Recession?

Yes

 

If it’s mismanagement as you suspect, that’s the worse possible situation. Economic slowdown will amplify mismanagement and bring them down. I would have an exit plan if I was you.

 

Cross border ltl is steady, but even that’s down.

 

Challenger is normal in Ontario, BC and Quebec are getting ####ed hard. I avoid loads going into QC because the backhaul is really bad. Most of challengers loads are centered at the east coast. I've rarely been midwest this year, last year I was always in the Midwest. Some days there's not enough loads to go around at challenger but those days are pretty rare.

 

Dr Rutherford says yes, so it's gospel.

 

Good post .. The ironic thing is guys are driving faster than ever it seems . Maybe the bottom feeders will drive themselves out of business if fuel spikes

 

They will be able to hold for a bit.... will be a race to the bottom. They will pull for pennies just to get the loads. Get ready for more late cheque’s if at all, fuel cards not working, bailiffs waiting to take trucks at terminals.

 

I don't know how much truth there is to that. My dad sold his truck and ran equipment for 2 years. He got a job offer from one of the big outfits that runs mega loads. He turned it down as he liked shift work running equipment vs the trucker schedule of work work work.

 

An experienced driver, can take a few years off, and easily get back into trucking if they want to around this area. I have hired people who have not driven in years, but had previous experience. I am not saying that they could take 30 years off and just come back to driving, but a few years in no big deal.

As for those who talk about their being no work, just because one area of the trucking industry maybe slow where you are, doesn't mean that all areas are. Be willing to hook your truck to a different type of trailer, or open minded to hauling other products. You might even find that you like it more than what you were doing already. I have two owner operators pulling end dump for me, they have been doing so for the last 7 or 8 weeks now, and loving it, and told me that its going to be a sad day when this contract is done. They will have to go back to their normal jobs pulling tanker for one, and steel for the other. I have 3 end dumps pulling from a pit where i have one of my loaders at. The 3 drivers all have a key to the loader, they pull up, park, climb out of the truck and into the loader, load themselves, and shut the loader off and go deliver the gravel. Each truck is making 3 round trips per day. They stagger start in the morning about 10 minutes apart so they are not in each others way loading or dumping, told them not to ever speed, not even 1 mile per hour over the posted speed. They are paid the same amount per day no matter how fast or slow they go. But one truck is owned by me, and it leaves first, if the others gain on her or pass her I know they are speeding, and I can pull up her location and speed anytime I want to. Yesterday I actually followed one of the trucks down as I was going to check on the project, I was glad to see he wasn't speeding ever. It should take them almost exactly 10.5 hours from the time they leave the yard in the morning until they return at night. If either owner operator were to pass my truck, they would be let go. So far the owners of the trucks pulling my trailers are thrilled, although it isn't what they usually do.

 

A tanker company didn't consider my yard truck time as relevant experience. They said get recertified which I guess would be like testing out at a trucking school.

Instead I applied to other companies and got Regional Dry Van.

So maybe I should clarify that you can still get work, but some of the better companies will be picky about it at least where I live.

I told the tanker company I hired on pulling dry van and they said I should talk to them after a year.