the biggest three challenges that I face are servicing my customers when they drop me when they can find cheap trucks in Winter and then cry that there is no capacity at the end of March after putting everyone out of business and there "cheap" Carriers bale on them or went out of business themselves;so #1 pricing,#2 having available capacity,and #3 finding ways to stay afloat when the shippers drop us during the winter months..
Most of the people offering freight seem to have no idea that an avearage truck payment is around $1800.00 (
www.truckpaper.com) avg fuel cost is $6000.00 per month,avg maintence bill aprx $1000.00 per month,ins and permits/plates is around another $800.00 per month and driver needs aprx $3000.00 a month to earn just $36k per year and this doesn't count tolls,scales and misc business expenses:so $11,100.00 just to run a truck per month on avg of 9000 miles a month or 3000 miles per week for three weeks out of the month (drivers have to by law shut down for 36 hrs after 70 hrs to restart log books and there are is going to be things that prevent perfect operation ),plus you need to allow for the companies to make a profit on top of this so it takes about $1.83 per mile to run a truck;with this reverse auctioning of prices noone can maintain in business unless being subsidised in someway.It simply doesn't add up. Todd Reisinger Agent Landstar Ranger 1-877-656-0678