Department of Transportation Introduces New Mandates

R&R Freight Services would like to give everyone an explanation surrounding the ongoing situation in the full truck load brokerage business. This does not involve anything that would go on an R&R Freight Services truck, but instead has to do with the long haul brokerage work that we perform for some of our customers. These new mandates are industry wide, and is not an R&R Freight Services issue. Many of our customers have called and expressed frustration that they are going through with all of the transportation companies that they use.

 

On 12/16/2017 the Department of Transportation (DOT) mandated that all trucks must now run on electronic logs. These logs must be up and running in the truck at all times in case of an inspection. Due to this, carriers are forced to abide by the federal regulations placed upon them by the DOT. These new rules state that drivers can no longer drive more than 10 hours or 500 miles per day. This is dramatically less than what they used to do prior to the electronic log rules being put in place. This causes them to drive far less per day which results in it taking longer to get to their destinations for delivery, and that is doing multiple things to the trucking industry. First, it is reducing the capacity of available trucks that can make pickups for the existing moves still available. Secondly, it is driving the cost per mile for deliveries up because it is now taking much longer to do the same job. For example, what we used to do as an overnight job may now take two days based on the miles which results in less miles per week for the individual truck. Due to this, carriers need to charge more per mile in order to stay in business since our operating expenses have remained unchanged.

 

These issues are causing the situation the trucking industry is in today, with carriers charging or attempting to charge higher rates per mile. Our hope is that this will eventually work itself out and things will begin to normalize again. We can’t say when or if that will happen, but we hope that it will happen quickly. Our office staff will continue to do our best to keep our rates as low as possible and still secure trucks needed for our customer’s shipments. We are focused on putting our customers first, with their best interests in mind. Our loyalty and effort will ensure that we are doing right by our customers and their respective companies, so they feel comfortable trusting us with their shipments. Thank you again to everyone who continues to choose R&R Freight Services for their shipping and warehousing needs, and if anyone has any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact us.