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O/T Leaving the cheap freight on the dock

M

mattwillson

Member
This ought to go poof quick, chime in early and chime in often.
The carrier I've been with for 6 years has decided out of the blue that I should take a 33%cut in revenue.....yeah right...I've pulled my truck off and they are mad at me for doing so....too bad for them, even if they are the biggest environmental services company in North America, I'm not financing their failures.
It's back to pulling wrenches for me.
 
I support your actions. I have always believed that any cheap freight makes more cheap freight. Guys will take a low freight rate to "get" home or where ever. They say it is better than running empty. Pays the fuel I hear. Well what it does is shows the companies that they can get it hauled for that low rate so soon all their rates are low.

It sounds like your an owner operator. It is a good time to get out. The rules and regulations are soon going to make it where your not making any money any way.
 
Don,t see why your post would get poofed, your truck your future , they can,t make you work for them.
 
God Bless you! I applaud your actions. The only way we can fight against them making profit at the expense of ours is to tell them to stuff it. I myself have the same mentality it is what it is take it or leave it. They just want it to get to the point of just a couple super carriers and no o/p. There's more money in wrenching with Better home time. Trucker.
 
Good for you!!!

Aught to be more business men operating trucks!
As it is we have too may drivers who don't have a clue what there cost of doing business are. They make it harder for us that do.

I KNOW WHAT my costs are. I HAVE a set $ per mile rate and leave my truck parked if it won't bring that.

I DON'T NEED any more practice.
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I could see it if Fuel, oil, tires and trucks all went down in price, but last I looked they were headed up. With the shortage of qualified drivers (one local company is up to $5,000 for a sign on bonus) I can't see where lower freight rates are realistic. Of course some companies stay with owner operators because they aren't capable of managing their own trucks or drivers. Go back to pulling wrenches or sign on with someone else. If all their O.O.s walked this week next week they'd have to pay more than they did last week to get their freight hauled, after a while they'd figure it out or close the doors themselves.
 
More farmers should have the same setup.

Set their price for grain and neat and dairy, and not produce anything if folks don't pay up.

Paul
 
Well my company just gave us a rate increase, went into effect on the 1st of July. Of course since then I haven't gotten enough miles to make any money. I'll give them one more week to get the miles back up, if not I'll be doing something else too. I'm also not a charity.
 
I applaud your actions
But you know as well as I do some rate cutting driver will be in there tomorrow to fill your shoes.

I have been at this for over 30 years and when I compare cost (driver; fuel; truck) to what the truck makes per mile from then and now it is not even close. Yet we still have some cutting rates to get freight.

If there is a shortage of drivers/trucks I sure have not seen it. Only shortage of drivers I see is companies not paying them for the job done and hours worked so they go somewhere else.
 
Your post hasn't gotten poofed yet, and I might be the one that causes it. WHO is going to stop the undocumented drivers from south of the border staying up here and doing just that, AND for even less? No one that I can think of. One side wants their votes, and the other side wants their cheap labor. Neither wants us who are paying their salaries. No one at all intends to stop them or it, and for far more reasons that I can't go into here without guaranteeing that this will get poofed for telling the truth.

Much good luck to us all. I honestly don't know if our nation can survive it.

Mark
 
Hang in there! Holding the line is tough.

If you and others take the cut, the top execs will end up with a nice fat bonus for saving the company money.
 
There are way too many truck lines wanting OO or drivers to work cheap. I got a nice raise last week(per hour) because good drivers are hard to find.
 
Jon with your welding skills I would think you could make better money doing that over driving/owning a truck. Plus way better home time and that is hard to put a price on.

I figured out the cost per mile and the profit per year on the trucks we had. I was either going to have to pay subpar wages to the divers we had or just handle money. I chose to quit while we where ahead.

Plus I just do not want to deal with all of the regulations involved in driving/owning over the road trucks any more. The money is not enough to be worth the trouble. We where just clearing about $5000 per truck each year. That is after all costs but it is not enough for the capitol invested in a rapidly depreciable item.
 
My dad always said about driving a truck for a living, "Anytime you can make a living sitting on your a--, you're going to have a lot of competition." Admittedly, I've had a decent career in engineering, most of which was sitting behind a desk, but there's a certain truth to what he said; the price of entry into the truck driver work force is fairly low and companies will take advantage of it.

We had a tenant who worked for a while as an owner-operator on some sort of lease deal. When he moved out, he left one of his weekly statements behind (probably on purpose). After making his lease and fuel payments, he owed the company money!
 

I read recently that at any given time 2% of the nations trucks are sitting due to lack of qualified divers. They are having to pay drivers more, so in some cases they probably try to make ends meet by cutting OO rates. My buddy hauls building materials and is straight out. Trucking will always be difficult because there are always guys who will live off their depreciation, and their wife's pay. Matt, you should be able to find something that pays more. There are a few honest brokers out there. You can do better also if you can pull Hazmat.
 
Don't know where you are going to turn wrenches to make more than driving a truck, the days of a good paying flats rate wrench job are over. Unless you are planning to run your own show. Most dealers and large shops have hitched up to the cheap labor business model, too. If you are good at it and fast, they won't let you make any hours. Of course, this is also why it is so hard to find a knowledgeable person to fix today's anything. I quit in '10 and opened my own shop because I, too, did not need more practice. I have not looked back and have more work than I can handle. I fix the things dealers can't. I have even been paid to fix cars under warranty because the customer was sick of the unknowledgeable dealer service run around.
 
(quoted from post at 04:22:55 07/14/14) Don't know where you are going to turn wrenches to make more than driving a truck, the days of a good paying flats rate wrench job are over. Unless you are planning to run your own show. Most dealers and large shops have hitched up to the cheap labor business model, too. If you are good at it and fast, they won't let you make any hours. Of course, this is also why it is so hard to find a knowledgeable person to fix today's anything. I quit in '10 and opened my own shop because I, too, did not need more practice. I have not looked back and have more work than I can handle. I fix the things dealers can't. I have even been paid to fix cars under warranty because the customer was sick of the unknowledgeable dealer service run around.
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i wish you lived close to us, we have a van with some kind of front end issue that we cant figure out, nether can a local garage (not surprised) or chevy dealership (surprised) some how, someway, we gotta find someone, that knows what they are doing.
 
The little more that you make pulling hazmat is NOT worth the extra responsibility and rules. For the last years that I drove, I got rid of my hazmat endorsement for that reason.
 
That is the right attitude, why would you haul frieght if you are not going to make a profit.
When I had my rig, I wouldn't haul cheap frieght, I'd wait until something came up, or just deadhead,I would rather pay to move my truck empty ,rather than pay to haul someone's frieght.
 
Everywhere you turn, there are more headaches on the way. DOT is waiting around every turn. They aren't about safety anymore. They are about taking money from working men and women. Traffic has gotten almost unmanageable in many metropolitan areas. Fuel costs keep rising. O/Os are thinking that they make money at some of the lower rates until they need a set of drive tires or a major repair that will keep them off the road for a week or two......
Companies only want to pay a few pennies more to haul hazmat - with all of the extra rules and doubled penalties.
On top of it all, there are more wrecks than ever because companies are putting inexperienced drivers on the road that had never been in a truck 2 weeks ago.

And, after all of that, they want you to run for less.......NOT!!!!!
 
What kind of problem. There is an old man down here. That Ford calls for advice.Been to his shop many times. Maybe he could help.
 
Here's a question, what do the brokers do? I got a quote from a number of brokers on a load that ranged from 1400-1900$. I spoke to a trucker who asked the miles and type of load and he said he would be paid 650-700$ for that particular load.

I figured to take my F350 and trailer up empty and bring it back it would cost me 800$ in gas.

Is the broker paying insurance or something?
 
Would be nice if the state would install some traffic lights.At that intersection. But they claim not enough traffic to justify lights.Guess they have never seen Friday afternoon traffic.I prefer country cousons myself but hard for a trucker to get in the place.
 
No, it's simply the fact that most people have no idea about the cost of doing business. Especially the people actually RUNNING the businesses.

Everybody expects you to operate as a charity. Give them a price based on your actual costs and a reasonable profit, and you get, "THAT'S NUTS!"

They think you're trying to screw them over. Of course someone else is perfectly happy with making no money, or even losing money, so they get the job.

It will never end because there's an endless supply of pie-eyed idealists out there just starting out that will do the work with no regard for the big picture or long term.
 
JD, I could get a factory welding job in a heartbeat, but I'm a lousy employee. I've had just a couple of "jobs" in my life, always been self employed. I have thought of getting back into the business I was in, but of course that takes money, something I don't have much of. I do have the equipment, but getting the building and inventory and making it through the first year to get going would be tough. I did that when I was younger, but it gets harder as you get older to do without money. Guess we'll see what happens.
 
Brokers don't pay any of my costs. The brokers market to and schedule loads from the customer. The average driver doesn't know how to and or have the time to find his own loads. The broker then contracts with as many trucking companies as possible and preys on the drivers who don't know what there costs are. The loads go up on a "load board" that is accessible via a website. Broker will take as much as a 50% or more commission for there service.

Take notice of the term "driver" vs "businessman".

As a businessman I maintain my own authority. "Authority" is the feds term for making sure you have all the appropriate insurance etc.
I have access to multiple brokers that I have developed a relationship with and they will call me on the better loads. They have clients that need a high level of service that I provide. I do get preferential treatment over the average driver. I also know to negotiate EVERYTHING! They will invariably shoot you a lowball quote and see it you will bite.

I also am developing my own clients and bypassing the brokers.

If you "lease" to a company you are paying them to handle your authority, tags, etc. You are in effect "married" to them and they handle your dispatching also.

I suspect the original poster is leased on to the co that is cutting his miles. If he has the wherewithal he should get his own authority and learn how to run the "back office" from the cab of his truck.
 
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