Price gougers, lay-offs and thieves

The trucking industry is certainly not immune from the ravages of our economy. The effect is being felt by both small family owned companies and the large corporations.

Last week, one of the top flatbed carriers, Melton, laid off approximately 200 drivers, due to the falling freight rates. The slowing construction market and manufacturing sector means fewer loads to be transported, and the drop in freight rates means less payment for the few loads that are left.

We are here in an industrial complex about one mile from Mexico here in Laredo TX. There are trucks waiting to get loaded/unloaded every where you look. There is a lot of commerce traveling back and forth between the border here. The company we are leased on with has a contract with a Mexican company where they bring loads from Mexico into our yard and leave them for our drivers, and likewise, we bring loads that are going into Mexico and leave them in our yard for the Mexican drivers to take across the border. Saves our drivers from having to deal with the border regulations.

The escalator we have brought down here is going to a forwarding company, which is turn will bring it Mexico. We are in line, waiting with about 8 other similar loads, all waiting for the crane to unload us.

The other night we stopped at the Flying J to get some dinner. I needed water, so I picked up a gallon and proceeded to the cash register. I literally had to laugh when the cashier told me I owed $2.79 for one gallon of water!! Last night I picked up another gallon of water here in Laredo at the small truck stop down the road from our yard…….$1.18. Well that was a little better. The same gallon of water that costs .89 cents in Wal-Mart cost three times the price at the J. Got to love it.

This truck stop has a little Mexican restaurant in it, most of the things on the menu we had no clue what they were, I ended up ordering a chicken fajita and Joe ordered BBQ brisket. The food was just alright, but it was great to get some nice fresh home made guacomole and rice and beans. The special of the day was menudo, so I had to look that up and see what that was, I am glad I wasn’t brave and try it, turns out its tripe……yuck, there are just things that arent meant to be eaten. (Not by me anyway!)


We needed a new cord for our laptop and luckily were able to find one at Best Buy. Talk about price gouging….LOL. I’ve ordered them online at a price of about $40. We ended up getting the least expensive one they had, which, with tax, totaled a whopping $120!!!. It was a general purpose one that came with about 10 different adaptors, but, geesh………..they know they have you, what else are you going to do? Buy a new laptop?

Today’s Rant………..THIEVES

A driver for the company that we are leased on with, not only took our trailer that we dropped in our gate locked yard in Jacksonville, FL……he knowingly STOLE 3 lumber tarps, a company tarp (keep reading to find out why we had a company tarp) another small tarp, 3 pad wrap blankets and several straps. You expect this kind of behavior at a truck stop, not in a gated yard owned by your company. Things are really bad when you can not trust a fellow driver with same company. We just have this to say to you…….WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!!!! What goes around will come around, buddy. Nothing further needs to said here on that subject.

This is actually the second time a company driver (yes, again from the company that we are leased on with)
stole our tarps. For those of you that might not know, we have to buy all our own equipment, company drivers do not, they are given these supplies by the company. We really have no clue what this particular company driver was thinking. Here is that story…………we left our trailer at a yard from which we were picking up a load after Christmas. We received permission to leave our trailer there in their yard while we went home for the holidays for 3 days. When we came back, someone had undone our straps on our tarps, taken 3 of our tarps AND LEFT A COMPANY TARP IN THEIR PLACE! (company tarps are a particular, identifying color) We haven’t yet figured out why they would leave a company tarp in our tarps place as a calling card??? (Give this driver his sign, please!)

Just in case you don’t know, these tarps cost us between $300 and $400 each to replace.

I want to add that with the exception of these 2 drivers, our experiences with the other owner operators and company drivers that we have had contact with have all been great people and this does not reflect on them at all.

So, for now, I’m enjoying the fact that I am sitting here in cut-off shorts and the sun is shining and we are together.