Pros and cons of flatbed versus step deck

He didnt say anything about a accountant, did you even read what 24valve said? You cant hope for the best all the time, fact is nothing will usually go the way you plan it in this business.

 

in a nut shell

 

You have a lot of IDEAS only problem is that your not the 1st person to think them up.

No idling , sleep with vent open , do high$ short mile loads , do my own books no $ wasted on an accountant all sounds good until you experience them.

Right now the national average for FLATBED work is $2.31 / mile including a $0.66 / mile FSC reefer is $2.13 VAN is $2.01 including $0.58 FSC.

Get a laugh about the NEVER WAIT to load / unload with a flatbed like you do a reefer , the truth is you sit at times regardless what your pulling.

Get to site and the crane is broken or not there yet , you sit the warehouse cannot find that special coil of steel , you sit , shipper scheduled 8 trucks for 7AM but the forklift and crew for 8AM you sit.

 

Put it this way LL.
Arrive at shipper at 7 am
Get told to wait or get into line behind the other ten trucks in front of you.
They have one forklift moving at the speed of a city maintenance worker.....
3 hours later and you still have 5 trucks ahead of you and the forklift operator goes on his mid-morning pre-break.......
He comes back a half an hour later starts up again and to be real slow and cautious, now he loads in "Grand-ma".
Noon finds the whole place on their hour lunch break
5 in the afternoon and they finally get to you and as that first pallet is slammed on the deck, the ##*&%^%$%$ forklift breaks down and they tell you to come back tomorrow.


Get used to it...
Otherwise you might want to reconsider.

Your time doesn't mean #### to a shipper or receiver.....

 

You guys sound like you're talking about Allied Tube (Harvey, IL). I sat in there 18 hours, from a 9am appt with 2 trucks ahead of me. Thankfully they aren't par for the course, at least not in my experience.

As for the original post's flat vs step question... I'd love to get a step but I'd have to say for starting out a decent flat is much cheaper and easier to come by. Seems like steps are the popular setup with lots of folks, so they're still pricey. Downsides are that quite a few shippers are snotty about loading them, especially the ones that have those irksome 3-sided flatbed docks, and you're looking at tarps with a 10' drop rather than 8'.

 

I pull a flat.....BUT I want a step just for the simple fact I can haul more machinery or crap like that. I do not like to tarp so I try to pick loads that do not require them. I set up my load for Monday picking up 19 miles from my house on the military base. I will be pulling a 24 foot military trailer. It goes on a flat or a step.

 

I want a step, i had to have a dock high trailer before I started with who I am with now. Now in the last 8 months I have had 2 loads that wouldn't have gone on a step but 15 more loads I could have hauled including some $4/mile no tarp loads. For what I do a step would just get the load closer to the ground and make it easier to chain and tarp

 

I have a couple of each ( SD / FB )+ a few reefers and dry vans. Best $ is with the step decks but not the steadiest.