Why oh why are you drivers taking this cheap freight????

Well said MN driver. Well said. Ok. Scenario. I am empty in Atlanta at 10 am. Now what am I gonna do???? Put cheap freight and haul the mail home??? Or am I gonna bounce to Louisville and of course since that is a six hour ride have to wait till the next morning to get loaded. So now I get to idle my truck yet another night. Hmmmmmm. 2 and 2 aren't making 4 anymore are they? So now I get this load the next morning and of course you know it's not coming off the truck the same day so now I am stuck with this 600 dollar load for a night. So hmmmm. Do the math here fellas. It's not rocket science and you don't need a fancy spreadsheet to figure this all out. 1000 bucks. It's off the truck in 12-14 hours? Or 600 bucks and I am dealing with this load ffor well over 24 hours. It's simple math. Less time more money. The rates are the rates. I get out of Chicago for good money. Here is a real simple lesson for everyone. And BBB helped me see the light. Less miles more money. Ok. Fine. 1 pick 1 drop in the reefer game and you spend 40% plus on fuel. You'll be broke on fuel costs alone. Let alone maintenance and IFTA. You run LTL the rate will always be good!! And I am not talking truckload LTL. I am speaking of real LTL. If you wanna play 1 pick 1 drop and run the wheels off your truck then fine. But ya might as well go back to driving for a company. Just remember. All these guys on the road with the large cars and fancy spread axle trailers ain't doin it off a load board. And they certainly aren't doing it off 1 pick 1 drop work. This is the Law of Averages. And most of those guys haul the same cheap crap I do just to get back. Whether they tell you that or not I dunno. No one likes to fess up to hauling cheap. Guess I'm different. I'm honest. It is what it is. As far as screwing other guys rates up?? Well. I am in business for me. That's my name on the dotted line for this payment. I am gonna do whatever I have to do to make it work for ME. Not anyone else. Call it selfish. Call me a jerk. Whatever. But last time I checked YOUR family or bills are not my responsibility. This is a dog eat dog business. As MN Driver knows. I have absolutely NotHInG to hide. I would explain to anyone in great detail how it works.

 

Oh and also. You have to remember it depends on the time of year. Spring and summer it pays over 2 bucks a mile to come home. So when everyone floods down here because the chickens pay so good. Guess who gets the load before the seasonal help? Oh yeah me because I haul it year round. So 6 months I get shafted and 6 months I win. It's is what it is.

 

Im all ears, im listening...

 

You've got a point about deadheading all the way back to Lousiville. Not Chattanooga or Nashville though. If you always underprice it you'll never even realize that others might not be hauling it as cheap as you are. I'll put my method and numbers against yours or anyone pulling dry van, flat bed, whatever. I turn good miles and get a solid rate on EVERY load. And for the record my deadhead is not 50% it's actually gone down from 30% in December, to 16% in Jan, with Feb going to end up 0%. And not a single load below $3 a mile gross, with that being on the low end of what gets loaded on my truck. There is the simple easy way, then there is there are other ways that take a little more effort and focus to figure out and make work. I'll take my way over any other. And without a second's hesitation I will put this truck in the wind at the drop of a hat and drive it home with a load of sailboat fuel in the trailer. Seldom do that anymore but since I never need "fuel money" to make a round it's always on the table as an option.

 

If you are sitting at the shipper, deliver and bounce back, you dh is 50%

 

It's a round trip loaded both ways. Pickup load then drive, offload & reload from the same dock, drive back & deliver. Every day, day after day. Kinda boring but it pays the bills.

 

that's a nice gig to have landed then.

 

I wouldn't even haul a load from Atlanta to Louisville for $600. Why DH all the way to Louisville for a $600 load????

and if you loaded in Louisville in the morning, why would pu not be a le to make same day delivery? A $600 load should only be going about 150 miles maybe 200 and that's a 3 hour drive.

It ha more to do with load choice than it does with mileage empty and loaded. The problem most drivers run into is they make bad freight choices, and the worst one is drivers feel the MUST get back home right away. Why not just run a few loads that get you back home instead of looking for a "backhaul"

Backhaul just means cheap freight

 

It's sweet and been going on since Oct bad news it might play out March 1st though, possibly not.. Oh well, that's how it goes, search out another gig...

 

Semper Gumby.


Enjoy the fruit while you can.