their brokerages would dry up. NOW considering what you said about the customers power to decide, YES, this is true and the choice would still be theirs but it would be in what carrier to work with. Simplifies for this answer but there will always be shippers that are less sophisticated than others and that will need some assistance. So while I agree with you I do not agree that it has to remain this way.

 

There ARE a few brokers that we work well with, they do their jobs very well, they know their jobs and they have extremely fair expectations and reasonable carrier agreements. (Another issue). I don't HATE all brokers but I do believe that they simply are not an essential part of trucking. Someone asked how long I've been at this. CDL in 90, Company in 98. Specialized trailers and freight. MRI's, Robotics, Machinery, occasionally steel, NO Lumber. So, 34 years with a CDL and 25 years as a company owner.