mercer transportation

Just because the rates tanked at Mercer doesn't mean they tanked for evryone.

 

Any van drivers been on the northern tool runs? Just got in today on one and the agent explained how they work just wondering if anyone has had experience with them. Thanks.

 

I hope the driver who went on Mercer Facebook page and through a tantrum about how bad they are and even dropped names quit..I would think u burned a few bridges today

 

ok the 3 grand incentive was for having a late model truck but you don't have to run to California to get it didn't make sense to me but I wasn't going to argue with extra. I think it ended in March. As for my lower average may be I am not running the board correctly I am trying to run a weekly revenue of 4 grand + I am falling short some weeks have been trying to run three loads a week @ 1,000 to 2,000 to reach this goal witch most of the time leves me with a longer dead head I have been leaning a lot on my coordinator she keeps me west of I-35 and out of the NJ, NY, and the rest of that corner she also keeps me away from TX in less it's good paying. should I be focusing on shorter runs and more loads per week. It seems to be a balancing act when you are trying to average a high $ per mile on all miles and still turn the right weekly revenue [COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]
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I do the same, I try for 4 grand on 2,000 miles or less. works most of the time

 

lol, another big wheeler. the rates out of a facility are basically the same for everyone. no one is going to pay one outfit a ton more to haul the same product.

and who said rates tanked?? the rates out of this shipper have dropped, due to the drop in fuel like everyone else, and due to who came in there. and remember rates rates I quote are to the truck, at 75 per cent. thants not the gross. let me give ya a clue van man. I have a very good friend who is an agent elsewhere that handles loads there, I know what the rates are out of there.

I am just not of a mind to do a 6 foot tarp load at 44,000 with multiple drops for 1.74 which has the the drop pay factoring in. your turn

 

I don't pull a van, wrong guy!! You couldn't be any more wrong about a company paying one carrier more than another either, it happens all the time! My point was, rates are not down in flatbed as much as what
you are seeing ar Mercer. You are in a market inside of a market, and you are definitely blind to that. If rates are down at Mercer because of fuel, why do rates that are posted by Mercer fluctuate? It must be the price of fuel going up and down over the course of the day right. Example: a load posted at $5600, goes down to $4500, then back up to $5600 when no one took it at $4500. Yup, it was definitely the fuel!!

 

I know this for sure, a load that I have taken multiple times at a good constant rate, up and down only by a few dollars has cratered. I call the agent whom I deal with often and said why the drop, I mean this was not a subtle decrease. She was very candid, over the last 4 to 6 weeks she has had a lot of her freight that mercer trucks never touched get snapped up by our drivers. Why they started taking what she considered her duds she has no clue, but what she did know is if a load pays 1.8 to 1.9 and she can now get takers at 1.3 to 4 it's simple economics. It is frustrating, it's hard to watch these loads go because it creates the inverse of a rising tide lifts all boats. Whatever I guess, to each his own but taking that kind of stuff and working at those rates will put you in extreme debt or out of business.

 

I suspect they are taking it because they have no choice! A steady increase of drivers leasing trucks at $625 a week! At $625 / week they can't afford to wait for better freight. They start in the hole around $4,000/month minimum, before fuel. They have to run or that hole gets deeper and deeper!!

 

That seems to be what she was saying without saying it. 625 plus, things look different now, I mean I don't think the place is circling the drain or anything but it seems like the overall culture is changing here. I humped it in a company truck over 20 years, then bought my equipment and pursued this always knowing all the years that Mercer and Landstar for that matter were for a different kind of "owner" operator that you had to earn it. I no longer believe that. Now what I do believe is the strong will survive, and if you have built something on a pile of sand the rain is always on the horizon. I will now step down from my soap box. Lol.