Load Board Question

You guys may also want to, if you're an OOIDA member, look into their fuel card that's run by Fleetline. I just got mine yesterday and it looks pretty much like a 2cent rebate or discount at thousands of places. This works like a debit card from your account. I don't have the ATM feature on my card, but I'm also not seeing other transaction fees either.
FWIW

 

Is there anyone that could tell me the typical rates for different types of equipment out of Dallas, TX? Maybe someone with an internet truckstop acct could loan me their password? Maybe I could just get a trial password somehow. I just don't want to waste money when I really can't use it. I'm trustworthy if anyone is that generous.

 

Truckinusa-cheap. 2100 to San Francisco on a flat and 1600 to Flushing, NY in a van were the best I saw with any distance on them. There were some short runs (100-250 miles) for both for roughly 1.80/mi, but they were going even worse places to get loaded back out of. They only show rates on a third or so of the loads, and I think some of them with the lowest rates (80cpm, there were several) only post them to keep people from calling. Texas is really bad to get out of right now, and has been for a while. I personally pull a flat. I delivered in Houston Monday, and ended up deadheading out to Arkansas yesterday morning to get something halfway decent.

 

What do you find yourself averaging for all miles? I guess flatbeds are the cheapest trailer to acquire. Is there any freight though?

 

Gee, I don't know about cheapest to acquire. Maybe in the new market, but as I researched I found flats to be about the same if not more than the reefers I was looking at. Dry vans are the lowest.

I've heard a lot of good things about Mercer for flats, may want to check into those guys

 

Well, I am leased to a large flatbed company that takes fuel surcharge off of the top of every load, and passes it through to me 100%. They also take off tarp pay, if applicable, and pass it through to me too. I then get 75% of 100% of the linehaul. My revenue to the truck per odometer mile for the third quarter was $1.28, and that's with me being picky, although that's also including me deadheading home long distances a couple of times rather than hauling cheap, break even freight. Not all that great considering it's my truck, my trailer, my tag, my ifta, my kyu, my tolls, etc, and that's only about 15cpm more than these guys leased to the big van companies make after fuel surcharge, and their tags, ifta and so forth are paid. Of course, they're paid on pcmiler miles, so there goes another 7-10%...

I would say that flatbeds are probably more expensive to get into that van or reefer. You could probably find a decent 48x102 flatbed for $6k, but unless you find someone getting out of the business and buy all of his equipment, you're going to have another easy $3k in securement equipment. The way things are right now, you do not want to limit yourself to what you can do by not being fully equipped, so this is no place to cut corners. I would advise you against getting into flatbed right now, especially if you don't have any flatbed experience. The better paying stuff on these load boards comes from little mom and pop shippers, who aren't very experienced at loading trucks, and if you don't tell them how to load it, they'll throw it on there like it's a big pickup truck and let you figure out how to secure it. If you don't know what you're doing, it'll be the blind leading the blind. I second the Mercer recommendation, they're probably as good as anyone right now, and the driver's I've talked to seem to be getting by ok.

Back to the original question, although it's been answered, I've used both getloaded and ITS, and my old dispatcher (when I was with a small company) had DAT, and I found ITS had more freight than getloaded, and comparable freight to DAT at a third of the price. This is all for flatbed of course, so take that into account. The "post a truck" function on ITS seems to get a lot of exposure, and I've gotten several good paying, "we need a truck an hour ago" loads this way.

 

So I'm an experienced flatbedder with 5 years at ATS(Anderson Trucking Service). How would you say I would fare if I jumped into a truck with a flatbed and tried to hunt down loads on the loadboards. Which loadboard would I use too?

 

I think that jumping into a truck and planning on surviving on the load boards right now, especially going into winter, would be a recipe for failure. I say that, and Jason The Rock seems to be doing pretty well at it. I'm sticking with my ITS answer. All the big guys like Landstar, Mercer, and CH Robinson have their own load boards too.

 

I had ZERO when I started. It all comes down to "Working load limit" and common sense. I do have to agree getting a flatbed and start-up costs associated with it are expensive. I spent roughly 11,000 (with tax license) on a trailer, then about another 1000 for tarps, and another 1000-1500 for tie down (chains, straps, etc.) and other stuff (lumber, v-boards, corner protectors,etc.). You can also save money by making your own corner protectors, v-baords and other stuff. You could get away without chains and binders for awhile and just buy straps. . I have only used chains and binders on 4 loads in the last 6 months. Buy the ratchet binders there a little more expensive but a HECK of a lot easier to use.

"The better paying stuff on these load boards comes from little mom and pop shippers, who aren't very experienced at loading trucks, and if you don't tell them how to load it, they'll throw it on there like it's a big pickup truck and let you figure out how to secure it."

I am sorry but that is not true, 99% of the loads off of the load boards are usually shippers that have shipped these items before. I have picked up a couple of things that were odds and ends, but you never accept a load unless you know the weight. 99% of the shippers know that the avg flatbed cannot exceed 48,000, and you will not find a load over that on the load board (unless it is a special one requiring permits).

 

Jason, you're right, probably a little bit of a blanket statement on my part about the mom and pops. From my experience, I'd guess that 1 in 5 of the loads I get from the load board is some kind of oddball load from at a jobsite or somewhere not used to loading flatbeds, but you and I are in pretty different markets. I'm not referring to the load weight here, I'm referring to how the pieces are loaded on the trailer. I totally agree with you on finding out what the weight, and just as importantly, the product is before you agree to take it.