Stepping Out With My Own Numbers

Yep just in time for the EOBR mandate to take effect across the board freight is getting scarce. Remember how everyone said rates would skyrocket when that happened? Well, it would but only if the freight demand is there. It isn't. Not even close. This is the worst "Amazon season" I've seen in 7 years and we're not even into Jan and Feb yet. Hope everybody banked up over the summer cause it sure seems like difficult times are near. I dunno what is up with holiday freight people must not be spending as much this year. Amazon certainly did a slam dunk job locking down low rates. Yet another year of those rates trending downward from the brokers but that's how everything once good goes.

 

I don't know about Amazon but ups is working us to death. They have so much overage this year they took some team packages and split them with 10 hour breaks at each end to make them solo packages. I don't know who wrote their dispatch program but that guy needs a raise. It perfectly has me running my 70 out and getting exactly 34 hours for a reset before repeating. I haven't worked this hard in over a decade. 2 weeks into it and I'm ready to cry uncle. I ended my run today with exactly 4 minutes on my clock. Was smooth sailing till the last 5 miles and got to sit in rush hour traffic trying to get to the hub.

 

I'm running flat and my rates have soared..as well as amount of freight..

 

$2 to go to PA with reefer? How much would you get from PA to TX?

 

Are you working in the south? Cause Midwest-Northeast is good. Dry van average is $2.5-$3 on 2000-2500 weekly miles here. I would think reefer is closer to $3.

 

I have some friends doing amazon loads. They take loaded trailer from amazon dc to ups and bring empty back.
They’re paid $2.20 all miles and $1300 per day if they don’t get a load.

 

I agree and that's always the difficult thing to out here is to find that balance of a solid daily revenue stream attached to a good rate per mile. I'm always looking to book a minimum of a $1,000 in revenue per day. There are rare times though when that goes out the window but it has to be a good fit in the overall picture to happen. Then there are times when I turn my nose up at loads paying less than $3,000 that only take a couple of days or less. Or times when I will happily book a short day run paying $1,000-$1,200 because that's all there is. Sometimes neither of those types of loads are available. Things change quickly out here and if you don't adapt you'll be sitting.

 

Yeah I'm in the south. It should be hopping right now and the brokers should be blowing up the phone willing to pay what it takes. The phone calls do come in from early morning until about lunch time. By 2pm they stop coming almost entirely. The loads are disappearing and covering quickly. Lots of crickets chirping around here. There are some so-so rates $3 a mile van and reefer not going anywhere decent. Should be able to get that at a minimum going to good areas. Have never seen it like this in December. A buddy in Chicago area tells me volume up there and in Wisconsin is down in a big way the past few days too. This is a weird holiday season.