Tractor Operators
Tractor Operators
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US $12.99
It pains and saddens me to think about the state of trucking and our economy. With almost every phone call I make or receive at work I hear about how almost every driver is looking for work, trying to keep their truck, or wondering how they're going to pay their bills.
I had the very unfortunate conversation, again, this morning with one of my shippers. 'Fuel is going down,' he says, and 'since you are still attaching a fuel surcharge, maybe that's why your rates are higher'. But our rates aren't higher than other trucking companies; our rates are higher than companies that are low-balling freight rates.
Companies that don't even own trucks and offering freight have no idea what it costs to run a truck, nor do they seem to care. They still make their commission and pay their bills, so why not continue to keep going the way they are. In the process, however, it keeps an industry repressed-- unable to grow and unable to help a failing economy.
Trucking is probably one of the worst industries I know of where rates have stayed the same through the years. In 1976 I hauled steel for about $1.35 to $1.50 per mile. In 1988 I was offered and ran for about $1.50 per mile. In 2003 I dispatched trucks for about $1.50 per mile-- just to stay competitive. Everything in our lives has increased in value with the exception of freight rates. Thankfully, around that time rates started increasing due to the difficulty in finding trucks. Cost of fuel and insurance had increased about 140% and finally drivers were realizing they were running for less than they were making and refused to take cheap freight.
I watched as rates went up about 35% and then carriers started adding fuel surcharges. There was hope for trucking and our economy. Fast-forward five years. Now with fuel going back down and people spending less, trucking becomes one of the most vulnerable industries. Today with a failing economy, shippers and manufacturers are doing anything they can to keep costs down and stay in business.
Enter the brokers. Argue this if you will, but unless you own a truck, trucking company and or pay the bills to run a truck, consider some facts:
· Today, diesel still runs an average $2.31 per mile
· Tires cost are double from just a few years ago
· Insurance rates are up 140%
· Cost of living has increased significantly since the 70's.
If a driver ran strictly at $1.98 per mile, kept his deadhead (empty miles) down to less than 8% and was loaded all the time, he may still only make about $25,000 a year. Does that sound like a lot to be out there 24/7? My facts come with 32 years of experience, over 1700 owner operators and I have owned and operated multiple trucks.
Where do the brokers come up with their rates? I've heard them offering freight out at less than a dollar per mile, less than the truck even makes. I used to say that drivers are good at what they do, but not always good accountants. Some of them are actually running for less than they're making. They could stay in business if they stayed on the road, sent money home to their wives and basically lived in their trucks. Now there is no money to send home and more drivers than ever are losing their trucks.
Drivers cannot take freight for less than the truck makes or we must put a law into effect that restricts people from offering freight out for less than minimum wage. We must either start regulating freight again, stop brokers and people from quoting and offering out cheap freight--or we will have to sit idly by and watch as some drivers take freight to keep moving, only to put the money back in their truck, not into the economy, and then have no boost to our economy and no one left to move freight.
Even carriers that should know better (since they own trucks) are brokering freight out. People that find freight on the Internet should, at the very least, offer loads that would pay minimum wage to the driver. Again, right now these loads are being offered for less than the truck makes.
Watch a video from Good Morning America and ABC News titled 'Economy: Sectors to Watch:' http://www.abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=6617036 -- get to know a face this effects directly as this process is called low-balling or repressing an industry. As bad as things are already, this will eventually put America out of business. Many reliable sources say as much as 78% of everything we use is delivered by truck. So, in order to help trucking and our economy we must deal with this now!
I am the President and CEO of Kennon Transport, LLC, a very successful trucking company I run with my wife of 12 years, Sue. Before owning this company, I was a runaway and was virtually homeless for most of my childhood and young adulthood. To survive on the road, I did everything from driving tractor-trailers, sold encyclopedias door to door, hustled pool, was a baker, ski instructor, sous chef, drug dealer and many other positions of many natures. Drugs and other dependencies took over my life to the point that I could not accept help when it was offered, nor could I stop running away from a past that haunted me. While now blessed with what I have achieved in my life and in my personal, family and business relationships, things were much different at one time. It has become a passion of mine to write and tell my story in order to help other runaways and the parents. In 2008, I authored a book called "Memoirs of a Runaway: A Story of Hope". It is a tale of survival and spirituality. Isolation and reconnection. Most of all, it is a hand reaching out to those who travel down the same troubled path; a story of hope.
The publishers site, reviews, an audio excerpt and more information @ http://www.outskirtspress.com/memoirs or go to http://www.memoirsofarunaway.com
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The Operators $14.99 General Stanley McChrystal, the innovative, forward-thinking commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was living large. He was better known to some as Big Stan, M4, Stan, and his loyal staff liked to call him a "rock star." During a spring 2010 trip across Europe to garner additional allied help for the war effort, McChrystal was accompanied by journalist Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone . For days, Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration for what they saw as a lack of leadership. When Hastings's piece appeared a few months later, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was ordered to Washington, where he was fired unceremoniously. In The Operators , Hastings picks up where his Rolling Stone coup ended. He gives us a shocking behind-the-scenes portrait of our military commanders, their high-stakes maneuvers and often bitter bureaucratic infighting. Hastings takes us on patrol missions in the Afghan hinterlands, to late-night bull sessions of senior military advisors, to hotel bars where spies and expensive hookers participate in nation-building gone awry. And as he weighs the merits and failings of old-school generals and the so-called COINdinistas-the counterintelligence experts-Hastings draws back the curtain on a hellish complexity and, he fears, an unwinnable war. |
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