# Bad Year for Trucking Companies



## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Celadon is going under. 3,200 drivers will be on the road when their company credit cards are turned off, leaving them without fuel.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...rs-stranded-and-jobless/ar-BBXXdx6?li=BBnb7Kz


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## hawgrider (Oct 24, 2014)

In 3... 2... 1... get your wallets out stuff is going to go up!


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## Chipper (Dec 22, 2012)

Sure most can just make a call and slip into another truck from a different company. Driver shortage is very high so it a good experienced driver will not miss much work. 

I wouldn't use my money to get their truck home. Park it and rent a car or get on a bus. Catch a ride with another driver.


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## Smitty901 (Nov 16, 2012)

Drop the trailer bobtail as far as you can towards home call for family to come get you. leave the key in the truck. 
We don't know why they are going under. Even the best company with bad management can go under in any economy.


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

Big business drove out most Independents years ago. Too bad we don't still have them.


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## rice paddy daddy (Jul 17, 2012)

This is not the first one this year, either.
Most of the carriers who bit the dust in 2018 and 2019 were full load carriers.

While the Trump economy may look good as far as job numbers and stock price, the fact is manufacturing never came back, and in fact is down.
When Trump was elected, industry people were forecasting that we would be tens of thousands of drivers short. It appears these predictions were premature. There just are not that many goods to haul.
The latest company, Celadon, evidently has been in financial trouble for a while. From what I've read, several company executives are about to be arrested, or already have, for "cooking the books" to conceal massive money loss, going back a few years.

I was in trucking, distribution and logistics my entire full time career - 45 years. I still pay attention to these things. Face Book is so, so much more than teenage girl stuff. I follow a couple trucking companies, and a number of pages designed just for CDL drivers.
It was on these pages that I learned some drivers have already had their fuel cards shut off, and any tractors in repair shops will not be fixed.
Many other drivers are offering to give stuck drivers a ride to at least get closer to home.

I'm glad I'm retired, but I wouldn't trade the working life I had with trucks, truck drivers, and warehousing for anything. I wasn't cut out to drive a desk, although I did have to do so toward the end.


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## Boss Dog (Feb 8, 2013)

Maybe my newest son-in-law not so dumb! Owned his own rig & lowboy for many years. 
He turns down a lot of work, people that know him call for him all the time. 
There are a few websites he checks for loads looking for a driver & rig. 
He takes his pick and keeps as busy as he wants to be. 
I think daughter #2 chose well this time around, he takes good care of her & the shadow monsters!


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## bigwheel (Sep 22, 2014)

Well I spent a big part of of my younger years enjoying a love hate relationaship with Truck drivers. I was sorta prejudiced towards liking em since my Daddy in Law was a long time Freight Hauler for Central Freight Lines. He drove from Wichita Falls to Dallas and back twice a shift. Made more money than any 8th grade graduate I ever met and was generally a prince of a fellow. I found myself in the Smokey Bear business in 70 and continued to appreciate their function and was trained to not give them any tickets since they always helped at gut buster wrecks and penned in DWI drivers etc. Bus Drivers got the same royal treatment since we could jump on one and flassh a badge and get a free ride wherever we needed to go. Then it got all messed up in when the speed limit dropped to 55 and CB Radios/Radar Detectors got popular and the hate started creeping in and things got adversarial for a while. Few bight spots as when I was stationed up in N. Texas and had just giving a ticket to a speeding truck driver when we both noticed one of my tires was hissing and fixing to go flat. They drove off having a good laugh at me over the CB as I started digging for my jack and plotting how I was gong to start shooting at those bitches..when what should happen but another truck pulled in behind and blocked traffic while the driver and his co pilot changed my tire..while I chilled out and got my trigger finger under control. Those wonderful guys had a load of onions and gave me a fifty pound bag and onions were a buck a pound at the store...so I started loving them again. lol. Or onetime several of them stopped and hand pushed me out of the mud before my car burned up from catching the grassy median on fire with my catalytic converter. That was tense. I dont know much about their business model but they dont seem to drive as crazy as they did in the 80s. Hard way to make a living..the baby boy tried it for two years and it like to have killed him.


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## Old SF Guy (Dec 15, 2013)

I had heard that trucking was growing and am saddened and disappointed that there is not accurate reporting of this. Is it due to regulatory guidance, such as seen in Californi and the Logging industry? or is it due to other things such as manufacturing?

I always enjoyed the big rigs and would do the hand pump out the window as a kid to get them to blow those airhorns. Good folks generally. I always look to let them cut in in front of me and signal when I'm clear. These are the blood line of most of our countries products.


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## w0mgr (Dec 11, 2019)

Celadon was basically forced out by the court, as a result of a huge fraud scheme by the companies top management. Those people are under indictment, but that doesn't help the drivers or dispatchers that are out of work. On a larger note, the ELD mandate from Congress is part of the reason that 2019 has seen a large number of trucking companies shutter their businesses. As an 18 year industry veteran, I remember the days of running 2 logbooks and running 1200+ miles in a 24 hour period. Now that everyone is being forced to run legally, that is having a ripple effect through the industry. Everyone want to talk about a driver shortage, but that isn't actually the case. The only shortage is good paying jobs. OTR drivers stay on the road for 2-4 weeks at a time, away from family and any semblance of a life. Most companies want to pay those drivers $500-$750 a week, which is a slap in the face to anyone with a family to feed and doesn't even have the luxury of spending time with them. Love hate is about the right way to put it. Most trucking company executives are totally clueless, including the folks that run the company that I drive for.


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## modfan (Feb 18, 2016)

It isn't just the trucking company. Cummins is laying off 700 in the class 8 truck engine division in Jan. Volvo is laying off 800 in Jan. Another trucking company layed off 800 in Nov. Is there something in the wind?


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