I'm glad to hear that Turtle. Right now I have a sprained arm with shooting pain from my fingertips all the way to my collar bone. I'm ruining the good parts of my body in order to compensate for my weaker leg. I'm going to have to move into a 1 story soon and get me one of those chairs that ejects you from the seat. In all honesty I wouldn't even be able to drive let alone climb into my cargo van which just messes with my head. I hope you get better and have some fun out there when you go back into service. There are perople that I used to see at various truckstops who are probably wondering what ever happened to me. Have you guys seen any milk cartons with my face on them? Now if Ragman can pot a pictue of a milk carton with my face on it I will invite him to a free dinner at the Petro buffet.
listening to drivers complain......
- Thread starter Everything Apax
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Don't picket yourself, it could lead to blindness.
chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
Wow, that was "entertaining"...By the way, can any of you other "Vacation Expediters" tell where and when the next meeting of the "Good Sams Club" is??
I'd hate to miss another one, we "banded" together so well...
Good Sam RV Club
I'd hate to miss another one, we "banded" together so well...
Good Sam RV Club
The best response you have is a conspiracy theory that I'm a teamster! What I've done is voice an opinion about what is wrong in hopes of finding a way to change them. I have asked sevetal of you on here what you would do to help our industry or what steps need to be taken to repair a tarnished profession but not a single one of you have done so. All you've done is try to pick apart my ideals. I grew up in this industry, my father is an owner operater and has been for years. He's one of the best out there and he's not a teamster nor ever has been. So ask me again what I've done when my family has been a part of this industry for over 40 years. You use a loose definition of what you've done for our profession with "work every day". Come on, x-man, you have to have better than that since you're attempting to knock my beliefs! Again I will leave you with the question-"what would you do to make our profession better?"
Exactly the mindset that has put our profession where it is. Who cares that you're feeding into the brokers and agents hands with that mentality just as long as your wheels are moving. Don't worry that yourenot maximizing your potential as long as you got thay load that paid yor gas and got you a cup of coffee! lol Wake up!
If you've read all posts then you would, or should, know that I have said if strike isn't answer give me your ideas on what needs to be done to help our industry out. My original post stated there are many things wrong, brokers/agents being a glaring one. Not only do brokers/agents flood industry with drivers, many of them idiots, but they also use that flooding to help lower rates because we all want a load especially out of places like loredo. Yes, we have right to refuse but you have to make a living and still can. I'm only saying things could be better for us if we stood together, my suggestion was strike. If you have a suggestion I'd like to hear it but it seems to me that I'm the only one searching for solution while the rest of you look for reason not to.
Your fighting the good fight. Don't let these spoil sports get you down! If I were you, I would strike tomorrow and don't give in til you get what you want! Go for it man, teach them guys a lesson!
Me personally? I own my own vehicle. I make the decisions as to what I haul and when. If I have any complaints, then it's my job to fix the problem. As for what I do about cheap freight? I say "NO". Seems to work most of the time and it's a whole bunch simpler than all that strike business. Besides, the time or two that I have went on strike, I got tired of negotiating with myself...that other rocketman is even more of an azzwipe than I am!
Wake up? I'm mostly awake. You are the one that needs a wake-up call. If you are driving a van for an owner who is leased to a small carrier that has few of its own customers and relies heavily on brokers and load boards for freight, then it is you who is not maximizing your potential! It is you that hauls freight for gas and coffee money.
It amazes me that since you cannot come up with a suggestion to help our profession other than a generic "I work everyday" you come at me with a conspiracy theory that I'm a teamster. You couldn't be further off point. I was raised around the life of trucking, my father has been a driver over 40 years and is an owner operater and never been a union man either. We talk daily about the deterioration of this profession which has happened with the help of brokers/agents flooding the industry with idiots that fight for loads that causes our rates to fall and their profits to increase. If you cannot see that you're blind. I'll ask you again, what would you suggest we do to help ourselves? I'm open to discussions. I'm not on here to rip my fellow drivers apart. I want to repair our tarnished reputation.
Crap I thought apax was Moot.
paullud
Veteran Expediter
There have been several responses on it but you don't like the answers or just aren't able to understand the point. It doesn't mean no one has answered your question.
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I'm one of the idiots. Can you explain to me slowly and in simple terms how brokers/agents flood the industry with drivers. Why would they want to use that "flooding" to lower rates. Don't brokers work on a percentage basis? Would not 10% of a $2000.00 load be better than 10% of a $1500.00 load?
If you can't get loaded at a decent rate out of Laredo, don't go to Laredo unless you get enough money up front to get out.
It appears many of us have banded together to point out to you that a strike isn't practical.
I offered a few suggestions in post #83. Wimpy also offered a good suggestion, join IOODA.
I underlined some of the buzz words and phrases that make you come off as a whiny liberal. Most of us are in this business because we like the freedom it offers, we are not adverse to taking some risks and can work without a safety net. If you want fair, if you want rightful pay, if you want a strike, then get an hourly paying job and load up your iPod with Woody Guthrie 78s.
The tetanus booster has changed in the past 10 or 15 years so you could have a reaction even if you never did from the old formula.
zorry
Veteran Expediter
The best thing you can do is operate as professionally as you can.
Understand your costs and operate at a reasonable profit.
Encourage others to do the same.
Move up to a straight if possible.
Vans will not improve.
Too many hobby truckers.
Costs are all over the place. You can't compare costs of the guy running an $800 van to a new Sprinter.
Or a guy trying to feed three kids and support a high maint wife to the widowed fireman with a pension.
They'll always be vans running at cost because guys are doing it to get out of the house. They don't need the money. They just want to ride.
Ignore the other guys. Run at a profit yourself and enjoy life.
Understand your costs and operate at a reasonable profit.
Encourage others to do the same.
Move up to a straight if possible.
Vans will not improve.
Too many hobby truckers.
Costs are all over the place. You can't compare costs of the guy running an $800 van to a new Sprinter.
Or a guy trying to feed three kids and support a high maint wife to the widowed fireman with a pension.
They'll always be vans running at cost because guys are doing it to get out of the house. They don't need the money. They just want to ride.
Ignore the other guys. Run at a profit yourself and enjoy life.
Apaxx, absolutely the only suggestion I've seen from you is "Let's go on strike". You don't like hearing that this won't work in an industry that is, as of this writing, at least 95% independent contractor.
So, others have suggested joining OOIDA. I'm not a member yet but I may become one soon. The rates aren't unreasonable and maybe the benefits, while not overwhelming for a van driver, aren't too bad. Having a voice in Washington is a benefit, anyway.
OK. We're ICs, and most of us here are OOs into the bargain. So--- to make a difference, don't haul cheap freight and don't drive for fly-by-night outfits that haul cheap freight. How's that work for you? With forums like this one we keep each other in touch so we know which companies specialize in cheapo freight so we avoid contracting to them, and can alert newbie drivers to the pitfalls of the business. That's probably the best that can be done at the moment.
If you're a driver working for an owner who leases his equipment to an outfit that has you haul cheap freight---- what's wrong with your legs, fella? Why aren't you using them to look for a gig elsewhere? It's not like the guy you're driving for is the only game in this business--- just look at the classifieds! Now get busy and stop suggesting silly strikes.
So, others have suggested joining OOIDA. I'm not a member yet but I may become one soon. The rates aren't unreasonable and maybe the benefits, while not overwhelming for a van driver, aren't too bad. Having a voice in Washington is a benefit, anyway.
OK. We're ICs, and most of us here are OOs into the bargain. So--- to make a difference, don't haul cheap freight and don't drive for fly-by-night outfits that haul cheap freight. How's that work for you? With forums like this one we keep each other in touch so we know which companies specialize in cheapo freight so we avoid contracting to them, and can alert newbie drivers to the pitfalls of the business. That's probably the best that can be done at the moment.
If you're a driver working for an owner who leases his equipment to an outfit that has you haul cheap freight---- what's wrong with your legs, fella? Why aren't you using them to look for a gig elsewhere? It's not like the guy you're driving for is the only game in this business--- just look at the classifieds! Now get busy and stop suggesting silly strikes.
Apaxx, there are several problems here. One is, you keep talking about the evils of brokers/agents like those evils are true. They're not. Some of what you say may be true for general trucking, but for expediting it is not. For one, brokers/agents don't hire drivers, much less flood the industry with drivers. They look for carriers who already have drivers to haul the loads they are brokering. Brokers don't take 30, 40 50 percent of the loads and then offer up what's left to the drivers. Their overall percentage is quite small, which is why most of them need to operate on a high volume basis in order to make any money. If you want to bypass the brokers because they're evil blood sucking leeches, then obtain your own customers and broker your own loads. The alternative is to pay a broker to do the legwork for you and find shippers with loads.
You keep saying how you've been around trucking all of your entire 39 years, and that your dad was a trucker for 40 years. I have a feeling that, like most people who come to expediting from general trucking, neither of you truly understand just how different expediting is from general trucking. Most who come to expediting from general trucking don't make it, and in fact fail within a year.
You also keep saying you've never been a member of a union, and that's fine, and may very well be true, but that doesn't change the fact that, by your own words, you have a union mentality. It's probably one of the side effects of living in the rusty bulls eye of the Rust Belt where the liberal union mentality of needing to be taken care of in one form or another permeates daily life. Small business owners do not have a "strike" mentality, they don't talk about "taking care of one another", because they're in business for themselves, not for each other. And the only time they talk about "rightful pay" is when they accept or reject a load contract offered to them. If the pay for the load isn't "rightful" they turn it down, it's as simple as that.
Going back to the OP that you keep telling us to do, you stated, "I wonder if drivers realize that the brokers get more pay than drivers for just picking up the phone and/or tapping a few keys on their keyboard to post the loads." So, your entire complaint is based on a false premise, as brokers do not, in fact, get more pay than drivers do. Not even close.
And again, with another false premise, you stated, "We as drivers allow the brokers to pay such low rates for many reasons, the biggest being our inability to band together." While to some degree it is true that we as drivers allow brokers to pay low rates, and for many reasons, not one of those reasons is an inability of drivers to band together. The biggest reason is competition amongst drivers with more capacity than there are loads, especially with van drivers. Anybody can go buy a van at low cost and drive it. You don't even need a CDL with most carriers. So the expediting industry is literally awash with too many vans. If you want to get drivers to band together for more pay, the only way to do that is to bully and intimidate most of those already in the industry to get them out, and then get everybody together to prevent new drivers from coming into the industry, because that's where the problem lies, in capacity, not with brokers/agents. If all of us were to go on strike, an equal number of morons without CDLs would go out an buy a van at low cost and replace us in a heartbeat, and no one would miss us at all.
So, your complain starts with ignorance, with a false premise, and your only solution has been shown to be an unambiguously non-viable one. Yet, you keep harping on it like it's a legitimate complaint with a legitimate solution. There's a word for that, and it's not a very flattering one. In your OP you stated that what brokers get versus what drivers get is "not fair". There is a simple solution to that problem - demand more money from brokers, or, refuse loads that come from brokers and go find your own loads instead. It's real easy, man.
So, unless you can come up with a new argument and solution that's not merely a restatement of things you've already stated, then this thread is done, because otherwise you're just bіtchin' for the sake of bіtchin', which starts to move into trolling territory which isn't helpful, productive or informative. Maybe if you posted some specifics instead of abstracts, like a few examples of the line haul bills that shows what the broker got paid and what you got paid, we can discuss it. Otherwise, we're pretty much done with the topic.
You keep saying how you've been around trucking all of your entire 39 years, and that your dad was a trucker for 40 years. I have a feeling that, like most people who come to expediting from general trucking, neither of you truly understand just how different expediting is from general trucking. Most who come to expediting from general trucking don't make it, and in fact fail within a year.
You also keep saying you've never been a member of a union, and that's fine, and may very well be true, but that doesn't change the fact that, by your own words, you have a union mentality. It's probably one of the side effects of living in the rusty bulls eye of the Rust Belt where the liberal union mentality of needing to be taken care of in one form or another permeates daily life. Small business owners do not have a "strike" mentality, they don't talk about "taking care of one another", because they're in business for themselves, not for each other. And the only time they talk about "rightful pay" is when they accept or reject a load contract offered to them. If the pay for the load isn't "rightful" they turn it down, it's as simple as that.
Going back to the OP that you keep telling us to do, you stated, "I wonder if drivers realize that the brokers get more pay than drivers for just picking up the phone and/or tapping a few keys on their keyboard to post the loads." So, your entire complaint is based on a false premise, as brokers do not, in fact, get more pay than drivers do. Not even close.
And again, with another false premise, you stated, "We as drivers allow the brokers to pay such low rates for many reasons, the biggest being our inability to band together." While to some degree it is true that we as drivers allow brokers to pay low rates, and for many reasons, not one of those reasons is an inability of drivers to band together. The biggest reason is competition amongst drivers with more capacity than there are loads, especially with van drivers. Anybody can go buy a van at low cost and drive it. You don't even need a CDL with most carriers. So the expediting industry is literally awash with too many vans. If you want to get drivers to band together for more pay, the only way to do that is to bully and intimidate most of those already in the industry to get them out, and then get everybody together to prevent new drivers from coming into the industry, because that's where the problem lies, in capacity, not with brokers/agents. If all of us were to go on strike, an equal number of morons without CDLs would go out an buy a van at low cost and replace us in a heartbeat, and no one would miss us at all.
So, your complain starts with ignorance, with a false premise, and your only solution has been shown to be an unambiguously non-viable one. Yet, you keep harping on it like it's a legitimate complaint with a legitimate solution. There's a word for that, and it's not a very flattering one. In your OP you stated that what brokers get versus what drivers get is "not fair". There is a simple solution to that problem - demand more money from brokers, or, refuse loads that come from brokers and go find your own loads instead. It's real easy, man.
So, unless you can come up with a new argument and solution that's not merely a restatement of things you've already stated, then this thread is done, because otherwise you're just bіtchin' for the sake of bіtchin', which starts to move into trolling territory which isn't helpful, productive or informative. Maybe if you posted some specifics instead of abstracts, like a few examples of the line haul bills that shows what the broker got paid and what you got paid, we can discuss it. Otherwise, we're pretty much done with the topic.
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
What exactly do you want Apax? You have espoused the evils of the brokers, going as far as to say it's illegal for them to profit from loads they give to other companies. You dismiss any ideas anyone on this thread has given you to increase your profit potential. Even those of us who aren't O/O are independent contractors with more choices and freedoms than a typical hourly employee. If we weren't at least somewhat happy, or not making a living we wouldn't be here!! Aside from those out here vacationing...they may just be breaking even idk that's not why I'm out here. Now I understand some people are always the glass is half empty type but I highly doubt you are going to start a revolution and change the mindset of the glass is half full type!!
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
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