What's the deal with the extra space in long hauls?

It just depends on how much time you have to play with and whether or not the customers care. I've had brokers pay 3 or 4 times the going truckload rate to ship a single pallet in my 53 van. On a load like that there's no,time to,go,grab other freight. That pallet or part is paying full truckload so it runs nonstop from pickup to delivery. On the other hand sometimes people pay truckload for a 10 pallets load that's sealed and don't want any other freight in there. It just depends. Circumstance is everything. Most times when you have the space and customers dont care if you get other freight you can't find any or the timing isn't right if there's something that might work.

 

I am appalled by those who resell it...unless the costumer/broker is all right with it. I saw people - the ones who like to wear Adidas stripped pants and they even went as far as removing sealed trailer door latches and set up plywood boards on "do not double stack" pallets and before the delivery went to an "agent" to offload the additional cargo, they installed the latches with the seal, then they went to deliver, came back to the agent to reclaim the deposited freight. I disagree with this sort of practice.. Besides, that does drive rates down and it resembles stealing - almost criminal imo. An exclusive trailer is an exclusive trailer, that's what they pay you for and a man of rudimentary sense of ethics and honesty should understand it.
If the load is not sealed, or partial then of course it is all right to be creative....setting up load bars across e-tracks and setting plywood boards on them to create a platform is a common practice. But if the trailer is sealed at the shipper it must remain so, in my honest opinion.

 

Sorry TallJoe, but if the Shippers cared about this sort of thing they wouldn't have happily accepted all those low bids and driven the 'honest' guys out of business. That's just how things are done in Chicago now. If a customer doesn't want to share the trailer they should use it.

 

The more years has past while I am at this, the more I see that I am not cut out to do this. Many of those in this business here in this Chicago land, who I see driving BMWs living in over I million houses do appear to have quite a bit of a swindler traits in them. Maybe that should be a prerequisite. I even go as far as to say that a trucking company and a cleaning service, in my sense of aesthetics and nobility are on par. I also believe in the market shaping these things, drawing the right kinds of people to do this and setting the "market rules" to perform at this. I either agree and come along with all the practices or perish.

 

If they could only see how their goods are mishandled and abused...If they could only see....or even better, if their customers, who they sell their product to, could only see.

 

In my opinion ethics are local. What I mean by this is that every industry has different codes about what is considered acceptable and what is not. In other words when in Rome do as the Romans do. This means that when you're in Chicago 'upstanding' means you aren't doing anything REALLY shady like taking the customers shipment and sending it Intermodal instead of using a truck.

It's always a spectrum. Life isn't black and white no matter how much we would like it to be. You cannot allow yourself to be so 'good' that you put yourself out in the cold. My dad was like that and it literally ruined my childhood. To this day I don't understand why it was more unethical to keep his mouth shut (and his job) all those places but it was 100% ethical to move us 20+ times by the time I was a Sophmore in High School.

Being unyielding to reality isn't a virtue is what I'm trying to say.

 

If it shows up damaged they will just file a claim. And don't kid yourself about how they treat their product in their own warehouse, or about how gently they handle product not marked fragile (even if marked fragile frequently) at 3PL warehouses and LTL warehouses.

EDIT: The only person who might not know the load is going to get consolidated is the receiver. They will notice that some of the boxes are a little dinged up and the freight isn't spaced out as much as it's supposed to be... But all they will do is complain since there's no real damage.

 

I am astounded that you seem to approve that. But you handle produce so there is not that much they can consolidate there. Except, one time I was asked seriously by a dispatch to consolidate Iceberg Lettuce with ...a motorcycle. I had maybe two spots left...which is quite needed for a proper reefer air circulation. LOL Sensing that he was not kidding, I called him outright a stupid arse and to go to hell. We were not friends after.

 

Yeah I used to do a lot of work for customs brokers. They had a lot of drama but the money was pretty decent. This was a constant problem out of Chicago and LA to the point where we gave up on not having loads consolidated. Today I just assume it will be consolidated and figure that if they consolidate a load marked dedicated and do damage the claim will stick.

Let's be really clear here: I'm not saying this is ideal. I'm just bowing to reality. It's kind of how I'll literally never pay a flatbed to haul anything 'dedicated'. There's zero way for me to ever verify if they did it that way, and in fact I figure I should assume they did everything possible to maximize revenue. And I should pay accordingly.

I've definitely shipped my last 12,000 pound 34 foot partial as an FTL I'll tell you that. I'm securing the discounted rate, passing most of it on to the customer, and explaining to the customer everything I've posted in this thread. I just flat tell them that dedicated service on a partial load had better be massively expedited, massively expensive, and attached to a massive fine if late. Even then it will probably still be consolidated, but it will get there on time.

EDIT: If it's really true I guess you could probably tell people that the freight is absurdly fragile and expensive and that it's not worth the risk to consolidate. But them some crazy Pole would consolidate it anyway.

 

Circumstances Dictate Procedure

That is the guiding thought that I use in life.Every situation is different, you have to think it through.
Anything wrong with doing it ? Nope, I have done it many times.
Can you make it work so everyone is happy ? That is the question.