Picking my own freight baby! My journey to & of being on Schneider choice, the Adventure & Numbers!

South Florida produces nothing of significance. All they do is consume goods. When you have a consumer base rates going in are going to be high (goods are in demand) yet since that area doesn't produce much of anything the demand for outgoing items will low since it's a consumer (versus production) market.

Bottom line is if someone chooses to run into south Florida they'd better get a really nice rate in because there isn't going to be much of anything coming out. Because of this the protests are futile as long as there are free market economies with supply and demand rules in place

 

It's capacity. There's just too many trucks roaming around. We need oil prices to keep rising, and freight demand to go up. Economy is tight right now. Hopefully when we get through this crazy election, things will settle. Some economist was on the radio today though claiming oil prices would be low for the next decade, so who knows.

 

Then you'd essentially be re-regulating the industry. The Law of Unintended Consequences would come around and bite us.

 

How about if you live in Texas, Colorado, or California?
NE or Montana? And so on.
The problem is the middle man or the lack of protection of the drivers
in general.
It is not a market economy when a shipper pays $2 per mile for a load, and the very same load is offered for .65 per mile.

 

Because we frac and produce more oil and Iran is back on line the Saudi's are reluctant to pull back on production which in turn puts more product on the market.

Combine that with 8 mpg trucks and an expansion of hybrids and electric vehicles and you can see the increase in available supply putting downward pressures in oil prices for the foreseeable future.

 

You think OOIDA really fights for the drivers?

 

I think they are the best organized group to act as a platform yes, but as with all groups it's up to members to be active and participate in the organization...one challenge is that people in this industry are very independent and often don't want to work as a group. This reduces our collective voice whereas large companies are more used to collaobating in something called co-oportistion (meaning competitors who sometimes cooperate).

 

OOIDA is a business. They try to maximize their profit. They don't care for the drivers. Even if all of us join them, not much will change.
No one wants organized drivers in this country.

Have you seen their nice shiny building off I-70 near Kansas City?

 

When theres 100 trucks per one load...
Multiple trucks will fight for that .65 per mile load.
Now is the broker to blame for that or the truck drivers choosing to run that market?

I hate brokers too, no doubt but supply and demand is common sense in this equation.
If there was 1 truck for 100 loads those brokers would fighting for that one truck, some might offer more than what they're getting for the load if that account is at risk to be lost if the load doesn't get moved.

The one running the trucking business should know and understand these things.
Yes brokers suck but you should work where you're needed, not where you're not. As other said.. if it's a single trip make sure you get paid enough going in to cover the peanuts you'll earn coming out.

 

Then if you live in more than a half of US, you shouldn't be in the
tracking business. And that is wrong.
Doesn't matter what the truck/load ratio is.
The middle man shouldn't be allowed to get more than certain
percentage of the rate by law. For example not more than 10%.
Also by law, there's schould be a minimum nationwide shipping rate.
For example $2 per mile. For some markets more.