No, you can't. And unfortunately, neither do i, or anybody else. But still you have to compete with this folks. Put yourself in a broker, or shipper position. Would you pay more, if you could move it for less? Yes, some still believe in a good princip, - You got what you paid for. But in todays weak(i don't care, what anybody else say about recovery) economy, cost is a deciding factor! Got to survive, to see a better days. Trucking industry, especially O/O sector, overwhelmed with "wannabe", and people who has no idea, what are they doing. Hell, they can't even do a simple math, and even if they can, couldn't get the right numbers. Don't get me wrong, i'm not pitching to haul cheap. Just being reasonable, and knowing current market price.

Everybody has different expenses so what's cheap for one may be good for someone else. One size does not fit all.

That's a hard question to answer when I'm not in that position but I see what you're getting at and I agree with you. However, if I had a reliable vendor I would continue to use his service over saving a few bucks. When you have a good business relationship with a vendor/customer you could sit down and discuss short term cuts in rates and work together to get through the hard times. If one party doesn't wish to be a little flexible then it's time to look at other options. That's how I would approach the situation. I don't think we see enough of that attitude in todays business environment.


I know you're not. I've read enough of your posts to know better than that.

That's how it suppose to be!
Thanks for the confidence! I stick to my princips, but trying to be flexible, as much as i can, without hurting it.

I wanna share this some of you may know this some may not i have a good freind thats been a broker for about 20yrs and this is what he does no matter what price he got from the shipper which by the way no broker bids on a lane for under 4.00pm he'll post it for 1.25pm -1.35pm and keep the rest now with that being said is it fair what he's doing no but this buisness and you cant knock the hustle. Because like he says all brokers now that their is a o/o out that doesnt know what he's doing and will take the load.

dry van for right now

I doubt that all brokers bid $4/mile on every lane. There is too much competition. There are a lot of inexperienced brokers out here as well as inexperienced owner operators. I have had a few calls this past year from some of them. It is pretty easy to spot a broker who is new just as it is an owner operator who hasn't been in the business very long. There are some brokers who try to take advantage of carriers and owner operators, but there are also some who are fair. I would not throw all of them into the same pot.

On the other hand there are owner operators who don't know what they are doing and think that if they can average $1.20/mile that they are making money. They haven't a clue as to what it takes to run their business, nor do they know how to price their service. It is these people who really cause problems with rates in some of these areas.

I never knock a broker for whatever rate they’re offering. The decision is mine as to whether or not I’ll take the load. I have taken some loads for less than I’d like from brokers I had not done business with before, but I did so explaining to them that I was taking that first the load for less than I might normally because I understand that they have no way of knowing whether or not they can depend on me. I also explain that after I show that I am dependable on this one load, that I will expect a better rate next time. You can’t do this with the mega brokers (Total Quality Logistics comes to mind… they are true low-ballers) in my experience, but the smaller ones have generally respected my stance and I get a lot of calls from brokers we’ve worked with in the past offering decent rates.

Put yourself in the broker’s position. You have some guy call you on a load that you’ve never done business with before and you then give this guy a load that your own reputation depends on and then have to go home at the end of the day and hope and pray that the guy doesn’t screw up your account while you’re home sleeping. There are some really, really bad driver’s / wannabe owner operators out there and knowing what I know about them I don’t know if I could be a broker because I’d never sleep at night.

The other portion of what determines rates is, and I know it’s so overstated that it’s become cliché, is that it IS supply and demand. Right now there are way more trucks fighting over way too few loads. Some of you on this board have been around long enough to remember when it was way too many loads and way too few trucks. What happened to rates then? They were much higher, right? Everything is cyclical. The key is being able to survive through the lean times so that when the good times finally show up, you can get your share.

Every time I see a new post from somebody on here about just getting their authority, I cringe. Why in the world anybody would decide to make a jump into independency when the business is at an all time low just baffles the hell out of me.

That reminds me of the final component to the rate crisis… there seems to be a big influx of folks into this business (many from places far, far away) who think that if they can pay for their fuel and have a little left over at the end of the week then they are doing just great. These are people who had nothing at one time and now they are rolling down the highway in a truck across what used to be the greatest country in the world, and don’t have to worry about being able to eat anymore because they have money now. When you do not have a mortgage (or rent for that matter) and you don’t realize that you need to be saving money back for that big repair that will inevitably happen, you don’t need $2 a mile to have a little change in your pocket.

Someone is either blowing a whole lotta smoke or you're talking about very specific lanes. A couple hundred miles bouncing around the NE might command those rates...though I doubt that's the norm.

yes your write not all but 95% do and yes their is competition but unlike truckers BROKERS STICK TOGETHER and all of the ones that have been around for a long time know each other the give each other accounts they pass info around this is where the GOOD money is being made before it gets to the truck because the truck is the last one to paid if you dealing with a broker.