saying NO to cheap freight

Don't worry about what anyone thinks of your rates. Learn how to keep your truck moving. There's no shame in taking a low rate now and then. It's part of the game. And when you are on a hot spot low rates into that hot spot might keep help keep others out of it. Which would have a depressive effect on those better rates. And that's what you want - to keep the competition away. Being bullheaded and refusing to either take a going rate or put it in the wind and sitting for days and days waiting on the good one that may or may not appear is a big lose, lose, loser. You didn't get what you needed to go to that area in the first place and you are too indecisive to take the bull by the horns and move out.

 

$2.00/mile minimum. Can't survive in todays market unless you already own your truck, and/or you are your own mechanic.

 

idiots near me charge $65 per hour..no fuel surcharge. No idea how they stay in business. Just my wages and benefits as a company driver would eat up 84 percent of that...

 

I refuse to be taken advantage of and I will not hau any basement cheap freight. Many drivers now are nothing but 21rst Century version of Coolies. You know the Chinese slave labor that carries sacks of rice on their shoulders. Well guess what.....many drivers today are Coolies on 18 wheels!

To make things worse the companies now try to make drivers get involved with a fleece purchase thereby turning the driver into nothing more than a sharecropper on 18 wheels.

I don't let people steal from me or take advantage of me. Trix are for kids......not real O/O

 

Coolies lol. I remember a driver from Sparta, NJ on another trucking forum years ago used to always refer to truckers as coolies for all the free labor they give away.

 

Let me clarify a little better. I understand that capacity will dictate some rates. To many trucks not enough freight in an area.....say a flatbed in Florida. Totally understandable.

I am talking about the other side of the coin that makes perfect business sense. Want to pull a load from KC to Philadelphia on the cheap.....be my guest. I won't lol.

 

Why can't you survive in today's market with a truck payment? I bought a brand new truck a year ago this week. I've had no problems in today's market. I've averaged 1700 miles a week for the year so I either don't work too hard or took a big chunk of the year off (a little of both). Oh and I've had a trailer payment too.

Don't get me wrong, I openly recognize that rates are down. I just think statements like having to have a paid for truck and/or be a mech are slightly off. People just need to know their individual operating cost and then they need to figure out how to not just meet those cost but exceed them.

 

"You need to figure out what you NEED, then figure out what you have to do to get what you need" basically.

Everybody's business plan is different. Most aren't good.
I recognize most people don't/ can't/ won't do what I do: that's what makes it a niche. IMO easier to specialize than take a broad "I'll do anything offered to me at whatever it gets offered at" approach.

As @CJndaTruck pointed out: some people have no problem running a successful business while making payments.

The less you make, the harder you have to work.


rambling over

 

HELLO IVE BEEN A COMPANY DRIVER FOR A WHILE BUT WILL BE GOING TO BUY MY OWN TRUCK NEXT WEEK. I HAVE AN AGENT GETTING ALL MY OWN AUTHORITY PAPERWORK IN LINE. ANY ADVICE?

 

This is not true, you can survive and thrive in today's market, Over the past 2 years have added 2 new gliders. I am still driving my old paid for truck because I like it but I spend almost as much on it as a new one. I do think it would be difficult ,but not impossible, if you are trying to run exclusively off of the load board.