This may actually be correct, but it’s amusing because that’s what the anti-maskers/anti-lockdowners were accusing the US government of doing.
I still haven’t watched the Oliver piece, but the first thing to understand is that there are vastly different standards for different types of trucking.
Boredsocial is a broker dealing between shippers and carriers hauling oversized freight. That’s a whole different ballgame than the vast majority of trucking.
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Things are more uniform and exploitative and nonpersonal for what’s called truckload carriers. That’s the common thing you see on the highway:
Then there is intermodal freight. The containers that move from ship to rail, ship to truck, rail to truck, etc:
Brokers in truckload generally have boilerplate pittances allowed for detention (by hour) and layover (by day) in the “ratecons” they have the carriers sign. Employees of the carrier generally get something like 20 dollars an hour detention AFTER the first two hours which are free, capped at a layover rate of 100 to 200 bucks a day.
“Independent” truckers and “owner operators” are almost never the actual carrier. Even when it’s not the typical scam 1099 operation, it’s very rare, even for a trucker with a paid off truck legitimately making great money, to be a registered carrier rather than “using someone else’s numbers” ie being under a carrier. A truckload carrier’s detention and layover they’re getting from a broker is generally less revenue than they need to keep out of the red for that period of time.
Container haulers, I’m not sure how that operates. I do know a much higher percentage of container drivers are getting paid a flat rate per load regardless of delays or anything else, and are getting scammed as 1099 contractors who are clearly employees.
When you just talk about a driver’s experience, it depends if that driver is an employee, a contractor, involved in a lease purchase scam, a legit owner operator but not the carrier, or an owner operator who is also the carrier
And we haven’t gotten into other areas of trucking such as LTL, tanker, and flatbed
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And there’s a big difference between hauling for a broker and hauling for a direct customer.
Either way though, the driver is almost always getting paid by the carrier, not by the broker or the direct customer shipper/receiver.
Except for the probably less than 1% of 1% of drivers who are also carriers
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What is a carrier? What is the distinction there?
Carrier is a key word used by the US Department of Transportation. To haul interstate freight, you must be registered with the US DOT, who gives your carrier a number to identify it. That’s what owner ops mean when they say running their own numbers or someone else’s. It’s literally the US DOT number that must be painted on the side of the truck.
The carrier must handle all of the requirements and regulations and registrations, and is the entity who must receive payment from customers. Legit owner ops, even the ones negotiating their own terms with brokers and customers, usually are signed on to a carrier who keeps anywhere between 5 and 35 percent of the revenue before disbursing the rest to the owner op.
If it’s on the high end of that scale that the carrier is keeping, that will mean any number of things such as the carrier owning the trailers, or even things like the carrier helping with some part of things like fuel and maintenance.
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I vaguely remember people saying not to drink it but i used to fill up my water bottle from the DI tap.
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Absolute unit.
Do you subscribe to the “hungry water” idea? My advisor talked about it but I was never sure if he wasn’t just messing with us.
That thing is probably 100 years old.
I don’t do all that much OD to be fair… but machinery is my main thing for sure.
I think your point that there are vastly different standards for different types of trucking really needs to be heavily emphasized. Trucking is a huge space with an absolutely massive gap between the worst trucking jobs (lease purchase aka fleece purchase deals are in my opinion the most nakedly exploitative thing in the entire industry but you might disagree) and the best.
The big division I see though is the gap between drivers with 3-5 years of experience vs those with less. Those with less are typically making 50k or less and working an absurd amount in very bad/dangerous conditions. They nearly always work for larger trucking companies that are self insured, because those are the only companies that can hire them.
If you’re a truck driver with 3+ years of experience who is on the road at least 3 out of 4 weeks and you aren’t making 100k you need to find a new job. If you’re home every night you should be making 50k+. If you’re manually handling freight on a regular basis doing something like LTL you should be making 75k minimum even if you’re running regional and are home most nights.
I mostly deal with smaller trucking companies with 1-10 power units (that’s the truck part). I’ve been at every level of the industry from the low with watermelons to the high with machinery, and at no point is being a truck driver easy money.
If people are super interested in this world here’s a 2p2’er’s post about starting a small trucking company. It goes on and on but is a very very good thread: Double Yellow's Company Driver to Independent Thread | TruckersReport.com Trucking Forum | #1 CDL Truck Driver Message Board
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Lol Larry Summers
https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1513875274861056013?s=21&t=FBtwAPPtS1VgsLeUJK6Qew
Hey, when you’re right 10% of the time, then you’re wrong 90% of the time.
Adams, according to Moore, was involved in eight separate follow-off robberies over a sixth-month period starting last fall, including one in which two UCLA students were robbed of two watches worth nearly $145,000 after leaving a club, a second in which two foreign tourists were robbed of watches worth $73,000, and a third in which $51,000 in property was stolen.
In a separate case, a man named Cheyenne Hale, 25, was arrested this month on suspicion of participating in the armed robbery of a man in downtown L.A. in October in which two watches estimated to be worth about $600,000 were stolen.
Who are these people going to clubs and just walking in downtown LA with $100k+ watches on?
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Rich people tend to act with a lot of impunity because they usually get everything they want all the time.