Criteria For Turning Down Loads

[Moot]

Bryan, you should have excepted the load. If it was only 20 miles to the shipper you could have run over there and checked it out. Maybe it could have been broken down? If not at least you could collect a dry run fee. I have found that what is quoted on the QC as far as weight and number of pieces is not always accurate. Usually the error is on the light side though. 1 piece @ 1000# turns into 3 @ 4000#. Somtimes the customer is willing to ship part of it. If not, there is always the dry run charge.

 

[geo]

a few year's ago a friend son (was 2 years old) ans the phone and dispather ask if he could speak to his dad, about taking a load, he said tell me how much and how far and i'll tell you if my dad will take the load, and dispather said 400 miles and going into canada and 100 mile p/u and $300.00 for load , son said call my dad back when you get a real load and more money dispatcher call back while later
and ask to speak to his dad again, son ask do you have a real load this time or is it just junk, dispatcher said have a real load
so mike talked and said he would take load, dispather said it's bad when a 2 year old knows it a bad load

other day egl ask me if i wanted to go to newark nj at about 1500 and asked when does it deliver asap said if you had asked me about 0800 i would have taken it , not going to work all day and work all night to now being off the road and not having the sleeper don't really care about going over 250 miles unless it's going to watertown ny area then will going in min as pay way home

 

[RichM]

Man Oh Man,that 2 year old must have been a handfull. I raised 3 boys and cannot remenber them at 2 answereing the phone,much less having an intelligent conversation. Wonder what that 2 year old is up to now.

 

[jaminjim]

Hard enough to get an intelligent conversation with 20 something year olds.

 

[BigRed32771]

I actually have used "You're kidding, right?" on a couple of occasions. Usually when the offer was in the 60 cents a mile range, or the DH was more than double the loaded miles.

My most common response is "Low pay all miles = bad business" which puts the ball in their court. It reminds them of their constant statement to us that we have to make decisions based on what's good for our business, but let's them offer more money if they want. About half the time seems they'll come back with more money if we truly are the "only truck available."

Dispatch over the phone is another thing. I think they hate to call us with crappy loads because they know they're liable to get an economics lecture from me. I'm sure I'm not telling them anything they don't already know, but I figure it doesn't hurt to remind them of the economic realities we have to live with.

Doug
1 year with FECC, and ready to go for another.

 

[KYoung]

My first thought was who do you drive for? Are you going to be penalized for refusing a load? If you have a central dispatch is that dispatcher going to bump you to the bottom of the list?

I can recall only a few times when we refused a load because of where it was going, Canada, need I say more, and if its going to take us in the wrong direction when we want to get home or somewhere else.

If it comes to the $$ then I considered who is asking me to take the load, if its an agent I do several loads for then I'll take it no matter how much it pays or where it is going (its the ole scratch my back and I'll scratch yours), but usually the agent throws in more money to get us to take it.

Ken Leam4474