So, a couple of you probably remember my other posts when I asked advice about my business plan and such. Since then I've finished getting my authority, been doing different kinds of work. I thought I had it all figured out before I started and I planned on doing just intermodal. Long story short, didn't end up working out. The ports out here in NY/NJ are an absolute horror. I did power only for a little while, tried working for JB Hunt for a little while, so on. Now i've finally gotten a trailer of my own and i've been getting loads off of DAT and getloaded.com and so on. When I first started out it wasn't bad. You had to search a little for a decent rate and there was always the jokers who expect you to work for even less than a dollar a mile but I could still find work. But now... I just don't know what to do. I literally called at least 50-60 people today and of all the loads that weren't taken, the highest paying one came out at about 1.20 a mile. Thats flat rate, without FS. I feel like I'm stuck in the god damn twilight zone over here, like ALL of my work until now has been for naught. Who the hell are these people and how do they actually expect me and the rest of you to work for free? I'm racking my brains out, wondering if theres something I don't get, something I'm doing wrong, etc. Maybe theres these super truckers out there who get 20 MPG with a 45 thousand pound load so they can actually make money. Myself on the other hand gets about 7.5 MPG fully loaded and I just cannot do it.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to complain about this. Someone make sense of this for me.

 

you wont make anything staying in ny or nj. you are getting great fuel milage. a lot of people will say diffrent, but i love CHR. if you talk to them and ask where a good area is they'll tell you. they say they run you heavy and cheap.. i had a heavy load from them 2 weeks ago. that was the first heavy load (35k+) in a month and a half.

 

I hear you. I'm definitely not trying to stay in NY/NJ though. I'm apportioned for the entire country now and I'm looking for loads going anywhere. When I first started on the load boards it wasn't very hard to find a decent paying load. There was still the dollar a mile or less funny offers but it wasn't like I would make phone calls from 9 - 5 all day long and not get a single offer that was that much over a dollar a mile. Can someone explain that to me? Is it the freight to trucker ratio in the area? Do all of these brokers on various loadboards communicate with each other somewhere and decide at a basic set rate? I just don't understand. Would any of you take a load that only paid a dollar a mile, unless you were just trying to get home? And you really think I'm getting great fuel milage? I thought it should be a bit better. If I have something really heavy on, like 45 thousand, I would probably be getting about 6.7 per gallon but if I was around 35 like the loads you're talking about I would be better than 7.5. This stuff is making the deal I had at port Newark look like a cake walk.

 

what i'm noticing.. freight is DEAD in the north east.

 

I've never been to them, but Baltimore isn't that bad once you get the lay of the land. What;s wrong with NY/NJ?

What went wrong there?

DAT is as good as it gets. Sorry.

Been there.

We're just starting a new quarter. Rates will naturally be lower at the beginning of the quarter.

Park the truck until you get your rate.

This is a business like any other. If you open a restaurant, you can't expect people to beat down your door on day 1. It will take a couple of years for you to establish yourself as a trusted carrier and to get on brokers' call list. I don't know anything about dry van except they are a dime a dozen. My advice is to stick it out until the Christmas rush is over then in the spring, try to separate yourself from the pack....look into Canada, step decks, double drops...something like that.

On the bright side....Christmas is coming.

 

Why do you hate brokers? That's the truckers who haul that cheap stuff you should hate. Would you personally pay more, if you can do it for less? I didn't think so. BTW. You got a great fuel mileage! Is it at the pump, or comp?

 

I’m not trying to be mean or rude, but you obviously don’t understand a supply vs demand, free market. That’s okay, most of the others who went out and got their own authority the last four years don’t either.

The first component in the equation to be blamed when rates are crappy is the brokers. Very few people are willing to pay more than necessary to get a job done these days. There are way too many trucks on the road competing for the small amount of loads that are out there. When a load posts in a tough area like the east coast, there might be dozens of carriers calling on it. Think of it as a reverse auction, where the price, or rate in our example is bid DOWN by competing carriers.

Let me ask you this… do you intentionally pay more for diesel than you have to? Would you pay $4 a gallon at one place if a place on the next corner was selling that same diesel for $3? Of course you wouldn't. So why then would a broker pay you $1.50 a mile to pull a load that he knows he can get moved for $1 a mile? Times are really tough right now. The rates will continue to go down until enough trucks are parked and then they (rates) will stabilize. This is what is known as a state of equilibrium. Eventually we will move into a period of economic recovery and the rates may very well double, or even triple in some cases. These slow times are great for weeding many of the folks who had no business getting their authority in the first. It is simply economic survival of the fittest. If you can't run for the going rates or find a way to increase your revenue, then park your truck until the rates rise to the level you require. If you can't afford to do that, then give up your authority and lease on somewhere, or give up everything and go be a company driver... there's no shame in working for somebody else.

 

Rates and freight are down pretty much all over the country. Part of the reason is the time of year. Another is the general state of the economy and the election. Depending on the outcome of the election we should see things get better or worse. Vans should begin to do better up until around Christmas. If you want better rates you need to get out of the NJ/NY area. Rates are generally down in those areas. You mentioned using the loadboards to look for loads, but do you also post your truck so that brokers and/or shippers can find you? How are your negotiating skills? It pays to develop personal relationships in this business. Once a broker or shipper sees how you run and take care of business, you should start to get more calls. It does take time to build your business. And as someone else suggested, if things get too rough, you can always give up your authority and lease to another carrier. I know some who do better leasing to a carrier than they did running under their own authority. You don't always need to run your authority to do well. Most of the major carriers have direct shippers with fixed contract rates that can help owner operators have a stable year around freight base.

 

Only two reasons anyone would ever do that:

1. There is no other carrier available that is trusted to pick up and deliver on time, safely and without damage to the freight, or
2. The carrier has provided good service in the past at a reasonable rate and it's easier for someone to make one call than it to shop around trying to save a few pennies.

Either way, the carrier IMO needs to move toward time sensitive and/or high value freight. Who really cares if their 20 bags of cheese flavored Dorito's is late? Nobody that's who. But if a $250,000 peice of equipment doesn't arrive in time for the crane appointment on that multi million dollar construction project.........well let's just say your freight rate is insignificant.

This is small carrier's ace in the hole and the small carrier must protect that card at all costs. If they lose that reputation for 110% satisfaction, there are dead.

 

I’m one hundred percent with you, as I often am. This is why my first trailer was a reefer (a little more specialized than a box) and my second trailer was a 53’ step-deck (much more specialized).

I didn't see where Tristan specified what type of trailer he (or she… it’s a unisex name) is pulling, but my guess is it’s a box. Pulling a box takes absolutely no special skill or training or physical work so it pays less. When you are doing something that anybody can do, the job won’t pay as much as if you are doing something only a handful of people can or are willing to do. It goes back to the supply and demand issue I covered in my last post. Box drivers are in very high supply, so the service they offer is worth less to somebody looking for that service. If you are pulling a four axle RGN, you are doing something that far fewer people are qualified or willing to do, so the job is worth more.