By Sandy Long
When I traveled with carnivals, there was an old saying, ‘today you eat chicken, tomorrow you eat the feathers.’ The saying referred to the vagaries that could affect the money one could make. Trucking shares those vagaries with carnivals, the weather, the economy, costs of goods and services, and breakdowns, all conspire to affect income.
Many new drivers, and some not so new sadly, do not understand the economy of trucking. On WIT’s Facebook Group, we often see these folk posting that they had to sit too long this week, in their opinion, and were looking for a new carrier. These are the same folk that only look at their miles by the week, not over a month or quarter, then who are dissatisfied with their pay on a weekly basis. “They lied to me,” we hear, “They promised me three thousand miles a week! I’m out of here!” They do not understand that, yes, they may have had a short week this week, the next week was over average, or the next will be.
Another thing we hear on the same lines, is that someone is on a dedicated run and supposed to do so many pickups and deliveries a week. If they do not get that number of runs, they get all excited and blame the carrier. It might not have been the carrier. There are many factors that go into making a product. I was hauling auto parts; the company had two runs a day out of an Indiana plant. Those runs stopped dead. Come to find out, some of that plant’s parts came from China to be used in making the finished product. There had been an earthquake or some such event over there that had stopped production of those parts for four weeks. This in turn, shut down the auto assembly line making the cars the finished product was used on. Everyone was losing out.
Breakdowns of trucks and trailers is a big income factor for a driver, and for that matter, carriers. If it has wheels and an engine, it will break down is common knowledge amongst older drivers. The very nature of over the road trucking makes getting repairs systematically difficult at times. It never breaks down across the street from a shop. Looking at it from the carrier’s perspective, while that truck is down, the payments on it keep going, the insurance still has to be paid, parts/towing/labor on the road is sky high, and the customer is screaming for their truck or freight, some fining the carrier for late deliveries. In addition, most company drivers get at least something for break down and a motel if the truck is not available to them to sleep in. Yes, it is frustrating for the driver, but who is the bigger loser, the carrier.
It amazes me that some drivers cannot see the affect the economy has on trucking. To make it simple, trucks haul everything that folk buy. If the economy is bad, folk are not working, or gas goes sky high, or heating oil, which throws a monkey wrench into their budgets, they do not buy. If they do not buy, the stores do not order stock they cannot sell, manufacturers cut back production, lay people off, and trucks and drivers sit. It is a vicious cycle.
Our country’s economy has been bad for the last decade. With many of our goods coming in from overseas, this adds to the variables that can affect freight. Instead of bringing all parts for cars to be made from, for instance, Detroit to Kansas City, now perhaps some of the parts have to come from India adding ocean storms to the mix. There are indications that our economy might be starting to recover. However, it is like a roller coaster ride, with highs, and then swoops into very deep lows. It is anyone’s guess if it will stabilize back to what it once was.
A smart trucker does not run around fluttering their feathers and squawking like a crazy chicken, they eat the chicken when they can, and save back so they do not have to eat the feathers. They might go in and talk to their company honestly without anger, and listen to what is going on that they might not know about. They wait it out. Freight will pick up eventually.