woundering

Had one of my guys call me about this $4.50/mile load he was pulling out of Michigan going to Edmonton,AB. He picked this load up on a Monday. I would have dropped the load and bounced back stateside, ready for my next load. He went home under load. His receiver was open 24/7 so he delivered Sunday. I told him that I would bounce back to the States. He said that he didn't want to lose any of that good paying load bouncing out so he would wait for a load.

Monday, he calls me and tells me tha he got a load out of Saskatoon to Greenville,SC. I told him that he just shot two weeks to hell. "Two weeks? How do you figure two weeks?"

the load he took up from Michigan dropped on Sunday. He scanned in his paperwork and would be getting for for hat load THAT week. The next load would not deliver until the following Monday, so he won't be getting a check next week and the week after, for that greenville load, he WLL only be showing a 10 cents per mile to the positive...or $260. Factor in 2 lease truck payments and all the rest of the expenses and what do you have left? A big negative.

Cheap loads hurt in TWO ways, not one.
1. You don't profit from them
2. They eat up time. Time management is money.

Is it really better to move $1/mile freight or bounce out of a dead zone? Well if my buddy had listened to me, he would have dropped the Michigan load, and would have been in position Friday for his next load. If he had bounced after delivering Sunday, he would have been back in the states, ready to go by Monday night, load first thing Tuesday in a better location. Even eating the fuel cost for the bounce, he would have been farther ahead.

 

I will usually bounce out of a bad area rather than taking something cheap or sit for several days. I may sit for a day, but rarely longer unless I am working on something. If more owners would leave the cheap freight alone, rates would come up.

 

I'll take something for $1.50 if it gets me to a customer load.

I'm taking a load to DeWitt, AR (Direct Customer) and have a load in Monroe, WI going to Poughkeepsie, NY
Do I take what I can get? Within reason of course. Or bounce the 750 miles to Monroe. I wish I had the luxury of waiting for a good one. Some of us don't have a choice. But I'm one man. I'm not the reason rates out of certain areas are garbage

 

It should be relatively easy to find something from AR to WI. In my opinion, target for this lane would be around 2.20/mi all inc for a legal load. If is is a good load in Monroe, I would accept anything over 2.00.

 

I'll see what I can find

 

NEWS FLASH!!! Western Canada, especially Alberta, is a consumer market! It's a consumer market because basically everything they produce leaves in a pipeline or is generally a bulk product. Virtually all equipment is used, and rebuilt, and used again to the point of becoming scrap metal. Meaning rates outbound SUCK! That's even if you can find something.
In Western Canada, we're dealing with our own "Mexican invasion". Similar to the Americans issue of trying to compete with the wages of the illegals, our rates are being pressured due to having to compete with American carriers rates due to economic shortages in the USA.