Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

My run went fine. It has way too much time on it. I had 14 hours off before the return load. I deliver the outbound Kentucky load, went 5 miles for a trailer wash and fuel, then dead headed 118 miles to the back haul.

I was 14 hours early. Trainer Frank has done this run 4 times. We are now running it 3 times a week. It is a drop and hook. Trainer Frank told me the shipper has plenty of parking for drivers to take their 10 hour break. This shipper also has a cafeteria that drivers have access to.

I checked in at the gate. They do a thorough inspection of the trailer you are dropping. You need a wash out, full of fuel, and 2 load locks to drop a trailer. Trainer Frank had given me this info prior to me taking this run. My trailer passed. I dropped it in the empty lot. I then checked in at the shipping office. I was told take my break and come back in one hour before my appointment. I watched a couple of hours of entertainment on my portable DVD player and got a good night sleep. I woke up and went back into the shipping office 2 hours before my appointment. The shipping person was pleasant. I was told it was being loaded and every thing was going as scheduled. I was handed my paper work at 5 minutes till 7am. It was ready to go 5 minutes early. That was fine with me. I always appreciate a shipper that is on time.

I am going to St.Louis tomorrow with a back haul out of Edwardsville,Il. You old GTI drivers should know where that is.

I enjoyed the recent posts on this thread about being an o/o and contacts, pay, and the other general idea.

The reason I am leased to the company that Vic works for is the location. It is 10 miles from my house to the terminal. All of our loads are round trip which eliminates any unpaid deadhead except the 10 mile home and back. Our loads a predictable. Vic has mentioned that our company only knows what loads we have one day in advance. That is true but, we do know what loads deliver on what days. We just do not know how many loads are going to be shipped to each location. For example we have loads 7 days a week to Kentucky, St.Louis and Dayton,Oh. What we do not know is how many loads are going. On Monday and Tuesday there were 2 loads that went to St.Louis. Wednesday there was only one load. Today there were 3 loads. That is what makes dispatching a challenge. There are times when we have up to 5 loads going to these locations.

Sorry if this post comes across a me rambling. I was gone for 2 days and I was typing what ever popped into my mind.

 

I use to run for a company that had out bound freight that were our customers. Unfortunately a lot of our return loads were brokered loads. This is where the uncertainty is in trucking. A driver can wait many hours waiting on a brokered back haul to take shape. A decent rate is sometimes hard to achieve. Trucking is very competitive. Contacts and relationships are very valuable.

I am glad that all of our runs are set up in advance. This last run I took had too much time involved in it. I knew it when I accepted the load. I did not like it but, atleast I knew what I was up against. I would rather have a load like this as have to wait for the unknown after I unload somewhere.

Waiting and wasted time is very destructive to truck divers. In my opinion it is the number one problem with our industry. Our time is taken advantage of way too often.

 

Good points. I tell you what skeeves me out more than anything is the sheer number of people becoming new owner operators. Reminds me of everyone rushing into tech stocks in the late 90's, or into housing in the mid 2000's. Smaller scale, of course, but there: used to be 1 person/week asking about being an o/o in the o/o section. Now its 3 per day...

What can you do about it? Not much. Don't over-extend. Know that the market will likely contract, keep your financial house in order, prepare to see lower margins ahead, & make hay now while ths sun is shining.

 

Maybe. Booked a load with Landstar last week, $2350 from New York City to New Stanton, PA. 330 miles (400 with deadhead). A couple hours later (pu was for the next morning) LS calls and says sorry, that load cancelled. Then they email me another carrier's rate confirmation for the run: $600.

Wound up going round and round with the agent before getting a measly $150 TONU. Meanwhile some idiot had to pay $100 to cross the GWB and another $94 in tolls running the PA turnpike after fighting NYC traffic and probably a union warehouse for the privilege of what became a $1/mile run.

Don't want to compete with people like that, but doubt they'll survive long anyway.

 

Have you checked out the expeditor trucks and business plans?

 

DY - that was more than likely a scenario where the LS agency's customer was told "this is the price it will take" and they still made money off of it. One of those rare really good customers. That is not always an option with most freight. Yet the opportunity of some dumb fool willing to take that load for $2 a mile presented itself and they decided to break their agreement with you and make big bank on the load. What was the agency code btw if you don't mind my asking? It is good to know the bad ones who can't be trusted to honor their word.

 

Yeah, it was actually a load/rate they posted on their loadboard & I received a load alert. Agency code was BHT