Cherry Pickin

[LDB]

Jon, you worked for Panther for how long and when was it again? Small companies are good to work for from the standpoint of knowing you by name etc. but they don't have the customer base. Panther is certainly not a perfect company and either. No company is. That said, fleet owners get no preferential treatment from dispatch at Panther. I'm sure you hear that from the same drivers who are cherry picking and not making what they could if they were more intelligent about run selection.

Leo Bricker, 73's K5LDB, OOIDA Life Member 677319
Owner, Panther trucks 5508, 5509, 5641
Highway Watch Participant, Truckerbuddy
EO Forum Moderator
----------
Support the entire Constitution, not just the parts you like.

True friends don't let friends vote liberal or union.

 

[Made In Detroit]

I never claimed to work for Panther nor would I ever even consider it. And that is based solely on the hear-say from the former Panther O/O's that I work with who tell me that they never made as much money at Panther, or any other carrier for that matter, as they have at our present carrier. I do know that my load acceptance rate as well as the load acceptance rate of many of my fellow O/O's is at or near 100%, and we are all very profitable. No such thing as cherry-picking here, as it is not necessary. As well as the fact that the owner of my company who uses Panther as the butt of many jokes, and also refuses to use them to cover any loads that he cannot cover because he quote, '...doesn't want to subject his customers to that...'. You will never hear me claim to have worked for Panther, but when you hear that coming from the mouth of an owner of a very successful 5-Star carrier, it does have a tendency to make you think. In fact, Panther is the only company that I have heard him criticize.

 

[x06col]

That is certainly an uninformed/uneducated statement that "small Carriers don't have the customer base". Can't imagine why, if you don't know, why you'd type it. Seems most of the "experts" on this site have "one dimensional" experience from which they draw, and spew their wisdom of this business, and in their dreams (it seems) come up with a "short list" of something different to do, in case they have a couple bad days in a row. Interesting.

 

[BigDiesel]

Who do you drive for Made? LOL

 

[silverdollar]

Do you drive for C&M ?

 

[Tennesseahawk]

Well, Leo... since I started with my small company, my avg miles per run has almost doubled since I was with Panther. And that's solo now vs being team with Panther. The bigger companies are nice if you like a small run per day, so you can hightail it to the truckstop to get your zzzs. Most of us, tho, are out here to make moolah. And running solo with a big company is not my idea of doing that.

With some small carriers, that might be true... dispatch knows your name, but can't find a load for nuthin. The good small companies get the calls: "Hey buddy. Can you cover this load?" The dispatchers spend more time answering these type of calls than looking for freight. That's a good thing!

"If I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know." - Kansas

 

[Fr8 Shaker]

As for myself, I really wasn't bashing Panther, Instead I just mentioned a few thing that IF they were changed would stop about 98% of the problems and complaints.

1) Pay more for mini's
2) Do away with losing board position. Keep it fair
3) Increase d/h pay / re-instate empty move pay
4) Pay practical miles on all loads

Sometimes the biggest problems are solved with the simplest solutions

Fr8 Shaker

 

[davekc]

I think the small carriers do have a customer base. I believe what they don't have is access to some of the larger national accounts.
Keep in mind, I said some of them, or they have to go through these larger carriers to have access. We have looked at it from different sides as we have been a small carrier with our own authority in the past, as well as leased to a large carrier.
As for the smaller carriers, they in many instances may be better suited for solos because of the HOS. If the requirement of onboard recorders becomes a reality, it will have a significant impact on the smaller carriers.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them wiped out.
And, as said 100 times on EO, if there was that perfect company, everyone would be there. Just common sense tells me someone is making money at these large carriers. If not, they wouldn't have the amount of trucks they have.





Davekc
owner
22 years
PantherII
EO moderator

 

[Made In Detroit]

Out of respect for my employer who does not wish to have the name of his company associated with theese forums I have to keep it a secret. But it is not C&M. Trust me on what I say, my experience with them has been very good, I am not bulls****ing about my load acceptance rate being 100%, and I am operating very profitably. There is actually a pretty sizeable customer base as well. I have a great deal of respect for my employer, he has more integrity than anyone I have ever met, I have never been lied to once that I know of. No I don't always abide by the HOS, but then again I have never been one to play by the rules. I have this genetic predisposition of contempt for authority, probably why I work for myself as I seem to be the only person who can get along with me }> .

 

[x06col]

Access to Large Accounts, with the deep discount requirement is available to most anyone in the business if, one chooses to go there. We don't. HOS rules changes will "wipe some out"? Maybe, if one does not addapt and overcome.

 

[blacktiger]

Made in Detroit. are you some kind of DA?
you look like a fool trashing other companies and can't say your own.
If your owner is afraid of his name on here, that would would be reason enough to bolt off the other direction.
Might want to look into that reason hes can't be mentioned by name.
I bet he got alot of lawsiuts against him.


George

 

[Turtle]

Any business, be it a carrier, fleet or truck owner, is a reflection of those who work for them. I'm sure there are lots of reasons why a carrier or an owner wouldn't want someone else speaking for them on here, even something as simple as publicly stating who they work for, so as to not have their comments associated with the owner.

This is particularly true if it's a driver that says things like they don't follow the rules and have an abject, disdain view of authority, even to the point of not doing something that makes intelligent and common sense, just because some authority told them to do it.

This posting is purely hypothetical. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Well, maybe not entirely.

 

[LDB]

Expanding on my prior comment, many of the smaller companies have much smaller customer bases than a large outfit like Panther or FedEx. I do not believe that all small companies have only a handful of customers. I do believe there are some small companies that don't need to be cherry picked because they almost exclusively book decent loads. They don't have to accept the junk loads to satisfy the "big client" the way bigger companies do if they want to keep the good loads.

Leo Bricker, 73's K5LDB, OOIDA Life Member 677319
Owner, Panther trucks 5508, 5509, 5641
Highway Watch Participant, Truckerbuddy
EO Forum Moderator
----------
Support the entire Constitution, not just the parts you like.

 

[bryan]

Hi

I think the reason you see so many post about Panther and FedCC is because there are more of us on this site.If every carrier was represented by just 5% of their personal on this site then Panther would have 10 posters.(2000x.05)

Panther does need to raise the mini rate.If they paid a van a flat rate of $50.00 + a per mile rate for all miles empty and loaded I would take every mini offered.This would also force dispatch to offer more realistic loads.Example:50 empty miles to pick up a load going 10 miles and then bounceing back to point of dispatch would pay $127.00(100 empty miles x.77 + $50.00). I figure 5 hours to do that trip x3 per day is 15 hours.3x$127.00=$381.00.The same as a 500 mile load.Considering that the mini's take 5 more hours than the long trip they should at least pay this much.

As for the drivers council.Its the only reason I still have Panther signs on my truck.It says that they are atleast trying to make improvements and they are willing to listen to our concerns and suggestions.

As for those people on the council THANKS.I'll be screaming in your ear on a couple of issues here shortly.I don't have much but by God I have alot of opinions.LOL

 

[Moot]

I generally won't move my van for less than $100.00. I turned down a mini picking up 12 miles from my home and delivering Monday morning 10 miles from the pickup. It paid $74.00. I was OOS but they offered anyway. I agreed to haul it for $100.00. I was told they could find someone else.

Being that I am still operating under my Con-Way contract I should have accepted the $74.00 offer and then hit them with $70.00 weekend charge per my contract. But I just didn't feel like a battle this weekend. Jeez I must be getting old.

 

[cheri1122]

Moot, getting old is a lot better than the alternative...especially if you're getting wiser, too.

 

[guest]

In our experience, a lot of the "largest national accounts" tend to have the most discounted rates!

 

[theoldprof]

I was the ultimate cherry picker last week. My wife made an executive decision: You WILL be home Sat morn. Dead heading home from Canada to Indiana, I was offered 4 loads totaling over 2600 miles. I had tears in my eyes as I punched the N (for NO) button. Mind you, I am a solo van. Where were these loads when I was dying on the vine earlier?
:+ :+

 

[redhotxpress]

gonna have to join CPA (cherry pickers anonymous). worried that i might need help to overcome this horrible disease. please, tell me if i'm one of them. 2 load offers in 6 days both 96 miles
first, we are a team. we came back into service after xmas and got a load (1st offer) of 1046 miles to new york. then we turned down a reduced rate with over 100 miles dh that p/u in canada and went to charlotte,nc. they came back offered full rate...so we took it.
delivered in charlotte on friday before new years weekend so we weren't expecting anything and we didn't get anything by saturday late afternoon. so..we went to see family for the rest of saturday (went o/s about 4 pm). went back into svc before noon on sunday. drove 100 miles to greensboro so we'd be in better location. no load offer sunday or monday. 1st load offer was tuesday afternoon. p/u at 1745 and del. at 2100. dh 67 miles for a 96 mile load that took us even further out of the loop. we turned it down, got dumped to bottom of the barrel now 4th out. so should we have taken the load? we decided to head to charlotte cause there were no teams there and supposedly none to be there til 3 hrs after we'd arrive.
now, we're 2nd out, 1st team, no other trucks. load offer...another 96 mile run with 111 miles w/ full dh if we take it, picking up 5 hrs from offer time and delivering at 1600. full dh is $55, load pay $129 (we get 60%...$77.76, f/s, our fuel price would be approx. $60 so we'd make $121.76 off the load) should we have taken it? is this considered cherry picking? how are we suppose to keep our acceptance rating up with load offers like this? we don't have to have over 500 miles each load but we would like to see some team loads. are we wrong?:*

 

[creekindian33]

panther needs to get it together,they cant expect team drivers to take these small loads.there is no money in it,we the team lose every time we take these loads for them.if this is all u have u need to get ride of ur team drivers,we have lost atleaset 20 thousand this year whith panther,panther did not get conwayes contracts.the reason con way did so well is because they did not rely on car parts.car parts was 20 percent of there freight,the reson panther did not get all the contracts is because panther is like fed x they charge a high dollar to ship con way charged no more then 75 cent abouve what the driver makes were panther charges one to three dolars above the driver.con way hade the same guarentees panther did on freight but they did not charge as much so panther got the trucks but did not get the contracs an so team drivers r having to cherry pick freight just to make a profit.besides we r a subcontractor if panther whants us to take all there loades they need to pay for my truck ins,matin,an everything elses that im paying for if they whant all there loads or for us to stop cherry picking its no force dispatch,they r going or heading towards a law suite if the continue to do buisness this way.i have talkt to enough owners that r not going to put up whith this panther bull.but on the other hand u p s is hiring the have the miles an ur pay is every week,they r set up like con way,lot of people have already went that way i talk to the recruter awile back he had 400 phone calls from panther drivers alone that should tell panther they need to change there wayes