Originally published at: Trucking Crisis: Why Regulation Reform Is Urgent - FreightWaves
The U.S. trucking industry is facing a crisis of overcapacity, safety lapses and national security risks, exacerbated by decades of deregulation and lax enforcement. Since March 2018, the number of active for-hire carriers has nearly doubled from 138,000 to 212,000 today, a 54% increase. According to SONAR’s OTVI index, freight volumes are only 1.2% higher…
Regulate the number of carriers but no we do not want you touching rates? hypocrisy at its finest. Either it’s a free market or it’s not. If you limit operators the government should fully set rates for you otherwise it will naturally led to price gauging
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Freighwaves is so long it’s actually funny.
They want even more regulations for carriers yet refuse to talk about regulations for brokers. Brokers are constantly committing fraud, malpractice, abuse, etc yet we as carriers can’t do anything in return. Even if you as a carrier did everything right, if a shipper messed something up you lose. If you want to ■■■■■ to get compensated, push hard enough and the broker will just “freighguard” you. Like the broker who threatened to freight guard me for running late. Due to shipper loading for 16 hours. Than blaming us for taking the load. Fining us $500 and saying if we push back on him (broker) he would write freight guard.
REGULATE SHIPPERS
REGULATE RECEIVERS
REGULATE BROKERS, But no, according to Freightwaves, just regulate carriers only.
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Regulating carrier count - no. Regulating carrier ownership and quality - yes. Carrier count is up (not driver count) and that means poor quality drivers and foreign types have an easier time finding a home. Hiring standards of good carriers have not changed during this time Mr. Fuller refers to and may have even become more stringent due to insurance requirements and nuclear verdicts. The carrier operators who move between MCs are the new home of the typically unemployable, or certainly less desirable, drivers. Its not challenging to understand what is happening in the marketplace. How to resolve it remains elusive but will not occur on a free market basis all by itself because, as Mr. Fuller points out, its simply too easy to cheat.
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“Drawing inspiration from the airline industry”
Let’s not model our industry on one that requires frequent government intervention to maintain.
What about Broker regulations . All we need to know is how much is broker paid for the freight.
In addition we need a simple AI system that verifies the carrier main strong points and violation and connects directly to shipper. Shipper can decide who will carry their freight according to the performance of the carrier and their actual location.
In the present time we do not need those blood sucking brokers making 50-80% of the freight profit and treating carriers with Zero respect al while ripping them off from the last dollar.
Connect to local freight customers , avoid brokers and create an AI system to verify the carriers.
“This is how a market should work”
No, this is how free markets work.
Trucking isn’t a free market. Free markets do not regulate the hours and duties of owners and workers. This is a regulated industry. They regulate every owner operator’s productivity with HoS, regulate our equipment with standards not even seen in the airline industry, and require us to pay to play with IFTA and 2290.
They do not regulate anyone else in the industry, allowing for gross abuse by every single other entity. They also have DOT enforcing regulations on drivers, but have no entity to even monitor the actions of brokers, shippers, receivers, shops, tow companies, travel plazas/legal parking, or any of the other services that we are required to use in order to remain compliant.
Regulate or do not regulate, but to regulate one arm of the industry, while every other arm is treated as free market, is the primary reason for our ongoing critically-high failure rates that are not seen in any other industry.
Oh, for God Sake leave the carriers alone. There are actually enough regulations to register an USDOT/MC. Moreover, just an USDOT with no active MC needs to be registered almost always if an individual decides to buy a truck. I mean buy (or lease to buy) personally not the predatory lease chicago-style scheme. In many cases to be approved on loan or register the truck they must be a business and provide a USDOT number. Regulate the freight brokers and insurance companies (and insurance brokers). and set the federal insurance rates. I still can’t realize why PA carrier pays twice more for the insurance than say ND or WY carrier while all of them driving in a same Texas or Arizona or whatever? My company is not new. 7 years old without any major issue and empty loss runs last 5 years. But this June insurance renewal had brought me the rate of 28K a year per truck for pretty much regular coverage. And all 7 quotes i’ve received were kinda same. ■■■?
My thoughts are nearly my opinions. I read all articles pertaining to the industry I grew up in. From a whipper snapper to the driver I am today.
Bottom line to all that I am seeing out here and reading is one extremely important topic. Training and Education. Some may say that two, it’s not. We educate through training and train through education.
Look I believe our industries amongst all others from Politics all the way down to laborists have been hijacked by uneducated and untrained folks from all walks of life. We have become a society of putting blinders on and not being able to see the forest through the trees. We have allowed the few to rule. We have allowed values and morals to disappear. We have let technology take over and we keep seeking cheat codes / hacks. Hack was a term I used to identify a lazy person that failed. Just sayin
There has to be a change and the change has to start somewhere and it’s going to hurt. It will cripple , but can be rebuilt stronger then ever before. Do not conform any more. Get back to the basics and quit looking for cheat codes. Educate through training and train through education. The rest will fall into place