Stepping Out With My Own Numbers

I saw the same thing with December. That first week slacked up so much from the previous pre-Thanksgiving rush that it was a little nerve wracking. But it ratcheted back up to busy, busy, busy the closer we got to Christmas. I have never seen a 1st week of December start out so seemingly slow like that before, that was a first.

Sounds like your regular broker has a dependable truck. That's a rare thing out here. Guaranteed he'll be begging you to run more freight. But honestly he needs you more than you need him. There are plenty of good brokers out there right now looking for carriers and drivers that can give them consistency on decent rates sheltering both sides from the wild swings of late. You never really expect to run across people like that but when you run the same lanes all the time it happens. You'll see it at some point and that'll be his loss if things don't shape up.

 

God, that's the truth. It's nice to have someone to call up when your customer has another of X, Y, or Z run, and you know with a reasonable degree of certainty that you have a guy who will do it, do it well, and won't gank you like the fella who took me for a ride on Thursday. Paid double what I normally pay for one of my regular lanes because none of my usual guys were around, and the end customer needed the material badly. So, a van guy got $2000 for 400 miles. Can't fault him for it- my customer wasn't happy to pay it, but he shouldn't have hemmed and haw'd when I had a truck for $1500. Chicago is a whacky market, and swings so much harder than the rest.

 

The got me out of the house in this chill yesterday afternoon $4500 for 900 miles to South Carolina. I was not planning on it at all. This is my best rate this year yet. I see Convoy is paying crazy rates out of Edwardsville, IL too, paying $2500 for 360 miles - I am sure they're Walmart DC deliveries. There must be a real truck shortage. No fun to start the truck up in this weather though. Should have never turned it off.

 

1500 was a very fair rate for both parties. I have no pity for the ganking your customer revived by having to pay 2000. Thay same customer will be ganking the trucks by paying 700 on that run when the market turns back in his favor.

 

No disagreement there. Part of the problem is thay my guy is new. They let my previous POC go a few weeks ago. New guy is pulling double duty until they hire a new shipping guy, and is having to learn the process. Thing is, I don't think the market'll swing back that hard in his favor. First time I did that lane, I paid $900. Subsequently, it averages $1000-$1200, unless it's a rush. Problem is where it's located. It's still in the Chicago market, but it's coming from an outlying town. Don't want to get into too many specifics, but there's usually at least an hour and a half of deadhead involved. So, they're gonna have to learn how to deal with it, especially since that marketplace is actually paying attention to HOS. I had a dozen turnaways on calls about that load because of hours. It's interesting to see.

 

Question to reefer operators.
ELD vs reefer shipping/delivering?
How do you reefer guys cope with reefer deliveries against 14 hour clock.? Do you leave the receiver after being unloaded on Personal Conveyance, if 14 hours is exceeded or try to stay at the facility till 8 hour reset? What's the solution? Is it even still a common problem, to be detained for 4-6 hours, in the reefer world?

 

Good luck with that, hope it pans out for you. It'll be nice to have a run where you can plan and budget. One question, what will happen to it when you're not rolling? Someone else running or it can wait for you to come back?