A conversation on the side of the road ...
 

I had a chat with a driver today in Cambridge, ONT. He had a very old GMC WHITE truck hooked up to a steel stepdeck trailer. I said I was a driver too and we talked for a few minutes while the guy was putting some home-made ramps on the trailer. He said he was picking up steel products and the stuff was 45 feet long ... The interesting thing he said was he was taking this load to Texas, and it paid $2.80 per mile to the truck!!! He said he was leased to a company and worked on percentage. I checked on the Yahoo!Maps - it's around 1,500 miles. Not a bad run :)

Would he be able to get something from TX?

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If he does and the laws have not changed; his next load is supposed to take him back to canada. But how many do that, I'm sure they run all around the US before making it to canada. OH, then again you never said he was a canadian driver.

I bet he would dh to Laredo, if that isn't already his destination, and pick up a load headed to Canuckville pretty quick.

I think so. He's Canadian but he said he had married an American girl and now lives in Michigan. There should be some flatbed/stepdeck loads from Texas to Michigan, shouldn't there?

I remember talking to someone I trust that got a regular dry van load paying $2.50 going east.

Good thing he has a regular customer coming out of there, at a decent rate too.

Wow... I'm beginning to suspect that the type of trailer you're pulling has almost no effect on the rate you can get. Maybe what matters more is the driver's business and negotiation skills and how well he/she serves customers.

My dad hauls for that rate or better consistently pulling his flat. He hauled 4 loads in the last couple weeks that all paid $4.00 per mile or better - the best paying better than $5.00. The highest paying load was overheight and width. He hauls mainly for one customer who has several different divisions of steel structural manufacturing. They do run a lot of brokered loads on backhauls though.

If he is able to work in both countries and cross in the border, should be able to do well as a driver.

B-A-N-G !!!!

You hit the nail on the head BIG TIME !!!! But also the more versitile you are to be able to handle different kinds of loads the busy'r you will be and more in demand you will be !!!