Again, I must apologize for the lack of posts, I am experiencing a lot of difficulty in getting online with my AT&T internet card. (As soon as I started typing this, I lost service yet again!) If anyone else uses one, please let me know how its been working for you. It just seems like nothing works as well these days as they used to.
We stopped off at the Gooseberry Farms Travel Plaza in Pine Grove PA last night, exit 100 off of I-81. The plan was to shower and then stop in the restaurant for a bite to eat. I guess I should have known things were going to be bad when I gagged from the decomposing smells of the over flowing garbage pails, but the rat running by me really was a definite clue. I must say that is the first time that I have seen one of those out here. What really got Joe was that they wanted $9 per person for us to shower. Now we don’t mind paying $10 but $18 is just a rip off and we refused to pay that, especially when we do have a shower in our truck. Its just easier to clean up and not have wet towels hanging in the truck, so we usually shower at the truck stops. Joe was so mad he forgot to go over to DQ and get some ice cream!
There was a good article on MSNBC.com last week regarding how badly the economy has effected the trucking industry. Here is the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30728469/
Its nothing new to us folks out here on the road, but its nice to finally see one of the big news carriers actually acknowledge the fact.
One of the largest companies, Werner, has reduced its fleet by 4%, over 8,000 trucks. So far just in 2009 480 companies have gone out of business already this year alone. (Last year a total of 3,000 companies closed their doors) They don’t expect that things will improve much before a year from now. Its not a pretty picture, that’s for sure. Especially for what we do, the flatbeds, where so much of that is based on hauling commodities for the construction industry.
Some weeks, we have sat waiting for a load for more days then we have actually spent driving. The scary thing is, almost all of the other drivers we talk to out on the road are experiencing exactly the same thing. Everyone we talk to is making half (or less) than what they were last year at this time.
We were talking to one driver at a truck stop in NJ yesterday and his company had a contract to haul a commodity that paid them $3.50 gross per mile. One of the largest trucking companies in the county (I’ll give you a hint, it starts with an “S”, so you have a choice of 2 there) came in and bid the job for $1.60 a mile. This happens all the time, I call it the Wal-Mart approach to trucking. They bid very low for a contract, after a few months, they raise the rates they charge right back up as high as the original trucking company was getting, who, by now, have been forced to close their doors. It’s a never ending cycle.
On a lighter note, I’m hoping to post some recipes that will go good with any Memorial Day BBQ’s you might be having this weekend. Lets hope AT&T cooperates for a change!