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

Just to be clear on a point here. I'm not beating up on anyone for chossing to run their truck in any manner they see fit. If a person gets a great outbound and takes the easy way back the average works and that's ok. But it's not the best way in the longer term I don't think. Just my O. You create your own thing out here and the mindset of taking the easy way is a tough habit to break. It'll even have you to thinking there is no other way.

 

Now see I'm different, I am beating up on guys for not thinking it thru. I try to encourage drivers to use their heads for more than a hat rack.

The thing most don't realize is you can't run your truck like a mega carrier does, you will lose. It's like the local grocery store trying to compete with Walmart, they're gonna lose!

As for BBB and his tariff/contract rates, they work great for mega carriers, not usually so much for single O/O or small fleets. Personally I don't care what the contract rate is. If I don't get the rate I want, it don't get moved. It's not my problem someone bid the contract to cheap. Its not my problem if the load don't get moved either. It would be your problem if every O/O leased to you laughed and told you to get bent we ain't hauling that cheap! Then when that happens you're left with trying to broker and if that don't work you lose the account... So again, tell me how a contract rates dictate the rates...? The ones who haul it dictate the rate.

 

Who the hell would pull a load out of Louisville that cheap.I come out of Louisville 3 times a week for 3,200 to Albany Ny.This week i will be there again on Friday loading that same load.Kentucky and Ind are BIG MONEY LOADS...Great area anyway you go.

 

That was hypothetical driver. Nobody said anything about booking real loads like that although $1,200 from Lousiville to Chicago would be a much better load imo than $3,200 to Albany, NY from Louisville.

 

I try to be nice about it. What I said about it not being a good long term plan pretty much goes along with what you say about it. It's not. It molds one to think along certain lines. As in "well that $1.30 is the current market rate for loads going up that way" in other words that's just how it is. And those brokers do a favor by "paying fair market rates the other 6 months of the year". That kind of logic gets ingrained. The truth of the matter is there are likely trucks hauling that very same freight and doing it for fair or above fair market rates year round. I know it sounds crazy but it does happen....

 

Not unless you are established with 3-$4.00 Loads coming out of Albany...Hint Hint..lol

 

Had those, couldn't get our capacity to D&H for regional freight so we wound up dropping off the lane.

 

SHC. I run back to Chicago constantly because I like being home. I have tried the triangles and circles and blah blah blah. And usually somewhere I always get screwed. I have to be back Friday morning to load out. That's just how it is. Friday is load day for the LTL. That's the bread and butter. Rollin Coal. I see you have some kind of short run. I do some truckload LTL out of Chicago that delivers in Indiana and I do get 4 bucks a mile on. With me lumping the freight it goes to around 6-7 bucks a mile. Nice stuff. Grab some 350 dollar water load out of Indy and wallah. You have a great round and its done in 24 - 36 hours. 2500 for 600 miles. Not bad all In all. Cheap freight is all in the mind of the beholder.

 

I have a rule.....

I run about a 1000 miles outbound and about a 1000 miles Inbound....Mostly the same lane each week.....
The outbound should be at least 1/2 of the cost of fuel at the rack per mile....
So when fuel is say $4.50.....Minimum rate should be at least $2.25/m.......

Easy math.......

 

So when fuel was 2.00/gal. outbound at 1.00/mile would be okay?