The ugly truth about Landstar

Living in Coatesville, I'd pull a flat. There is a lot of steel coming out of there. Not to mention, you could do very well running I80 during the week and be home every weekend. I lived in New Cumberland for a little while before moving back to FL. If it were me, and I was living up there again, I'd probably buy a 48 flat with a Fastrack system, that can run "open" for th occasional OD load. You'd have a life and make money.

 

Yep, auto parts used to be huge for us, still a fair amount of work but not like before. FYI, many of the facilities in the auto industries supply/manufacturing chain will refuse to use trailers more than 10 years old so if you plan to do this type of work you are probably better off pulling a company wagon.

 

Ya I know I pulled out of lukens a lot, shingles out of Frederick md, I know flat pretty well just didn't know what their step freight was like.

 

That's weird, age requirements. I'm gonna stay away from van at least until ups kicks in and they don't use ls trailers for that anyway.

 

Union rules at some of the auto plants, they will turn you around at the guard shack and send you back out with your parts. Off to a crossdock nearby and some lucky owner or local company gets some easy money after the agent's mad scramble to deal with it.

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The ugly truth about Landstar should really be the ugly truth about owner operators. I don't think Landstar is any worse or better then any other company which has owner operators. They are better then a company that also has company drivers which compete for the good freight. But Landstar has a business model problem as the load board has turned into a joke for many BCO's at Landstar. I took a good paying hazmat load 350 miles into the St Paul area. I knew that outbound freight was not probably going to happen but in the end you have to decide what your going to do? Then of course I get more calls from Jacksonville trying to help agents push unattractive loads that have been sitting. In this case they tried to get me to pull a pre loaded trailer of tires to a place like Nebraska. Gee, it had been sitting on the board for a week! Go figure, but yet when I told the Jacksonville person that it sits because their is no freight in Nebraska which is why nobody takes that load. He sounds so surprised by this. Which is my point exactly. If Landstar is to improve its customer and rates it will have to convince agents to either drop this unwanted freight or work harder to find freight on that other end. I have talked to far too many BCO's who dead head far too much to get that next load. Landstar as a whole needs to work to help BCO's be more efficient if it cannot improve rates. If you look at other big companies they have worked very hard with dedicated and select freight lanes that help reduce dead head. Yes, they have also put a dent in rates going up but any trucking company is going to work hard to sell itself on costs factor to a customer. Landstar for years has not done enough to work to that end and instead relies on the over dimensional and specialty freight to carry the company. Now I think its clear all divisions are facing competition as trucking has become the Walmart of low rates to haul almost any kind of freight. On a whole this does not do anything but hurt a BCO who see's almost every expense go up and yet rates remain stagnant. Landstar prides itself on providing so much freedom to its BCO's and agents. But I think Landstar needs to finally realize it needs a better game plan then that in order to reduce costs to BCO's and also move more freight. You cannot just post freight on a load board and "hope" that its moves. Most JB Hunts and Swifts post that junk on a load board and try not to haul it themselves. Those companies see better margins in tighter freight lanes and less down time. Sitting at truck stop waiting and searching for loads on a load board will not make you a decent living. Not with Landstar or any other company. Landstar needs to stop just being happy with a small percentage of BCO's doing well and start by fixing their model so that every BCO has at least a shot at freight. Unless Landstar does this, their success stories will begin to shrink more and more.

 

I am to a BCO and I am leaving Landstar as well. It's pretty academic. 8500 trucks plus approved carriers with less than 12000 loads. That's 75% of the loads are not direct shipper. 80% pay under $1.50 before the 65%. Yet Landstar makes $4-5 billion in profit.

I've figured out how this system works and the only way to get better rates is to be the equipment owner with you're own authority and have a brokers license. The rates are driven lower because they post them lower or they come from another load board posted by the agent.

You don't need a company to find loads. You can do it. They don't own anything but trailers. But you have the tractor.

Good luck everyone.

 

BINGO!

 

Dont forget about the brokers that save loads for friends and family. The broker also has his own trucks. That relationship talk is all garbage. The brokers are interested in how much they can squeeze out of you...or loading their own trucks, or their families trucks. Many of these Brokers (not all of them) are parasites that just use Landstars vast logistics and resources to their own ends. Its that simple. The best part is many of these loads are cut and pasted from DAT and other load boards. The majority of these brokers do not have any direct customers. Most of them are scheming cut and paste brokers. Its that simple. For all the BS you can get your own authority and keep the extra 35%

 

How have u been making a killing at LS?