Well, my last 2 weeks has been, to put it mildly, horrible. I ran a total of 3,200 miles in 14 days. The first 7 days I did a 34hr restart, and could've done 2 of them if I'd wanted to.

I'm at home now, and have been available for a load for over 24hrs, but still nothing...

The bad part - Celadon pays a $1,000 bonus after the first 30,000 dispatched miles. I need 2,200 miles to hit that and it sure would come in handy with Christmas being only a few weeks away...

Anyone else running into this?

Good luck. I am still sitting here outside of Atlanta. I have been here since Friday morning waiting for a load. It is that time of the year, things slow down. Even our regular customers are not doing much, and the boards suck. There are only 56 loads for flat beds, within a 150 mile radius of Atlanta GA this morning. My girl will be busy this morning, I think she is already on her second shot of whiskey!

And let's not mention the rates today.

not much going on for freight right now, kinda slow, i am taking a hit too. kinda sucks, but i was able to catch up on some laundry here at the new flying j on I-255 by East St Louis....new flying j, kinda nice here, just a matter of time till it's nasty heh

I thought this was 'sposed to be the busy season?? N' How can freight ever be slow, people are constsantly buyin' stuff, etc.

Things that make ya go hhmmm

This is a time of year when freight slows. This year it is unusually slow. Those who pull freight to retailers, such as Walmart, etc., usually do well until about the middle of December. Most everyone is sitting more than usual. Rates are also lower than usual. The over capacity of trucks has something to do with it. Some brokers and shippers are taking advantage of the situation and attempting to move freight at bargain basement prices. I believe it is mostly the brokers. Things should improve around March.

M-A-R-C-H !!!!! Who can wait until March??? :evil:

Seriously though, Gman. I don't quite understand. Why would it be the brokers?? Don't they get a commission on how much freight moved, and at what price??

Why would THEY want to broker lower priced freight? Just asking... cuz Your're the man with the knowledge!

I just spent 2 days laid over in L.A. waiting on a load. Our small company of about 30 trucks, who deal with established accounts all the time, had 10 (that's TEN) trucks out on the west coast Mon & Tue, and NO LOADS!!!

I ain't been doing this for long... but I don't remember last year being this bad!

And we "backhaul" mostly produce. What??? Did you guys stop eating your veggies and salads??? :shock:

What's a back-haul??? :? That word isn't in my vocabulary, Golfhobo. The problem with the brokers is that there is less freight right now and they can't make a commission unless they sell something. With less freight, there are more brokers competing for the same pool of freight. So they will start cutting rates until they wind up with the business. It is a race to the bottom. They can afford to broker cheap freight because they don't have to buy the fuel or pay the cost of operating the truck that hauls it. The broker's costs are pretty much fixed, year around. The truck owner has to deal with often widely fluctuating fuel costs. When oil goes up it has a trickle down effect for most everything we buy. Tires, engine oil, everything we buy goes up. The broker doesn't spend more for his telephone, computer, fax, etc., than he did before fuel went through the roof. It isn't just the competition which is driving rates lower. I think some brokers are taking advantage of the situation and pocketing more of the rate. Some have contracts with shippers to move freight at pre-determined rates year around, so economic fluctuations don't affect their rates that much.

I just deadheaded from Washington D.C. last week. Most everyone with whom I usually do business in the area didn't seem to have anything going where I needed to go. One guy told me that they have about 5 more trucks per day than they can load, down from 10. Two different brokers offered me the same load at different rates. One was $0.98 and the other $1.08/mile. I waited for a couple of days and rather than sit for the weekend, I deadheaded back to the house. I have no doubt that someone took those cheap loads. That is the main problem with freight rates. It really isn't the brokers when you come down to it. Without a truck to haul the cheap load, it would not get hauled. When a load sits long enough, rates will go up until someone takes it. The problem is that someone will take the load whether they can make a profit on it or not. From a pure business stand point, there is no reason for a shipper or broker to pay a truck more than necessary to move a load.

Gman: LOL about "backhaul." I've had that conversation with O/O's on the road before. It's a little different for my company.

We have a contract to haul beer to the west coast. Probably lower rates to get the majority of the shipments. We make our big money hauling BACK produce. So our "backhauls" are our reason for going out there in the first place!

On the other hand, the beer MUST go west. So, regardless of how many trucks we have sitting out there, if there's a load to go, we must send another truck out there!

Since we make most of our money on the produce loads "backhauled" to the east coast, they will let us sit and wait for a day or two at cheap "layover pay" rather than haul cheap freight back.

I heard that ONCE, becuase they needed to fulfill the contract to haul beer OUT west, they had to deadhead 5 trucks (teams) or more BACK to Carolina from Cali, so they could haul loads of beer west again!

Man... THAT had to hurt!

Thanks for the answer about the brokers. I think I understand now. I wouldn't want their job. It must really be "dog eat dog" trying to get the most loads shipped, even at a lower commission. But, a hundred loads brokered at 5 dollars, is better than 30 loads at $10!

And, as a carrier, you need to haul the loads to GET the loads!

We could REALLY use some regulation in this business again (just like the airlines) but I think it would be best to wait for someone other than the Bush Administration to handle it!

Thanks again for the informative post!