Owner-operator Joe Bielucki averages about $3.50 a mile on all miles, loaded or not, in the course of his mostly regional loads around his native Connecticut. He happens to sit within the boundaries of a hotspot for inbound freight.
“I have come in here from Pennsylvania at $5 a mile,” he says. In such a case, “you might as well just deadhead down there and grab the load.” Truckstop.com rate averages in 2014 for flatbed inbound to Connecticut were the highest of any state in the country at $3.03. Connecticut’s also at the top for both inbound van (No. 1) and reefer (No. 2).
In fact, Northeastern states dominate the inbound top 10s for all three segments. The hitch is that it’s hard to get out. “For years, guys have taken cheap freight out of here,” Bielucki says, often at “$3 a mile going in, as low as $1.50 or worse coming out.”
Bielucki goes after more lucrative local opportunities working directly with shippers. “When I go out 100 miles,” he says, “with my direct-ship freight, I can make more than $1,000 on a 200-mile turn and be eating dinner at 5 o’clock at my table and sleeping in my Sleep Number bed with my sweetie-pie. If I’m going to go further afield, I really want to make more dollars” than that.
The inbound-outbound dynamics in many Northeastern states are such that rates on outbound freight always are toward the bottom of the barrel. The lowest-10-states list for outbound freight in all segments looks a lot like the top-inbound list, with Northeastern states well represented, particularly north of Connecticut. Notably absent in low-rate lists are larger states such as New York and Pennsylvania, potential destinations for owner-operators stuck in the region without a load.
