Dallas to Chicago 2050 Miles?

Reading an article in The Trucker (pick up at any TA/Petro and some select other truck stops, even get home delivery) came across this trucking industry expert analyst speaking at the Truckload Carriers Annual Convention.

This guy likes increased insurance rates, sees massive truck driver shortages and seems to advocate every argument big mega carriers have against independent owner operators. He talks about a solo driver going from Dallas to Chicago in one shift, "...a distance of 2050 miles, in one day with a solo driver." I get the feeling this guy is disgusted with owner operator competition. He talks about speed limiters, ELD's and more rigorous medical checkups with pride, "The cheaters won't be able to cheat anymore. There's a reason OOIDA fights nearly every one of these regulations because the small members can't compete economically if they have to follow the rules on a level playing field.They are at a disadvantage because they pay more for their trucks, they don't get as much in trade for their used trucks, they pay more for fuel, their trucks are older, they are not as fuel efficient, they don't have information systems to balance their networks, they are reliant on brokers who skim off as much of the revenue as they can for their own."

OK, so looks like the game plan is in play, the big megas are on an all out attack against the small business trucker as we all suspected. They are collaborating with the feds to implement chokehold regulations to get what they want.

What I find interesting is mega companies seems to skim and trim everywhere they can for fear of economically sinking. Let's look at some ways, add more if you think of it--

1. Short Miles - say a driver is paid $0.45 for 2500 miles but he has to drive 2675 actual miles, then his true pay is really $0.42 per mile.Spread that out over hundreds or perhaps thousands of drivers you're talking in the billions of dollars that these companies need to run day to day operations, without which they would be sinking.

2. Fuel Discounts at the mega fuel distributors. Yes with many trucks a company can make a deal to purchase x amount of fuel per month and get a kickback discount. They certainly don't extend this through to the drivers especially not consistently (some carriers share discounts) through to the independent contractors leased onto them. In this way the carrier is using short miles and fuel discounts as 'crutch' to support their business. But they prefer to blame their economic woes on owner operators who run paper logs ostensibly falsifying their logs to get an extra 100 miles per day in an unlevel playing field.

3. The guy said owner operators pay more for their trucks, well duh, we get OO spec'd trucks, not fleet gray mush trucks with auto trans and 3 dash gauges, no air dump, no sliding 5th wheel, no apu, you get the idea....

 

I think the guy was using scare tactic mind control technique-- "look! truck drivers out there running wild out of compliance, killing innocent people .... we can get it there legally with electronic log and we know exactly where the driver is, we even have a live video feed of the driver driving for your safety."

 

I could load up in Grand Prairie TX Monday midnight and be in Bolingbrook IL Tuesday morning about 0200 AM give or take.