Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

What is it any truck driver hates worse than the high fuel prices (that is unless they are a company driver!): oh yeah, I would have to say it is a DOT Inspection! So heads up everyone because apparently on June 3rd there is going to be a road check going on again!

Thousands of law enforcement officers will be blanketing North America’s roadways for 72 continuous hours beginning June 3 to hammer home the importance of comprehensive safety inspections of trucks and buses and on enforcing safety belt use.

“Roadcheck,” sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, dispatches federal, state, provincial and local inspectors to more than 1,000 locations across the continent to conduct comprehensive North American Standard Level I Inspections.

This leads me to wonder how many drivers really know what their safety rating is if they own their own company or if they are a company driver. I think it’s a good idea to check into something, such as a safety rating, before you go to work for someone. For one thing, it gives you a pretty good idea of how good (or bad) the equipment is by the amount of DOT OOS inspections there are both on drivers and equipment. You can check this information out at: http://www.safersys.org.

At any rate with June 3rd just around the corner make sure your log books are in order, your lights are working, that you are wearing your seat belt, and wearing a big smile because the chicken coops will be open awaiting your visit on June 3rd!

Popularity: 37% [?]

Since this was something brought up as a response to the Transportation Broker Survey Results, I thought I would elaborate on something that I do know to be true.

First to address one of the comments:

Comment by Robert Blair

2008-05-15 10:16:13

While a bidding system has its merits, ultimately shippers want to deal with people. They don’t want their freight and its proper handling to become a tracking number in a faceless, paperless and impersonal system.

Shippers may want to deal with people but in all reality,  the bigger companies have a series of processes by which they receive their loads and even by how they go down a chain of command in order to end up being brokered by Joe Driver.

A big company will receive a load from say a soda distributor. Do they know it’s going to be a brokered load? No. Someone in customer service handles that part. First checking capacity of their own fleet, then their owner-operators, lease purchase, and power only trucks. Then it is decided if they are confident enough to be able to broker the load out for the shipper. Customer service negotiates the price (which may or may not have been given to customer service set up as a sliding fee scale or perhaps they refer to rates that the broker will want in order to sell the load) and then puts in the company system.

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Popularity: 27% [?]

As I mentioned before, I was really shocked to find out 75% of people that took the survey did not know what Power Only was. So I am here to shed a little light on exactly what it is and what it entails.

Power Only means that you provide only the power to pull a load. In other words, you provide the tractor the company provides the trailer AND freight. Sounds like a great deal right? No worries with having to buy a trailer, insure it, or make repairs to it. Oh but wait a minute, that also means by pulling a company’s trailer you are strictly to confined to pulling their loads. And most of the time they run a power only driver (or fleet) as if they were a company driver. Ouch. I don’t know if I like the sounds of that!

I can guarantee if you are an owner operator, you will not either! Speaking from the experience of running a small fleet of power only drivers, it is just like being a company driver. The person (at the time I was a broker running power only) works as a dispatcher. You book the loads, you dispatch the loads, you keep track of the drivers, and you hope all goes well. All of the wonderful headaches are included in it to like late loads, bad pickup numbers (there goes the start of the long chain of calls to make!), drivers wanting more miles, and drivers wanting to be home since it IS their truck.

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Popularity: 25% [?]

When my oldest son turned 15 I knew I was in trouble because it meant time for Driver’s Ed. Well my youngest son just turned 15 in April so here we go again. Why am I discussing Driver’s Ed? Because I think there is something very important that all high schools AND driving schools should include in their courses. Safety awareness around big trucks!

I was very curious when I took my oldest to school on a summer morning when he had Driver’s Ed. Why? Because there was a Wal-Mart truck parked in the middle of the parking lot with all these signs, arrows, cars, people, and even measurements marked off. I thought maybe there was some sort of big truck training going on and didn’t give it a second thought.

By this time, my boys had already known all about blind spots because believe it or not we have literally made them sit in the seat of our truck and look in the mirrors so they could see or not see things. So when my son got home that day he was very excited to share that Wal-Mart was actually there teaching the kids to be safe around big trucks! Can you imagine that? I thought it was so cool!
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Popularity: 26% [?]

I think that’s how a broker should answer their phones, don’t you think? As with anything in the transportation business, you will have two sides to the story when it comes to dealing with brokers.

There is the drivers view: I’m being ripped off! And then there’s the broker’s view: I have to make a profit to keep the boss happy!!

When I first started out brokering, I thought it was a breeze. I had been a telemarketer before and my greatest accomplishment was a million dollar sale I had made at the age of 18. So I knew I had the drive to get the money. Ok, I should say the greed was there. Think of the profit checks and the money in my pocket for me and my family!

The first few transportation loads I brokered I have to be honest, I had no clue what I was doing. Then I sat down with my husband and started talking to him about what he would expect out of a load. At that time he was a company driver. I did my own research and educated myself on what I thought was “fair.” The first company I brokered for had no preset expectations for profit just simply that I make one and get the load moved. At times it was just that I get the load moved. So I never had any problems or complaints. If I had complaints, it was the general complaint a driver would have like sitting to long, not getting loaded, etc. The stuff you EXPECT to happen.
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Popularity: 28% [?]

Some of the results actually shocked me, while others didn’t. But here are the results:

1) What percentage of profit do you think a Broker aims for?

Percentage 10% 25.0 14% 0.0 18% 0.0 20% 50.0 25% 0.0 26% or more 12.5 Whatever they can get away with 12.5 Other

The fact of the matter is - a lot of the larger, more recognized companies aim for anywhere from 10% to 14% profit. But, if you want to get in the good graces of your boss, you shoot for at least 18%.
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Popularity: 27% [?]

If you are in the transportation business, you have heard of the term “JIT Freight.” To those who are not familiar with the term it simply means “Just In Time.”

Just in time freight was created to cut costs for manufacturers. With this type of freight movement, the manufacturer does not need to worry about warehousing (or the costs associated with having a warehouse) nor do they have to worry about inventory costs because there is no inventory sitting around.

The idea of JIT works like this: a product is made - in order to make this one product there are several materials that are needed to make it and the materials are to arrive ‘just in time’. A lot of the automakers use JIT freight. A driver may pick up parts (say something like door handles) in the morning and he has to drive straight thru to the manufacturer because as soon as his appointment time arrives (or perhaps even when he arrives at the manufacturer) he is unloaded because they will need the freight he is hauling in order to manufacture whatever they are working on.

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Popularity: 19% [?]

I began my career in the transportation business working for a rather small company. Not very many trucks. I was told at least 50 but I think it was more like 20. I went in not knowing a thing, I left knowing probably more than what I ever really wanted to.

It is really amazing to see the different aspects of trucking when you are married to a driver. You get to see both sides of everything from payroll problems to log audits to dispatch trouble. I also think it is hard sometimes to adjust to trying not to take a company side of view when you are married to a driver. You always see both sides of the fence and try to make either side look more appealing to your spouse, but sometimes that does not always work!

I am very much a people person. So it was very easy for me to get along with the drivers in the company. Even when they had problems and would be screaming and yelling at me on the phone I would listen politely and stay calm in all situations. It seemed as if when they heard me still having a very relaxed, low key type of attitude, it made things better all the way around.

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Popularity: 9% [?]

It is like stepping onto a car lot and dealing with a sales person. You know the minute you decide you want a specific model of vehicle how much it is going to cost you. But yet you shop around looking for the best bargain to get the most for your money. Much is the same with brokering. You know what loads you want before you place the call or click on a link on the internet and you know exactly how much money you NEED in order to make a decent living.

We both know that in either scenario, 99% of the time you do not get what you want!

So how much of a percentage do brokers go for? 10%, 20%, or even 30%? Maybe even whatever they feel they can get away with! Only those who have served as brokers really know. How much do brokers pay when you are Power Only? And is there any room for giving someone FSC?

I am curious to know, what do you think a broker does get? Take this quick survey and I will post the results in about a week or so along with some facts that you may or may not know about the brokerage side of the business!

Until then I wanted to share a website with you that helps you identify problems with brokers:

Problems include companies and individuals posing as motor carriers who have engaged in unauthorized re-brokering of shipments; not showing and not calling; canceling after accepting load; holding loads hostage, back-soliciting shippers; making in-transit agreement modifications; theft of or unjustified loss of freight; and persistent canceling. TIA members will also be able to report on 3PLs that did one or more of the following: unauthorized brokering of shipment; payment issues; brokering freight without brokering or freight forwarding authority; operating without bond or trust fund; and operating under an unregistered alias.

This website is called: The Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA).

Hopefully this will help you make an educated decision about a broker before you use them.

Popularity: 7% [?]

So many of us have seen the little round domes on the back of the trucks that we have grown accustomed to knowing what they really are, though to the average eye one may think it’s a small flying saucer, it’s actually something to keep tabs on you. Yes, you know what I’m talking about, the dreaded Qualcomm!

I set out on a mission to see if I could find anything about the accuracy of Qualcomm since the “bigger” companies use them to compare driver logs to. I didn’t find much on google (it’s my friend!) other than a bunch of articles on a lawsuit, a ban on the chips that they are using, and what seems to be a feud between Qualcomm and Broadcom.

So how accurate IS Qualcomm? Not very accurate in my book. A good example would be the fact that when my husband called in to get a pickup number that was not sent to him, he was informed he still had 22 hours left before he hit his 70. Funny thing is - by doing an old-fashioned recap (or by using DDL), he was actually a quarter hour away from hitting it. That is a HUGE difference. I wonder if the company would have paid his log book fines based on their “computer” expertise?

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Popularity: 19% [?]