FEMA loads - reasonable daily rates?

just say NO and haul your regular freight for those rates,$2.00 per mile and $75 a day ,going there is ok but what if you wait in line to unload for 4 days at $75 bucks,biiig money,yeah right

 

Pitfalls

You will never know how long you will set on the load before they unload you.

Never take a double brokered load, it will never work out unless you have it from the principle.

Get everything agreed upon in writing, worms come out of the wood work when FEMA loads are involved.

Sometimes you arrive at the receiver, then the load may be diverted to another location. Negotiate terms before hand for a contingency plan.

Keep your tanks topped off, it may be days or miles before the next fuel stop open.

Keep your own water and food supplies handy, TP and personal hygiene supplies may be scarce for weeks in a disaster area.

Have to keep this in mind when rates are negotiated.

 

TQL got the contract from FEMA? Sorry, I pass.

 

TQL is not FEMA sanctioned, double or triple brokered load if they are offering it.

 

Fuel... getting reports from the head shed that most truckstops in NJ, eastern PA, MD and CT are without power. No fuel up there!

 

What makes drivers 'price gouging' during a natural disaster and different than the 'carpetbaggers' that flooded the South after the Civil War??? IMHO it takes a heartless person to take advantage during a natural disaster which has left so many people dead, homeless, etc. And ultimately, the money is just coming out of the publics pockets!!!

 

Simple supply and demand. I am not going there because even if I did get that huge paying load there I may have to sit on it for a week. I'd rather take the sure fire way to make money and steady as she goes kind of thing.

 

So...if a carrier is offered $1,000 a day they should say "Nooooo, we could NEVER take that kind of money. We'll do it for $750 because we're a good corporate citizen"

That's NOT how the "free market system" works. You don't see the shippers in Joisey saying "I can get this moved for a buck a mile all day long BUT 'cause your costs are a buck and a half I'll pay you that"

 

Don't haul a FEMA load for $2 and $3 a mile they're making about 60-70% off of your truck if you do. I know circumstance is everything but I picked a 10pm pickup several weeks back that we booked in a hurry thru expedite contacts that had FEMA contracts and the gross pay was $2200 on 344 loaded miles run and deliver straight through, got lucky and there were no trucks backed up waiting to unload. I checked that in my ledger, I know I claimed $7.50 a mile from memory in another posting about this load yesterday. My original quote was $2400 and I almost turned it down at a $2200 counter. The actual rate to the truck was $5.883 per loaded mile. I'm seeing Landstar start these loads out at anywhere from $1.50 to $2.25 a mile and they keep rising the best I have seen yet was $4.08 a mile then they are gone.. While that is head and shoulders much better than the TQL's and CHR's double brokering this stuff it is still a crying shame how they try to make off like bandits like that on loads that have big money behind them and need to move urgently. To my way of thinking $4 a mile is cheap on these loads but guys will snatch them up at that. Whatever you do, just DON'T do $2-$3 on the loaded miles rate that is just crazy cheap on these loads....