Paper logbook questions

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

I know everyone says they messed up the 34 hour reset several years ago when it had the requirement that a certain time period of it could only be between certain hours and they only allowed 1 reset per week. It was actually a great thing that reduced available truck capacity out here. Hear me out here.. When they had that rule in place you could name your price on any load picking up on a Friday delivering somewhere Monday because of all the company drivers out here sitting their selves at home getting their 34 hour reset.

And the way it worked out was most of those company drivers ended up getting actual quality time off and closer to 48 hours off. But truck drivers being truck drivers everyone demanded those restrictions be lifted so they could work more for less. Now as soon as that 34 hours is up their company has their hours utilized to the max and whenever it's up time to hit the road sucker. And ever since they relaxed that requirement the weekend loads have been some of the weakest rates. ELD's putting desperate carriers' backs against the wall to keep those hours utilized over the weekend exacerbated that (Thanks mega carriers for pushing ELD on the entire industry!)

So you have the situation now, and I'm sure you see this too, where Monday and Tuesday are superstrong load availability and rates, Wednesday can either be hit or miss, then Thursday and Friday kind of sputter out. But you just adapt to the change there. It is weird though and not how it used to be.

And the current rules wearing the 14 hour rule depress rates also. You'll feel it even more in a downturn. Every time rules are loosened and you think to yourself, that's great because now I can do more loads that I had to turn down due to HOS. So you and a half dozen other drivers are all in the sane boat all being able to take advantage of looser rules to book more freight and competing with the drivers who under the old rules didn't have to compete with you. The pool of available hours and trucks increases every time they loosen the rules. Creating more capacity without actually adding any equipment. Rates go down or are held in check.

 

Fridays are usually my best day of the week rate-wise.

 

I know I saw you telling someone Fridays are best and I used to see that before December 2017 but it ain't like that anymore. I know lots of guys who would agree. Freight volumes are always elevated at the start of the week and play out by week's end.

 

I have noticed Monday rates have jumped up, no doubt and the usual "carrier fell out" have-to-go loads have fell off on Fridays but they're still there for me in the areas I run.

 

Everybody has different ideas about what constitutes a great rate. To me weekend loads need to be at a level where they cover my daily revenue expectations. Which typically exceeds my competitors' ideas of "$3 a mile to anywhere is awesome!!! no matter what". Normally weekend loads involve lots of hours of downtime that most times people pushing the loads don't want to pay for. Before December 2017 it was a helluva a lot easier to meet those daily revenue expectations than it has been since and middle Tennessee is a good freight area. Monday and Tuesday rates are always stronger. I base that anecdote off bidding mostly the same freight daily for years. It's just what I see.

 

I always prefer less restraints on my work volume potential. I look at it more from the angle of working environment comfort rather than opportunities to increase revenue. Although, I admit, I can do a few more loads per month but it is more about doing it with a less level of stress and less level of inconvenience rather than not doing it at all.
At the time, with paper logs, those artificial HOS inventions were little effective, anyways. Perhaps you are referring to mega carriers unable to cover as many loads as they wished they could but I doubt that their impact was as huge.
My observation of rates so far is that they have more to do with their volume rather than carrier capacity. If there's freight there'll be capacity to accommodate it sooner or later. We have ELDs now, that keep on a leash guys like me who would not dare to go beyond certain limits now as they felt free to do before on the paper. Still, what we see now, the capacity is not held by HOS but by equipment production limitations. If the acquisition of trucks and trailers were not a problem and you mandated 50 hours of on duty max limit, at these good rates, carriers would simply add more trucks and hire more drivers, including the cheap labour from Africa, Latin America and Asia which is what many of them do now.

 

I'm currently running at $2.50/mile all miles. I quote everything on total round-trip miles. I typically run about 450-600 miles out from my yard. When most brokers hear 2.50/mile they're usually really excited until I finish by letting them know it's ALL MILES plus our Accessorial Policy needs to be agreed to in writing. Sometimes storage fees are added if I have to keep their freight on my trailer at my yard too. I pull an open deck trailer so things are definitely a little different than you van guys.

 

Most drivers out here on the road are employee drivers and most companies get their drivers home for a 34 hour reset. A lot of them do that every weekend. If you sideline weekend capacity with restrictive HOS rules on that 34 hour rule that effectively makes it a 48 hour rule rates on weekend freight are going to be stronger. There's no real increase in volume but capacity was effectively limited by HOS on what freight there is available. No company in their right mind is going to add extra trucks to cover that weekend freight if they don't also have an actual increase in Monday thru Friday loads as well. That freight will get pushed to the spot market to cover it by independents. With looser rules on the 34 hour reset you can say bye bye to those opportunities.

I agree with you 110% that as a driver I prefer and like looser rules as that allows me to pick and run more freight and earn more money as a result. Take your driver boots off and think about it from a bird's eye view. The flip side of that is when HOS are very strict and drivers' hours are more restricted that effectively takes capacity out of the market which results in volume rising. Whether or not carriers add new equipment longer term doesn't mean anything in the actual effect there short term.

 

I pull a reefer but none of that stuff really matters. Like I said everyone has different ideas on what constitutes good rates.