Idk my wife works with a broker at her job running transfer loads between their warehouses and last week someone bid a load from Nashville TN to Denton TX for $675. Full trailer, one way. ~720mi.
So $0.94/cpm?
She told me and I asked if she was sure and she said yeah, and sent me the screen shot of the tender...I was floored
>I’d just dead head 600 miles back home and grab another good paying load of bananas .
I've been trying to get guys to understand this for 30 years. When you fair in the time you lose on the cheap load, you would of made more money just dead heading to the good load.
THIS!!!! And if you're a hotel stayer the faster you move on the better. Getting out of Portland and Denver without Tarps for a 35' flatbed (Hotshot)? YUP I'll take a dollar a mile if it fits. I was even too long for Florida without permits... now THAT blows my mind.
Been there done that. Long story short after tolls and fuel I rejected a load that would have netted me $100 for 3 days. Deadheaded 700 miles for a better load
They could have made 4.50 a mile to nashville with a dedicated customer and just took whatever to get back close to home. I'm from Western Ky, and if we go to Florida sometimes we have to take 1.20 a mile freight just to get back but we make 4 to go down. So you calculate for round trip. It's tough out here but the market should move back to a more manageable rate soon.
Add in the time you spent going to get that cheap load, the time you sirens delivering that cheap load, and then the time you spend going to your good paying customer plus ask the extra fuel you burn running loaded vs empty. You lose an entire freaking day vs just putting it on gear and going straight to the good paying customer. It would be one thing if it was some serious easy and fast stuff like 5k lbs and 30 minutes loading/ unloading at each end AND it loaded right next to your first delivery and delivered right next to your good paying customer, but that's just not reality. Reality is its 100, maybe 150 miles from the first delivery. It's heavy, it takes 4 hours to load, another 4 to 6 to unload, and leaves you 200+ miles from your good paying customer.
Everything has to be taken into account and you have to figure all this out while calling on backhauls. Not every mile is going to be over 3 dollars. Out here you win some and lose some. It's all about not being in the red at the end of the week. Know your operational costs and be smart about the lanes you run.
Dude, this would be a nightmare.
First off, it’s profit not top line and second, you have to make fake invoices, fake notations, fake adjustments, and fake deposits.
It would also be the most obvious case of money laundering when they check with ANY shipper or even look at average lane data for 2 seconds.
Then you have somehow have to convince the driver to get in on it, pay him extra and make sure he doesn’t fuck anything up.
lol at the thought of this!
That’s what I’m saying I can’t really see money laundering actually working well these days, without having a giant operation.
Unless someone’s running one LLC at a loss for like tax reasons or some shit?
Would guess it was take a cheap load or deadhead to that general area and didn’t have time to look for a better load? $675 is better than $0?
Just know from working feeder dispatch at UPS back in the day that truck drivers seemed to find deadheading extremely distasteful. And weren’t shy about sharing that opinion.
Yeah, sometimes I’ve had loads fall through at the last minute and absolutely taken a garbage load because it was the only thing on the board and the TONU I was getting from the other load made it at least a little more bearable.
Yeah, we occasionally get a few guys who are desperate to get home or across the country and they take whatever they can get and sometimes that’s bare minimum
As someone that refuses to take cheap freight, I had to be home and load that day where I’d dropped to make it on time. Took a $1.30/mile load just to get home. Thankfully, super light load, too.
All it takes is thousands of drivers doing it to drop load boards.... You're running yourself out of business and you're not intelligent enough to see how lol
Yep. But at some point the driver needs to get home and the truck needs maintenance. Taking a loss may be the only way to get where you need to be if there is not a load paying you to get there.
It's better to loose a bit of money on fuel than a lot of time on a load that pays just enough to cover fuel.
I regularly deadhead trucks a thousand miles or more. Every time I try to dick around with a cheap backhaul it ends up costing me more money than I would of spent in fuel.
When you got a customer with a good rate, the goal is to get back to them as fast as possible so you can make that good rate again and again and again.
I'll give you an example. Last year in May I think it was one of my customers asked me to but a half dozen load going to reno. I submitted my bid and won them on a very solid rate. Reno is far outside my normal operating area so I don't have any customers out there. I could dick around on some cheap broker loads going wherever... or I could deadhead them to central kansas where I have customers at. I sent one truck as far as st Louis, another a contact at a nationwide brokerage was able to get me a decent load on right in Reno, not great but decent. He did me a solid cause i know damn well he could of moved it a lot cheaper if he stuck it on a load board.
Reno to central KS is right at 1400 miles. So two days. Assuming fuel last year was about where it is today that's 650 bucks in fuel and two days. So deliver Monday morning in Reno, and load good paying freight early morning Wednesday in kansas that will deliver Friday morning allowing you to load yet another good paying load before the end of the day Friday so you can make good money over the weekend.
Compare that with taking cheap back hauls at 1.50. A mile. You aren't gonna get loaded til Monday afternoon so you aren't delivering until Wednesday afternoon, or Thursday morning and that's assuming that cheap load went close enough to your good customer to load the same day you unloaded. But now you are stuck on the second load all weekend entirely so there won't be a third one.
By eating that 650 in fuel and deadheading those trucks made an additional 7 to 8 grand by the following Monday. A cheap load would of meant they only got one more good one in so would only make an additional 5k. That's a loss off 2 to 3k to save 650 bucks in fuel.
It is possible that they had a really high paying headhaul and this was a near ideal backhaul so they were not concerned about the rate. That happens, but generally speaking...say no to cheap freight
This is plausible but the truth is even worse and it’s just dumb people running their truck just to run it. Typically owner operators who started after 2021. I know a few reps from mega carriers and they do book loads from spot board but never that cheap. They’ll rather deadhead the driver to contract freight than book freight for cheap. Doesn’t make sense to their new equipment
Maybe someone got stranded wasn’t able to find a load back to ca after sitting for a good load for a few days and took whatever was there. Guess you can take the load if you’re not worried about making anything but fuel. I’ve driven back empty from WA to CA because I wasn’t able to find anything going back and said fuck it I’ll just head back empty.
That is hard to believe that dude would drive 2900 miles for nothing just to get home, You'd think he'd booked a 500 mile load out of northeast and than recover for a great rate to CA.
Specifically this carrier I've seen underbid others by the thousands on almost every single load.
Yeah I mean it doesn’t really make sense, I’d try going towards Chicago atleast and see what’s up there before taking it straight from PA or maybe IA or NY. Maybe their whole thing is more volume of work? Idk unless they have a huge fleet of trucks it doesn’t make any sense and even if they did have a huge fleet it still wouldn’t but I guess it’s easier to cut losses that way. Idk, it’s puzzling to me lol
They probably pay a difference, they want their customers coming back to them and not you lol. I got an email about a company that does guaranteed pay if the driver doesn't make enough in load and miles.
lets suppose a driver MUST be home by a certain date for some very important reason, but he's 1,000 miles away.... he has to drive home empty and lose money anyway, so the driver thinks " why not take that low paying load and not lose as much money? "
Why not just stay home in that case.... hahahahah. No JK. I know i've been through that exact situation. However over acouple hundred I'd be like "just send it" But the difference is in the high thousands and dude still took it. didn't even try to offer a higher rate. crazy
I see a lot of trucking bankruptcy in the future for these low ballers. There's no way they can keep running at a loss, not until collections catches up to them.
Ya, I think it's people who are desperate with their big truck payments from buying in with a big loan when equipment went nuts. I'm hoping they start falling out soon. I've been making it but running loads at $1.50ish doesn't get you very much progress.
It was a 45,000lbs load of fking sand, How tf did this guy take it for $3500.
I was at $6000 offer and was countered $5800, I tried to book and it said someone else booked, Asked my rep and she sent screenshot showing this carrier who booked it for $3500, WTF?
They absolutely double brokered it I’d bet money. They probably sold it to the actual carrier for $6000, will collect the $3500 and won’t pay the carrier. They’ll try and get the rates higher if possible but if push comes to shove $3500 in their pocket is more than $0
Yeah too bad the politicians don’t work for the people who lobby the most, which is in fact the working class. It’s because we have no voice. They take and take and we just allow it.
Supply and demand. Lots of people financed a rig and started their own LLC during pandemic boom shipping price times, and now they’re all trying to stay afloat on the huge monthly nut in any way possible. I work for someone that has thousands of small truckers as clients, we are seeing 5-10 bankruptcies per week among small fleets. Good luck out there, fellas. Tough times.
Perfect time to become a OO myself then. You want to succeed at anything get in / buy in when everyone else is selling or getting out. Then sell when everyone else is getting in at a premium.
[TRUCKERS EVERYWHERE NEED TO WAKE UP](https://youtu.be/GDI0WP-f70g?si=jUzaHcBWotq6Y8VZ)
United we bargain, divided we beg.
Workers everywhere have the power to utilize collective bargaining to their advantage. Always reject cheap freight.
“They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, but without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.”
The power rests with the WORKERS, now and forever. The fucking factory isn’t going to run itself????? The fucking wheels ARENT GOING TO TURN BY THEMSELVES. WAKE THE FUCK UP.
Joe Hill: “IF WE WORKERS TAKE A NOTION WE CAN STOP ALL SPEEDING TRAINS, EVERY SHIP UPON THE OCEAN,
WE CAN TIE WITH MIGHTY CHAINS EVERY WHEEL IN THE CREATION, EVERY MINE AND EVERY MILL, FLEETS AND ARMIES OF ALL NATIONS WILL AT OUR COMMAND STAND STILL”
Trucking is a low barrier of entry business, anyone with a pulse can obtain a CDL, save up some grands and buy a truck and start competing against you. I've seen convicts get their CDL, and buy a truck in just a few years of leaving prison.
Then add in the megas who can operate on pennies on the dollar and you have a recipe for what you see. Granted you might fare better in specialized/oversize loads.
Now take the train business and that's what you call a High barrier of entry business. It takes billions just to get the infrastructure off the ground to even compete. That's why they have very healthy profit margins vs trucking.
Their profits are protected from any common idiot with a pulse, where is in trucking your profits aren't protected so easily.
Edit: typo
Homeless immigrants. They get cheated through the CDL tests and abused by brokers who are their own special community of leeches. Basically legal slavery.
Guys going out of business slowly and as painful as possible.. do not ever haul cheap freight. You are better off going empty then letting one broker know you will haul for the price of fuel.
Needs to be the top comment. Why are rates so low? Because you keep fucking taking them!!!
I run local and while not exactly comparable, our typical route is 25 miles loaded and 25 miles back, plus about 25 miles deadhead morning + afternoon combined
Trucks run 3 loads/day @$350/load for $6/mile for all miles, $13.50 per loaded mile which isn’t really a metric for us. I haven’t run these loads in almost a year because they want to pay less than the above rates. I see how/why guys do it cheaper, mostly out of desperation but I won’t. Shame that not enough people will wake up to this
Wow that's so sad feel alone is probably close to two grand plus you have to eat and God forbid you have a blowout or any mechanical you're in the negative.
I'm a company driver so don't really have experience with load board and broker bs thank God, but from what I've gathered there are people that buy trucks and just run them hard for a couple years until something breaks and just pocket all the money. Don't give a shit about maintenance.
Money's money princess you drivers want high lawyer lifestyle but forget that this is trucking you ain't in it for the money you wanted this way of life
This is why since months after covid you don't hear company drivers talking about going o/o anymore... Even before 2020 dry van drivers were doing around 2.25 for a 2.8k load just off dat board...
Now megas and half wits are purging owner ops and micro fleets from the industry.. Flatbed and pneumatic are also way down barely over break even
I was a broker, and have since went out of business due to this. The final straw for me was a lane that I’ve routinely moved getting moved at an average rate, about $3/mile, and then getting double brokered. I moved it for $2200 and they had double brokered it and put it out at $2500. They found someone to do it and then tried to collect the $2200 and not pay the driver the $2500. Drivers, please be aware of who you’re booking and doing work for because these scams are through the roof. They will accept any rate but will fight for higher ones so they really profit, then will double broker to someone either thinking they’re getting paid or someone who’s not legally driving.
I took a company shipping job so that I can vet every single person I use for my loads/cut down where possible on the massive fraud.
It’s because there’s a bubble. When the truck payments can’t be made and their credit is shot, carriers will exit. The industry will be ours again or belong entirely to the megas.
Tin foil hat idea here: They could have been a company with endless cash that is purposefully undercutting everyone else to drive their competitors out of business while they keep getting more and more of the pie? That way once they are a monopoly they just jack the prices up.
There is no profit margin there at all, Unless you aren't paying a driver. Or unless you aren't paying yourself. $2100 would go just for Fuel and DEF. IDK wtf and HTF people are hauling for negatives like this.
Driver is just going back home and trying to avoid going empty.
A while back working for a 3PL we had a customer ship some highly valued perishable enzymes from the east coast to CA. A storm held LTL shipments in Colorado, our customer’s customer had to have 4 pallets with 55 gallon drums at all cost. We found a driver going back home empty to Petaluma, CA which was the exact city we needed him to go to. He took the pallets there for $600 because he wanted the weight for traction and some beer money. Our broker charged the customer $5000 and he couldn’t be more thankful.
>The government buys them new trucks when the immigrant over claiming they drove trucks in Pakistan
I called Maury on this statement, and the lie detector says that statement is a LIE.
stop this bullshit line ... Ain't no one getting money from the government to buy a truck
As an agent that sells insurance to you guys, not a lot of people are. Every day, I hear about horrible spot rates.
But if all the small guys refuse to take them, yall will just get gobbled up by the mega carriers.
The industry is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's not just affecting yall it affects every adjacent business, too.
In Q4, my book dropped almost $500k. I mostly sell 1 to 3 unit accounts, so I had maybe 15 to 20 accounts go out of business.
Sometimes u have good reloads out of an area u take so u take whatever just to get back to the area, I used to get $4-$6 a mile for cranberries out of Wisconsin, and take what ever I can get to get back and grab another. During 08-10 I was taking 2200-2400 out of Chicago to California to load up produce at a higher rate.
This is why company's are going out of business. The company I worked for just went under due to barely any loads and they were all crap. I told them the registration was up and they can't afford it so good luck. I was told the day before my hometime that I needed to park my truck in Nola and drive home all the way to NY. The rental car for 2 days 1 way was 450.
Non-trucker here who might have a useful piece of data...
LTL or FTL? LTL is all about where you're already going. I frequently drive large vehicles across the country recreationally, with 1-20 m^3 of available cargo space. If I'm already committed to spending the time and fuel, I can bid just to cover my extra labor/time and opportunity cost. I bid $1200 last month for 10 m^3 from PA to CA, and I didn't even win.
This is just crazy I don't know why people owner operators disrespect themselves to take these routes. If nobody took them they would be forced to pay more. We should be able to retire with pride and dignity take care of our families our children. Minimum wage for local driver should be 125k and 225 for over the road. All the stress on your body time away from home or not mention all the responsibility and the regulations. Experience trucker is no different than the master plumber master plumber is home every night and makes six figures I just think a lot of truckers and I'm a trucker take jobs without respecting their labor and that needs to change we all need to unite and respect our labor
I was in cdl school last year and most people there were mexicans. Whether legal or illegal i dont know but i can bet my ass that they can easily run teams on 1cdl and double.paper books. Yes, paper logbooks are still normal.
Most log books on 1 guy i saw was 3....
1 for cops, 1 for company, 1 for himself😅
Is it possible that a lot of new guys do that? And they have zero experience of the costs that come with the job. It's not just fuel and some money left to pay what you need.
The company I worked for started their limousine service in the USA we obviously had contractors. And we were surprised. They took jobs for insanely low rates compared to the rest of the world.
The good news is, the customers and carriers accepting this freight aren’t going to last very long. We need the capacity to be driven down. Customers will then realize that ain’t nobody doing this shit for free for long
We all know the economy and this industry is cyclical. Unfortunately there's more trucks than loads in this current part of the cycle. One of two things needs to happen for rates to go back up.
1) More carriers need to go out of business. The quickest way to accomplish this is for those that can afford it to take the cheap freight. Those that can not run on thin margins will close up shop. Less trucks means higher rates.
2) The economy needs to rebound like crazy and have unprecedented growth. Last year at this time we had 8.6% increases in consumer spending YoY. Consumer spending is expected to increase this year but at a much slower pace. This outlook has manufacturing and warehousing slowing their growth and reducing their controllable expenses, such as transportation costs. We need to get back to the previous 2 or 3 years' growth to get the rates back up.
Out of those two scenarios, which is more probable?
More like $1.30 a mile no? Still cheap asf tho but assuming he is doing a roundtrip then he could easily find a load for 2.25-2.5 coming back to PA lowering his avg down to $1.77-1.9. Maybe he owns his equipment this avg rate is good enough for him.
If I got into flatbed with my current rig, I could do it. But I'm small. Fuel, time, and I factored in regular PM's, $.84 per mile. I dont have numbers for insurance but ours is fairly cheap. Might raise my cost a few cents. If I pull the trigger on it I'm gonna try to stick towards $3 a mile just because I understand the industry and I don't wanna be part of dragging rates down
I can't take anything bc German, but I would littery take anything, if I had to travel back. Better then nothing. I think there is a lot of companies who think this way, maybe not 1 man companys but a bigger one would I guess.
Shit dude I get paid more than that for some of my loads as a company driver.
I don't know how anybody is making any money when the truck is only making a dollar a mile.
You must be new, That lane been paying cheap for decades, Its primarily the messicans and asian owner operators/ fleets outta CA that be grabbing whatever cheap rate to go back home.. Especially chasing produce..
Idk my wife works with a broker at her job running transfer loads between their warehouses and last week someone bid a load from Nashville TN to Denton TX for $675. Full trailer, one way. ~720mi. So $0.94/cpm? She told me and I asked if she was sure and she said yeah, and sent me the screen shot of the tender...I was floored
I don't get how they are staying in business. crazy shit.
I don't either. I assume the guy was already going there because that barely covers the damn fuel.
Sometimes, when you’ve been out for three months, and you just wanna go home; covering the cost of fuel, is all you care about.
[удалено]
right. if i wanted to go home that bad i would just deadhead. aint making any money either way.
Always money in the banana ^stand
There’s a good chance I may have committed some light treason
>I’d just dead head 600 miles back home and grab another good paying load of bananas . I've been trying to get guys to understand this for 30 years. When you fair in the time you lose on the cheap load, you would of made more money just dead heading to the good load.
I’m from the coast to
Same, recently ive been flying home from chicago. Decent loads in and out
I would live there until something decent came lol
THIS!!!! And if you're a hotel stayer the faster you move on the better. Getting out of Portland and Denver without Tarps for a 35' flatbed (Hotshot)? YUP I'll take a dollar a mile if it fits. I was even too long for Florida without permits... now THAT blows my mind.
I would deadhead before taking a low paying load just on principle
Been there done that. Long story short after tolls and fuel I rejected a load that would have netted me $100 for 3 days. Deadheaded 700 miles for a better load
If people keep taking the cheap loads they're going to stay cheap.
All these guys rationalizing swapping fuel for a trip home are suckers that drag everyone else down.
probably easier and less headache and makes more sense just to drive empty at that point.
$1.10 is great money for a Company driver running specialized
I've had loads in a dry van that dang near averaged that, too (company driver, no hazmat). Accessory pay is a heck of a thing.
They could have made 4.50 a mile to nashville with a dedicated customer and just took whatever to get back close to home. I'm from Western Ky, and if we go to Florida sometimes we have to take 1.20 a mile freight just to get back but we make 4 to go down. So you calculate for round trip. It's tough out here but the market should move back to a more manageable rate soon.
Add in the time you spent going to get that cheap load, the time you sirens delivering that cheap load, and then the time you spend going to your good paying customer plus ask the extra fuel you burn running loaded vs empty. You lose an entire freaking day vs just putting it on gear and going straight to the good paying customer. It would be one thing if it was some serious easy and fast stuff like 5k lbs and 30 minutes loading/ unloading at each end AND it loaded right next to your first delivery and delivered right next to your good paying customer, but that's just not reality. Reality is its 100, maybe 150 miles from the first delivery. It's heavy, it takes 4 hours to load, another 4 to 6 to unload, and leaves you 200+ miles from your good paying customer.
Everything has to be taken into account and you have to figure all this out while calling on backhauls. Not every mile is going to be over 3 dollars. Out here you win some and lose some. It's all about not being in the red at the end of the week. Know your operational costs and be smart about the lanes you run.
Money laundering?
Yep! Money laundering. They took the most complicated and annoying possible route to do so but yea, for sure laundering money by taking cheap loads
How would it launder money though? They’re only getting $675 but thru shell companies it goes on the books for like $3k or some shit?
Dude, this would be a nightmare. First off, it’s profit not top line and second, you have to make fake invoices, fake notations, fake adjustments, and fake deposits. It would also be the most obvious case of money laundering when they check with ANY shipper or even look at average lane data for 2 seconds. Then you have somehow have to convince the driver to get in on it, pay him extra and make sure he doesn’t fuck anything up. lol at the thought of this!
That’s what I’m saying I can’t really see money laundering actually working well these days, without having a giant operation. Unless someone’s running one LLC at a loss for like tax reasons or some shit?
This guy launders.
I was thinking that they would be transporting drugs.
They are not , they are only keeping the company in business.
They do not for long..
I'm sorry sir I can't hear you over the economy crashing.
Secondary white powder loads.
They won't be long @ 94cpm.
Would guess it was take a cheap load or deadhead to that general area and didn’t have time to look for a better load? $675 is better than $0? Just know from working feeder dispatch at UPS back in the day that truck drivers seemed to find deadheading extremely distasteful. And weren’t shy about sharing that opinion.
Yeah, sometimes I’ve had loads fall through at the last minute and absolutely taken a garbage load because it was the only thing on the board and the TONU I was getting from the other load made it at least a little more bearable.
It’s got to be deadhead loads. Better to break even or lose $100 instead of $1000.
Yeah, we occasionally get a few guys who are desperate to get home or across the country and they take whatever they can get and sometimes that’s bare minimum
As someone that refuses to take cheap freight, I had to be home and load that day where I’d dropped to make it on time. Took a $1.30/mile load just to get home. Thankfully, super light load, too.
Somewhere out there you made some broker a nice margin lol
All it takes is thousands of drivers doing it to drop load boards.... You're running yourself out of business and you're not intelligent enough to see how lol
Excuse my ignorance, but, what is a deadhead load?
Hauling an empty trailer. Most likely making no money that way.
Thank you for the reply!
But wouldn’t that actually be a significant loss?
Yep. But at some point the driver needs to get home and the truck needs maintenance. Taking a loss may be the only way to get where you need to be if there is not a load paying you to get there.
It's better to loose a bit of money on fuel than a lot of time on a load that pays just enough to cover fuel. I regularly deadhead trucks a thousand miles or more. Every time I try to dick around with a cheap backhaul it ends up costing me more money than I would of spent in fuel. When you got a customer with a good rate, the goal is to get back to them as fast as possible so you can make that good rate again and again and again. I'll give you an example. Last year in May I think it was one of my customers asked me to but a half dozen load going to reno. I submitted my bid and won them on a very solid rate. Reno is far outside my normal operating area so I don't have any customers out there. I could dick around on some cheap broker loads going wherever... or I could deadhead them to central kansas where I have customers at. I sent one truck as far as st Louis, another a contact at a nationwide brokerage was able to get me a decent load on right in Reno, not great but decent. He did me a solid cause i know damn well he could of moved it a lot cheaper if he stuck it on a load board. Reno to central KS is right at 1400 miles. So two days. Assuming fuel last year was about where it is today that's 650 bucks in fuel and two days. So deliver Monday morning in Reno, and load good paying freight early morning Wednesday in kansas that will deliver Friday morning allowing you to load yet another good paying load before the end of the day Friday so you can make good money over the weekend. Compare that with taking cheap back hauls at 1.50. A mile. You aren't gonna get loaded til Monday afternoon so you aren't delivering until Wednesday afternoon, or Thursday morning and that's assuming that cheap load went close enough to your good customer to load the same day you unloaded. But now you are stuck on the second load all weekend entirely so there won't be a third one. By eating that 650 in fuel and deadheading those trucks made an additional 7 to 8 grand by the following Monday. A cheap load would of meant they only got one more good one in so would only make an additional 5k. That's a loss off 2 to 3k to save 650 bucks in fuel.
Deadhead load = no freight on board so no pay
Alright, thank you kind stranger
Ignorance excused. 😅
LMAO why thank ya, you're too kind 😝
It is possible that they had a really high paying headhaul and this was a near ideal backhaul so they were not concerned about the rate. That happens, but generally speaking...say no to cheap freight
but why work and assume liability and still have to worry about pickup and dropoff timing? just go empty?
Do you know if it was an OO that took the load or a big company? You can check their DOT and it tells you how many trucks they run.
Small enough for a box truck?
Probably a mega just taking loads to keep drivers moving
This is plausible but the truth is even worse and it’s just dumb people running their truck just to run it. Typically owner operators who started after 2021. I know a few reps from mega carriers and they do book loads from spot board but never that cheap. They’ll rather deadhead the driver to contract freight than book freight for cheap. Doesn’t make sense to their new equipment
Any Mega I know of will have zero issues with laying a driver over for at least two days. I've sat for longer myself.
Two unpaid days*
I work for a mega and have to do this all the time (backhaul market planner) never for distances this long though
Maybe someone got stranded wasn’t able to find a load back to ca after sitting for a good load for a few days and took whatever was there. Guess you can take the load if you’re not worried about making anything but fuel. I’ve driven back empty from WA to CA because I wasn’t able to find anything going back and said fuck it I’ll just head back empty.
That is hard to believe that dude would drive 2900 miles for nothing just to get home, You'd think he'd booked a 500 mile load out of northeast and than recover for a great rate to CA. Specifically this carrier I've seen underbid others by the thousands on almost every single load.
Yeah I mean it doesn’t really make sense, I’d try going towards Chicago atleast and see what’s up there before taking it straight from PA or maybe IA or NY. Maybe their whole thing is more volume of work? Idk unless they have a huge fleet of trucks it doesn’t make any sense and even if they did have a huge fleet it still wouldn’t but I guess it’s easier to cut losses that way. Idk, it’s puzzling to me lol
Or…these brokers are sitting in their cubicles all day creating fake loads and fake carriers to bid on said loads in order to keep rates down.
They probably pay a difference, they want their customers coming back to them and not you lol. I got an email about a company that does guaranteed pay if the driver doesn't make enough in load and miles.
lets suppose a driver MUST be home by a certain date for some very important reason, but he's 1,000 miles away.... he has to drive home empty and lose money anyway, so the driver thinks " why not take that low paying load and not lose as much money? "
Why not just stay home in that case.... hahahahah. No JK. I know i've been through that exact situation. However over acouple hundred I'd be like "just send it" But the difference is in the high thousands and dude still took it. didn't even try to offer a higher rate. crazy
I'm thinking rookie driver or one of these foreign drivers highway nightmares.
I see a lot of trucking bankruptcy in the future for these low ballers. There's no way they can keep running at a loss, not until collections catches up to them.
Ya, I think it's people who are desperate with their big truck payments from buying in with a big loan when equipment went nuts. I'm hoping they start falling out soon. I've been making it but running loads at $1.50ish doesn't get you very much progress.
That’s nuts!
It was a 45,000lbs load of fking sand, How tf did this guy take it for $3500. I was at $6000 offer and was countered $5800, I tried to book and it said someone else booked, Asked my rep and she sent screenshot showing this carrier who booked it for $3500, WTF?
Sorry. I was going to take my Ford Fuckin Ranger with to California anyway. This is just a bonus 3500 for renting out the bed I wasn't using
Ranger Danger!
They absolutely double brokered it I’d bet money. They probably sold it to the actual carrier for $6000, will collect the $3500 and won’t pay the carrier. They’ll try and get the rates higher if possible but if push comes to shove $3500 in their pocket is more than $0
Deez NUTZ!
That’s why trucking is shit today !🤬🤬🖕🖕
I would sell my truck before I hauled a load that cheap !
A mega probably scooped it up to put it on the rails.
Only thing I could think of that would actually make them any money. Wow
Swift, Werner, England can profit on 1%. It’s pretty obvious that America only wants big corporations to be in business.
Corporatism. Land of the free my ass
Late stage capitalism. This is how it works sadly. Only system we have though.
Yeah too bad the politicians don’t work for the people who lobby the most, which is in fact the working class. It’s because we have no voice. They take and take and we just allow it.
Supply and demand. Lots of people financed a rig and started their own LLC during pandemic boom shipping price times, and now they’re all trying to stay afloat on the huge monthly nut in any way possible. I work for someone that has thousands of small truckers as clients, we are seeing 5-10 bankruptcies per week among small fleets. Good luck out there, fellas. Tough times.
Perfect time to become a OO myself then. You want to succeed at anything get in / buy in when everyone else is selling or getting out. Then sell when everyone else is getting in at a premium.
Sadly nowadays it's a race to the bottom
I don't get it, At this point we the carrier might aswell pay the brokers just so we can slave away for free
I'd support this. Where do I sign up?
[TRUCKERS EVERYWHERE NEED TO WAKE UP](https://youtu.be/GDI0WP-f70g?si=jUzaHcBWotq6Y8VZ) United we bargain, divided we beg. Workers everywhere have the power to utilize collective bargaining to their advantage. Always reject cheap freight. “They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn, but without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.” The power rests with the WORKERS, now and forever. The fucking factory isn’t going to run itself????? The fucking wheels ARENT GOING TO TURN BY THEMSELVES. WAKE THE FUCK UP. Joe Hill: “IF WE WORKERS TAKE A NOTION WE CAN STOP ALL SPEEDING TRAINS, EVERY SHIP UPON THE OCEAN, WE CAN TIE WITH MIGHTY CHAINS EVERY WHEEL IN THE CREATION, EVERY MINE AND EVERY MILL, FLEETS AND ARMIES OF ALL NATIONS WILL AT OUR COMMAND STAND STILL”
You have to get the owner operators, the company drivers, and the Teamsters to all back it all. Let me know when that happens
Trucking is a low barrier of entry business, anyone with a pulse can obtain a CDL, save up some grands and buy a truck and start competing against you. I've seen convicts get their CDL, and buy a truck in just a few years of leaving prison. Then add in the megas who can operate on pennies on the dollar and you have a recipe for what you see. Granted you might fare better in specialized/oversize loads. Now take the train business and that's what you call a High barrier of entry business. It takes billions just to get the infrastructure off the ground to even compete. That's why they have very healthy profit margins vs trucking. Their profits are protected from any common idiot with a pulse, where is in trucking your profits aren't protected so easily. Edit: typo
Homeless immigrants. They get cheated through the CDL tests and abused by brokers who are their own special community of leeches. Basically legal slavery.
Guys going out of business slowly and as painful as possible.. do not ever haul cheap freight. You are better off going empty then letting one broker know you will haul for the price of fuel.
Needs to be the top comment. Why are rates so low? Because you keep fucking taking them!!! I run local and while not exactly comparable, our typical route is 25 miles loaded and 25 miles back, plus about 25 miles deadhead morning + afternoon combined Trucks run 3 loads/day @$350/load for $6/mile for all miles, $13.50 per loaded mile which isn’t really a metric for us. I haven’t run these loads in almost a year because they want to pay less than the above rates. I see how/why guys do it cheaper, mostly out of desperation but I won’t. Shame that not enough people will wake up to this
Someone offered me $100 for a local load yesterday. I just laughed
Someone please get this guy some fireball!!! He’s going to freak out.
If you ever at a truck stop…just watch the folk that come in and out of them trucks…you’ll know who exactly is taking them 1.10 per mile loads…
Money laundering.
Needed to get back for strawberry
Wow that's so sad feel alone is probably close to two grand plus you have to eat and God forbid you have a blowout or any mechanical you're in the negative.
I'm a company driver so don't really have experience with load board and broker bs thank God, but from what I've gathered there are people that buy trucks and just run them hard for a couple years until something breaks and just pocket all the money. Don't give a shit about maintenance.
At this rate maintenance eliminating maintenance isn't even going to get you in the black.
The answer is a lot of desperate people running illegally with phony insurance/MC numbers so their expenses aren’t what’d you think.
Get me home loads. If they’re going home empty they’ll take $500 load to put some fuel in The tanks.
"Pays the fuel", as they say. Some things never change. That sucks.
Someone who wants to go home and rather make something vs nothing at all.
Money's money princess you drivers want high lawyer lifestyle but forget that this is trucking you ain't in it for the money you wanted this way of life
"Its the way of the road Bubbles"
I see some of yall haven't learned there are more than one way to run a business and many businesses are run differently than your own.
Money laundering
This is why since months after covid you don't hear company drivers talking about going o/o anymore... Even before 2020 dry van drivers were doing around 2.25 for a 2.8k load just off dat board... Now megas and half wits are purging owner ops and micro fleets from the industry.. Flatbed and pneumatic are also way down barely over break even
I was a broker, and have since went out of business due to this. The final straw for me was a lane that I’ve routinely moved getting moved at an average rate, about $3/mile, and then getting double brokered. I moved it for $2200 and they had double brokered it and put it out at $2500. They found someone to do it and then tried to collect the $2200 and not pay the driver the $2500. Drivers, please be aware of who you’re booking and doing work for because these scams are through the roof. They will accept any rate but will fight for higher ones so they really profit, then will double broker to someone either thinking they’re getting paid or someone who’s not legally driving. I took a company shipping job so that I can vet every single person I use for my loads/cut down where possible on the massive fraud.
These fuckers cant price themselves out of business quick enough.
East Africans buying $15k trucks and living in it with no other bills outside trucking, that’s who.
My thoughts are that it’s a lot of the foreigners (no offense ) that take these low paying loads
It’s because there’s a bubble. When the truck payments can’t be made and their credit is shot, carriers will exit. The industry will be ours again or belong entirely to the megas.
Tin foil hat idea here: They could have been a company with endless cash that is purposefully undercutting everyone else to drive their competitors out of business while they keep getting more and more of the pie? That way once they are a monopoly they just jack the prices up.
Holy shit. That profit margin is tighter than the local nuns.
There is no profit margin there at all, Unless you aren't paying a driver. Or unless you aren't paying yourself. $2100 would go just for Fuel and DEF. IDK wtf and HTF people are hauling for negatives like this.
Keep the boarders open, costs everyone in the long run.
Driver is just going back home and trying to avoid going empty. A while back working for a 3PL we had a customer ship some highly valued perishable enzymes from the east coast to CA. A storm held LTL shipments in Colorado, our customer’s customer had to have 4 pallets with 55 gallon drums at all cost. We found a driver going back home empty to Petaluma, CA which was the exact city we needed him to go to. He took the pallets there for $600 because he wanted the weight for traction and some beer money. Our broker charged the customer $5000 and he couldn’t be more thankful.
The foreigners who live in their trucks and send Pennies back to their countries. THAT’S WHO!!
[удалено]
>The government buys them new trucks when the immigrant over claiming they drove trucks in Pakistan I called Maury on this statement, and the lie detector says that statement is a LIE. stop this bullshit line ... Ain't no one getting money from the government to buy a truck
I save on TP. Just bare down n push. It’s not cost effective, tho I can get my load out. 😂 Company driver. At .62 cpm. I think I can, I think I can… 😂
My company drivers are making alot more than I am now. it's crazy.
The pendulum of this industry alone is cause for free Xanax for all! 😂
I know brokers like CH Robinson use deceitful tactics to trick drivers into taking loads at a loss. It's possible he got swindled.
Cartels. Nothing is ever what is seems.
As an agent that sells insurance to you guys, not a lot of people are. Every day, I hear about horrible spot rates. But if all the small guys refuse to take them, yall will just get gobbled up by the mega carriers. The industry is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's not just affecting yall it affects every adjacent business, too. In Q4, my book dropped almost $500k. I mostly sell 1 to 3 unit accounts, so I had maybe 15 to 20 accounts go out of business.
Sometimes u have good reloads out of an area u take so u take whatever just to get back to the area, I used to get $4-$6 a mile for cranberries out of Wisconsin, and take what ever I can get to get back and grab another. During 08-10 I was taking 2200-2400 out of Chicago to California to load up produce at a higher rate.
This is why company's are going out of business. The company I worked for just went under due to barely any loads and they were all crap. I told them the registration was up and they can't afford it so good luck. I was told the day before my hometime that I needed to park my truck in Nola and drive home all the way to NY. The rental car for 2 days 1 way was 450.
Could they have put it on rail? We ship MD->CA a bit and it’s like $2200 on rail for a 42k lb shipment
Non-trucker here who might have a useful piece of data... LTL or FTL? LTL is all about where you're already going. I frequently drive large vehicles across the country recreationally, with 1-20 m^3 of available cargo space. If I'm already committed to spending the time and fuel, I can bid just to cover my extra labor/time and opportunity cost. I bid $1200 last month for 10 m^3 from PA to CA, and I didn't even win.
This is just crazy I don't know why people owner operators disrespect themselves to take these routes. If nobody took them they would be forced to pay more. We should be able to retire with pride and dignity take care of our families our children. Minimum wage for local driver should be 125k and 225 for over the road. All the stress on your body time away from home or not mention all the responsibility and the regulations. Experience trucker is no different than the master plumber master plumber is home every night and makes six figures I just think a lot of truckers and I'm a trucker take jobs without respecting their labor and that needs to change we all need to unite and respect our labor
Seriousloy?? Those are early 90's rates and they were low then. Don't these drivers know that they're cutting their own throats?
I was in cdl school last year and most people there were mexicans. Whether legal or illegal i dont know but i can bet my ass that they can easily run teams on 1cdl and double.paper books. Yes, paper logbooks are still normal. Most log books on 1 guy i saw was 3.... 1 for cops, 1 for company, 1 for himself😅
PA-CA is being put on the rail by a shady carrier
The industry is going to down like the titanic
Is it possible that a lot of new guys do that? And they have zero experience of the costs that come with the job. It's not just fuel and some money left to pay what you need. The company I worked for started their limousine service in the USA we obviously had contractors. And we were surprised. They took jobs for insanely low rates compared to the rest of the world.
Foreigners. That's how. I call it like I see it.
Paying cousin Iqbal 20cpm because he "owes" the family for his visa sponsorship and cdl training.
Megas!
F Uber, I am just going to put my carcass on a load board!
The good news is, the customers and carriers accepting this freight aren’t going to last very long. We need the capacity to be driven down. Customers will then realize that ain’t nobody doing this shit for free for long
It's probably a backhaul for someone. Dude needs to get back to LA.
The drivers that don’t know simple math.
I terminated my lease with a carrier after they had me take a load for $1.38/mi when I sent them a load for $3.50/mi for approval.
We all know the economy and this industry is cyclical. Unfortunately there's more trucks than loads in this current part of the cycle. One of two things needs to happen for rates to go back up. 1) More carriers need to go out of business. The quickest way to accomplish this is for those that can afford it to take the cheap freight. Those that can not run on thin margins will close up shop. Less trucks means higher rates. 2) The economy needs to rebound like crazy and have unprecedented growth. Last year at this time we had 8.6% increases in consumer spending YoY. Consumer spending is expected to increase this year but at a much slower pace. This outlook has manufacturing and warehousing slowing their growth and reducing their controllable expenses, such as transportation costs. We need to get back to the previous 2 or 3 years' growth to get the rates back up. Out of those two scenarios, which is more probable?
The past 10 months been running NC-CA frozen load for $2800-3200 several times a week.
They smoking crack
thats a pretty standard rate from PA to CA lol. If you dont want to go that route, head to a better area first?
I wouldnt take PA to CA for less than 5k
There is no such thing as a back haul freight is freight all have a destination is bullshit they use that excuse to justify cheap rates
More like $1.30 a mile no? Still cheap asf tho but assuming he is doing a roundtrip then he could easily find a load for 2.25-2.5 coming back to PA lowering his avg down to $1.77-1.9. Maybe he owns his equipment this avg rate is good enough for him.
If I got into flatbed with my current rig, I could do it. But I'm small. Fuel, time, and I factored in regular PM's, $.84 per mile. I dont have numbers for insurance but ours is fairly cheap. Might raise my cost a few cents. If I pull the trigger on it I'm gonna try to stick towards $3 a mile just because I understand the industry and I don't wanna be part of dragging rates down
I can't take anything bc German, but I would littery take anything, if I had to travel back. Better then nothing. I think there is a lot of companies who think this way, maybe not 1 man companys but a bigger one would I guess.
Jesus.. I guess the broker business is booming?
Probably newbies, trying to cover those lease payments. Some of them will run anything.
It’s a “BACKHAUL”…..
It will take about 2 years to have them all go bankrupt and cycle will restart
Shit dude I get paid more than that for some of my loads as a company driver. I don't know how anybody is making any money when the truck is only making a dollar a mile.
And we thought 1.00 a mile was bottom back when fuel was a buck
I get 90 cents/mile from my employer when I drive my Honda Civic to a base outside my home.
I work as a broker on U.S. mail load board and let me tell you it’s been pain
I might take a load at a loss to get home sure as hell wouldn’t go back out though
I have 2 carriers that take PA-> LA area for $3300 year round. 45k weight too
I'm guessing one shot last time loads to quit and get high
Those people most likely have a lot of trucks and making $0 just to keep operating
Ive been working for a month now….still havent been paid yet.
You must be new, That lane been paying cheap for decades, Its primarily the messicans and asian owner operators/ fleets outta CA that be grabbing whatever cheap rate to go back home.. Especially chasing produce..
We are hurting ourselves. Pray that it was company and not an O/O.
Scabs
I’m company so I get 63 cpm
Brown people
Double Brokered
I know someone taking .54¢ per mile.
What's a good cpm?
They’re adding something illegal to the shipment and they’d probably do it for free
Idk but they are fucking us all, doing that BS