so where the hell is the money?

I have seen a few loads I inquired about in the last 30-40 days have a slight rate increase in the last week. I'd guess it's due to poor weather conditions and time constraints. But I find it interesting that a few people thumbs down your comment without holding a discussion. I'm assuming those are brokers....not saying it's bad that someone disagrees and does a thumbs down, but I've tried to engage in a discussion about why they support the eld, and where the rate increases are, but they don't seem interested.

So let's here it brokers? Why the thumbs down to us greedy truckers wanting a measly 2 bucks a mile? And why are you in favor of our work ethic being government regulated?

Thanks for your input

Yeah I am a broker. In no way do I condemn your wanting better rates. In fact I push like hell to get rates up but I find that CARRIERS are the ones that are continually cutting everyone else's throats as far as rates go. Take a look at Catoosa and Inola. Dasco BenTrei and Gavilon have no trouble finding CARRIERS to haul that stuff for $1.15-$1.30/mi on that. I have no problem telling all 3 of them that they are too cheeeeep and have told them that many many times. I have never been really bashful about calling a spade a spade and I have no problem at this time saying that not all brokers are lining their pockets off the backs of the carriers that run for them. I have seen some serious skimming off the top of a big rate in my illustrious career but I have also seen CARRIERS that have no clue as to what it take to operate their trucks correctly. I see absolutely no need for this ELD garbage. My drivers are pretty much intelligent enough to know when they are tired and know when to stop and take a break. It doesn't take some educated idiot in a $500 dollar suit from Washington to tell them that. If you want to gripe about the eld, get on the phone and burn up your congressperson's phone line, flood his mailbox with complaints or blow up his e mail with complaints. Don't lay it all at the feet of brokers. Unless you get off your duff and raise hell where it will do some good, nothing will be done about it and this web site will continue to be the broker bashing site it has become. We all need to work together to get this nonsense corrected and not do the finger pointing thing . Raise hell where it counts.

If your waiting for a broker to increase the rate for you, it will never happen. On all brokered loads my trucks have covered this week,. Have been double or triple the original rate the broker offered, Its all in the negotion. Many of you cry about the broker robbing you, and want to cut him out. then Cry about apps like uber or block chain.
$2 a mile? lmao that better be a round trip rate. and im load the wagon on the return every chance i get. If your running for cheap its nobodies fault but your own.

A small carrier only moves a few loads a day, so they don't have much of a impact on the market. Some of these brokers are moving the same amount of loads every 5 miniutes, and their the ones setting the rates for the market, so they bear a greater responsibility for the rates. Brokers like ELD's because they provide a justification for higher rates, they use them as a marketing tool to provide leverage in a negotiation with a shipper. It's the perfect excuse to make the case for higher rates. I have never been one to bash brokers in the past, but lately it's getting real hard to look the other way. Everywhere we look, we see these stories in the news where shippers are telling us that they are paying 2-3 times as much for freight today, as they were 6 months ago. (General Mills, and Tyson foods for example.) So why haven't brokers raised our rates accordingly? If we were getting 2 bucks a mile 6 months ago, And the shippers are telling us that they are now paying the brokers 2-3 times as much today, we carriers should be seeing 4-6 bucks a mile right now. So where is it?

You didn't see 6 dollar a mile freight 2008, because we were in the height of the recession. There were 10 trucks fighting over one load of freight, where as today you have the opposite, you have a abundance of freight, and a shortage of trucks. The L/T ratios have never been this high, we are breaking new ground, just like the stock market. The railroads are currently pushed to the limit, and have started raising their rates, based on what they see going on with us truckers, and the overly strong demand. But let's say for the sake of argument that you are right, and nobody can afford this high priced freight, then we now have a massive problem, because it's already backing up on the shippers dock right now, faster than they can get rid of it, and if the truckers won't do it any cheaper? The brokers are likely to find themselves in the crosshairs next, as many shippers are now complaining to congress that the money they are paying the brokers is not making it to the truckers, and as a result all of the drivers are leaving the industry, thereby harming the shippers business. Will rate transparency become mandatory? Everyone seems to forget, the shippers represent management, they are the Job creators, the rest of us be it broker, or carrier are nothing more than hired help.

If Tyson and General Mills are offering those kind of rates, I haven't seen them. I bark at them continually about being the cheapest places around. Go into any Tyson plant and you wait forever to load or unload. Pull by product out of General Mills and it is pretty much the same deal. Fight like hell to get them to even consider detention because "that's the way it is in this business". The General Mills plants normally have appointments to load but that is a total crock. The appointment only matters if the truck is a little late getting there. Then all hell breaks loose. If my truck sits for 7 or 8 hours its "we are running on stream and it takes awhile to make the product" How many times have we all heard that. As far as brokers liking ELD's, you are talking to the wrong people. The one's I work with have as big of a disdain for them as I do. They are a pain in the butt for everyone concerned. Again, raise hell where it counts. Bombard your representatives with complaints. Coming on a forum like this and bashing everyone in site does absolutely no good. Kick butt on the people that actually have the power to get something done.

You are the one that said all brokers supported it. the first statement in your reply is also a falsehood. Not ALL brokers support the eld. I saw the same article you did and when I approached the people I work with at General Mills and Tyson about that, they pretty much laughed and said the rates were what the rates were. Yeah they were paying higher rates on finished products that are hauled in Vans or Reefers but the bulk commodities were pretty much the same. Why you may ask????? Because Carriers are cutting each other's throats trying to hold on to something that is too cheep in the first place. As far as brokers being ticked about truckers noticing these articles I applaud you for being so observant. I have no problem with a truck telling me a load I am offering is too thin for them to haul it. It shows they are paying attention to what they need to operate profitably. The thing that gripes me more than anything is someone coming in with a mass statement that Brokers are the cause of all Carriers problems. That would be like me saying you are a rate cutting low life when I have no idea who you are or how you operate. We need more people voicing an opinion on issues like this. Did you notice how many people responded to the open response opportunity over the past several years on the eld issue? Not very many. Yeah I read the stories about the FMCSA listening sessions at MATS. Sounds like Scott got a little revved up and walked out. There needs to be more and more sessions like this. The industry as a whole needs to pound on the fact that we need people with firsthand knowlege of how our industry works to be in charge of agencies and departments like FMCSA and the Dept. of Transportation. Professional politicians could care less about what the little guy says. Independants and brokers need to get together on some sort of agenda to make our voices heard. Read your statements that you made previous about brokers making a killing off truckers. It appears that you accept the privelege of lumping all brokers into one category but take offense when someone disagrees with your position.

AS ALWAYS YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO YOUR OPINION AND I HAVE THE RIGHT TO MINE. IT MAY COME DOWN TO HAVING TO EXPLAIN MY POSITION TO CONGRESS. I HAVE ALREADY CHEWED AND CHEWED AND CHEWED ON OUR CONGRESSIONAL REPS. IT GETS DISGUSTING TO GET THE FORM LETTER BACK STATING WHAT A GREAT HONOR IT IS TO SERVE THE PEOPLE OF NEBRASKA AND ALSO THIS GREAT NATION. MAKES A PERSON WANT TO PUKE. NO DOUBT IN MY MIND YOU AND I WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CROSS SWORDS AGAIN AS WE ARE BOTH IN A SITUATION OF "GUILT BY ASSOCIATION" AS YOU PUT IT. BEST OF LUCK TO YOU AND A HAPPY EASTER TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.

Ok correct me if i am wrong are you talking about bulk freight like hoppers freight or you talking about drive van freight and flatbed freight.Cause last time i new you can't load or unload a hopper at a dock unless its a covertible hopper lol. Anyway like i said flatbed freight and van freight is way different than hopper freight. You are never gonna see big rates like your seeing in flatbed freight right know. And i have to ask this question. So if you got a load from a broker from POINT A say a 500 mile haul to POINT B say you agreed to 3.00 a mile. Now you agreed to this price, and the broker fought for you to get you the 3@mile but then you found out it pays more and now you are crying the blues cause you left money on the table and you blame the broker cause hes making money now. And you think the broker is cutting a fat hog on the deal. Yeah some do make money thats there job thats what they got hired to do. So if you dont like the rate dont haul it waite till it comes back to what you can do it for. And there may be a truck shortage it general freight but i dont see no shortage in the hopper freight that much. One other thing i have noticed is that lot of these costumers i've seen they want to go dirrect to shippers and brokers because they are tired of tring to find trucks all the time because truck driver have left them hanging because they found some other work that payes better for while. and They can get a better rate delervied because they are buying the product than the costumer can buy it for. Well Happy Easter.

Dale look at all of those dislikes that the brokers gave us. Now essentially all I am asking them to do is honor their own contract, that they presented and agreed to, in their carrier pack, and all of a sudden they get all pissy. Why is it every time someone talks about rates and honesty, it turns into a food fight? How many times in the past did someone bring up this topic, and not even mention the ELD, and the response from the other side was the same?

I learned my lesson the hard way about lumping brokers in one pot. I want my outfit to stand on it's own record, not in a negative group. Also a discussion is fine, sometimes we learn from another's point of view, but speaking of or to Duane goes to far for me. He has been here before you and I have personal experience of what a first class person he and his group represent. There are other brokers here that are good people. If more of us worked with them rather than stating they are all bad we would have a better chance of getting something positive.

Art Pfluger

So while I am not the guy who won’t take the truck out of the yard for less than $4 a mile, I like to think I don’t haul super cheap either. I understand that our economy is a relatively free market, and that market will determine rates. Having said that, I just called in a load that would pay $1.17 a loaded mile if I loaded 54,000. I asked for clarification because I didn’t think I must have understood the per bushel rate properly and the gentleman got testy about it like I was unreasonable. Seriously? I know that rates aren’t where I’d like them in light of all the things discussed in this discussion but most things seem to be at least $2 a loaded mile to start with and can be negotiated up from there a bit. Does anyone else see these kind of rates offered as a serious deal? It surprised me.

I dont see how the Brokers are "getting rich off the ELD mandate" Thier income is perportional to ours. If we make money so do they and visa-versa.







Max Whitacre
Sweat Transportation

Everyone seems to agree, that there is a driver shortage, due to crappy pay for the driver. Who's fault is that, the carrier? How can the carrier pay a driver more, if the broker won't pay carrier more? And if you don't have enough drivers to keep up with demand, how can you ever regulate HOS? Just look at what has been happening with the propane haulers for the past 15 years, now that has spread to the rest of the trucking industry. It's impossible to have HOS, when you don't have enough drivers to go around, so congress now has a problem, and they are looking for a scapegoat. Obviously government doesn't think that regulations are the problem, and the ATA can not say that regulations are the problem, Since they keep lobbying for more, like the ELD. So that brings us strait back to driver pay, and rates.

I agree here and seen it a million times!! We are fighting for rate increases all the time in Canada. We know what we need as smaller companies to survive. The problem is we go and give a rate to a elevator or farmer for loads and there is some idiot out there that slices the rates a dollar or two a mile!!! I could name a few from up this way that do it but what's the point. So until some of these guys learn rates to survive the brokers will keep doing them for the lower rates..