Landstar is getting cheap.

I took a cheap load yesterday. Had to DH 178 miles to go get it. Left at 0400. Got back to where I park my truck at 1500, load delivered. Net after fuel & LS cut just under $1,000. Like $980, so I can't say it was a thousand.

Got all cheap loads booked out for about 10 days.

Thank you for not hauling LS.

 

There used to be some good LS agents with brokered freight on my lanes but that all dried up and disappeared about 3 years ago. I remember a couple of us around here would be booking open up your checkbook kind of loads for weeks on end sometimes several loads a day if they were local area. It was all expedited automotive dry van freight. $2500 or $3000 on a 400 mile run? No problem. $1350 on a 130 mile run, how many can you cover today and the rest of the week? Made piles of money on light loads. Lots of them would be one or two pallets. Ran a LOT of overnighters though. That same freight moves for peanuts now through other brokers if it even gets brokered at all. The Landstar broker freight that's left around here currently is all cheap commodities and #### freight no-one in their right mind would book.

 

There are a couple of agents that still have some expedite automotive loads around here. I snag one every once in a while, nothing you can count on. They are Very Good when you can get them.

 

I keep hearing land star is the king of double, and triple brokering. How many subsidiaries do they have. Last article I read of one of their bco van guys was getting recognized for driving his century and netting $60k a year. I thought why is he an OO?

 

That I can think of off the top of my head, six. The internet tells me it's more though.
EX-21.1 List of Subsidiaries

 

All the more reason to never deal with them.

 

Landstar has no freight of its own. Well very little. They claim to be the third largest carrier. No they are the third largest reposter of freight. 99.9% of their loads are other people’s loads that they cover. This isn’t new. Everyone knows and has known this. The greater issue industry wide is skimming. Everyone is doing it. A load will pay 6k let’s say and they (meaning agent/broker/whoever and not just Landstar peeps) will take a grand or two or even 3k off the top, cover the credit on it meaning they can wait to get paid and they’ll then cover it for what is left. Companies, brokers, etc all do it.

The other issue specific to Landstar is you’re giving them almost 1/3 of the revenue to do NOTHING. They literally do nothing. They have no skin in the game. No overhead to speak of really. No maintenance. No retirement. No saving for their next truck. They have an office building and computers. Funny nobody every complains about how much they or any company takes. You per mile pay O/Os are really getting ####ed. A load could pay $4.50/mi and all you’ll see is $1.10 loaded and empty plus FSC. WOW! Oh and free truck washes at the terminals. Woopie!

What the industry needs is a truth in lending like statement on the BOL required by law. On the BOL it must state what the load pays and who is getting what. So if it paid 6k it would stats 6k, then broker 1 as taking 1k, company 2 taking another k, etc then you or your carrier would be listed last as getting X amount. It would all be there in black and white. Same as a mortgage. Everyone knows what’s going on.

Bottomline is you’re a truck driver. You are the ####ee not the ####er. Your job is to take it and like it. Backdoor. No lube. There is a reason you don’t see many truck drivers and especially O/Os living in really nice houses, driving nice cars, etc. The ones who are usually have wives who make decent money to offset their getting ####ed or they have a nice pension/retirement coming in. I talked to a Landstar driver who had a $250,000 big sleeper, nice trailer, etc. the other day. How could he afford it? Wasn’t off Landstar pay and I knew that. Turns out he was getting 4k/per month retirement. He uses that to fund his “trucking company.”

Welcome to truck driving.

 

I know several owner operators with nice paid for houses and cars. But more importantly, but chunks of land.

 

Are you leased to Landstar?

 

So what your saying is, You failed at landstar because you weren't able to build any relationships with brokers/agents which left you trying to make it off the board. And now your mad at landstar for your failure.