Rates are starting to skyrocket already

Hows the rates today with trade wars?

 

That's not exactly what I said if you are referring to me. 4 a mile into MO isn't bad, time was the issue. I completely understand what your saying. You asked for other drivers points of view. With the scenario you have he could have offered me 10 a mile and I'm not sure. Money wasn't the issue, it was the time frame.
If I can run it legally, then yes. I am more than willing to wipe the sleep out of my eyes for 2,000 dollars on 10 hours of work. It's not disconnect. It's reality.

 

I'm not having any trouble getting 3 dollars per mile with my dry van right now.

 

I wonder though, how much of that is regional and equipment differences? On just a quick sample of some rate confirmations in front of me: I paid $2250 on a stepdeck from NC to just north of Philly on Monday for 578 miles on Monday, $4100 on Minnesota to Spokane on a Flatbed for 1260ish miles.

 

Nearly everything I talk about these days is flatbed with a few vans mixed in.

 

Maybe. The reality is that seasonal stuff hasn't been super important this year. We've been seeing basically daily price increases since December in reaction to ELD's mostly. That's certainly the day when the chain reaction started.

It's important to note that this didn't just cause people to enter trucking but was actually the last nail in a whole bunch of coffins. When some shipper closes up because he couldn't pass on the additional trucking costs in his market and was on the brink already it reduces the amount of demand. At every price level there is an amount of supply and an amount of demand. It's been viewed as an of course around here that there was infinite demand at every price level 'because they have to pay to get it shipped if they want to get paid anything'. Which is pretty good logic in the short term, but wildly inaccurate in the long term.

 

I've always thought that shipping costs were the least of worries in the whole spectrum of costs. How much more do you see them pay per truck load on average compared to last year? From my end, I see rate increases ranging from only a few hundred up to a $1000 on the longest lanes (over 1000 miles). It does not seem enough to effect the product unit price that much.

I mean, it is hard for me to agree with the implication that the rates are too high (we are too greedy) and this could drive someone out of business.

 

I agree wholeheartedly that the elogs mandate was a game changer for a lot of people. I don't do long haul anymore, I just hang around the Midwest. I won't go to big cities anymore because traffic tie ups mess with my log day. I noticedthat freight has become more regional as well. Before the mandate it was pretty easy common to see loads going pretty much everywhere, now I see lot more 500 miles and under loads and a lot fewer longer loads hitting the boards.

 

Transportation costs as a % of gross sales varies radically by industry. You're definitely right about highly processed manufactured goods (the last stage of the supply chain) but you're definitely wrong about stuff with load values under 20k. It's also important to note that the cost of every input for that load of highly processed manufactured goods will go up because of additional transportation costs.

It's really about where you are in the supply chain. If you're in the bulk anything business it's like trucking... You have big gross sales and low margins. Having your biggest individual cost go up by 25-50% while the price of the product you sell stays flat will put most of these guys out of business. A LOT of them were able to pass on the price... But in agriculture they've had a very good year with crop yields so far so prices on many commodities have gone down.