A Driver's Take on Brokers, Rate Transparency, & More (with CDL Shorty, Avante Jackson) | Episode 317 - Freight 360

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_02 (00:19):
Welcome back.
It's another episode of theFreight 360 podcast.
We got a good one today.
We're joined by a fellow YouTubepersonality coming from the
carrier side of the industry.
We'll get to Avante Jackson, akaC DL Shorty in just a minute
here.
But if you're brand new, makesure to check out all of our

(00:39):
other content either on YouTubeor on Frey360.net, including the
Frey Broker Basics course.
That's a uh educational bit weput together in conjunction with
DAT for you know, for anybodywho's starting a brokerage from
scratch, or if you're lookingfor some training material for
your team when you're bringingon some new team members, uh
make sure to share, like,subscribe, leave us comments and

(01:02):
questions.
We answer your questions on ourTuesday edition of the final
mile.
Um, Ben, how's things inFlorida?

SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Man, love this time here.
It's starting to get cool.
Weather's turning.
It's like our uh cooler summer.
I was telling someone yesterday,I'm like, yeah, we've got two
seasons down here, like reallyhot, miserable summer, and then
10 months of like very nicesummer.
So there you go.
Well, you'll be down here soon,right?
Aren't you coming down nextweek?

SPEAKER_02 (01:26):
We're heading down this weekend for we'll be there
next week just to kind of hangout.
No uh, no Disney World,thankfully.
So I can actually relax.
So um, but all right, withoutfurther ado, CDL Shorty.
It it is Avante Jackson, but hegoes by CDL Shorty.
Welcome to the show, man.
How are you?

SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
I'm good.
I'm good.
Thank you guys for having me.
I truly appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:48):
So I want I want to ask you, you you had reached out
to us a couple weeks back, um,wanting to come on the show.
We, you know, a lot of times Benand I talk brokerage.
I I haven't worked on thecarrier side in over a decade,
so my ability to speak uh from acarrier's perspective is not uh
current.

(02:08):
Um and Ben, you you morerecently have worked on the
carry on the asset side, butmore so in brokerage lately.
Um But Avante, I'm I'm curious.
What what made you decide toreach out to us and say, hey, I
wanna I want to come on and kindof give my perspective?

SPEAKER_00 (02:24):
Uh well, first of all, thank you for asking me.
Um what made me want to come on,well, what made me reach out to
you guys in the first place wasfirst of all, I like what you
guys have going on.
I love the show.
I'm a fan of the show.
Um, you guys definitely go indepth, you know, of the broker
side.
Um and I just feel like, youknow, I'm an advocate for the

(02:45):
drivers, I'm an advocate for thecarriers.
And I feel like everybody'sblaming everybody.
You know, you got the brokersblaming the carriers and the
carriers blaming the brokers.
But if we can sort of bridgethis gap by having these type of
conversations andcollaborations, then I feel like
we as an industry in totalitywill uh will um definitely get

(03:07):
better.

SPEAKER_02 (03:07):
Yeah, I remember one of the first episodes I ever did
on this podcast was in late2019.
And we were kind of me and theguy I was doing it with at the
time, we were talking about likepredictions for 2020.
And clearly, like none of us sawCOVID coming, so like we were
way off either way.
But one of the things that I Isaid that I I hoped would happen

(03:29):
um was that the animositybetween brokers and carriers
would would go away.
Like it, like you just said,there's you know, it's kind of
like this uh this is it, theSpider-Man meme where like
everyone's like pointing at eachother, like brokers are
pointing, right?
Brokers are pointing at carriersand carriers are pointing at
brokers, and you get dispatchersin there, and um, it gets all
messy.

(03:49):
So yeah, that's um that's good.
I'm we're glad to have you on.
We have a lot of stuff we cantalk about today.
We're gonna we're gonna hit onsome things like rate
transparency, double brokering,um, you know, the use of freight
guards and and reporting on oneanother.
Um so I I do Ben, unless youhave anything you want to kick
off with, I was gonna ask acouple questions.

(04:12):
So um you're for those we got totalk with you last week.
So we we we we understand likeyour background and kind of what
your role is right now.
You you do um, you know, you'rea you're a carrier advocate, you
do uh CDL training, is thatcorrect?
Yes for new drivers.
Um so in the current state ofthings, right, where we've got

(04:37):
uh what feels like a recordlength of rates being extremely
suppressed, um, which nobodywants.
Brokers don't want it either.
I know we had a lot of comments,um, I think it was like in the
last week on our YouTube,someone was like, Oh yeah,
great.
You guys uh you you finally aregonna have to start paying, you
know, higher rates instead ofthose bottom of the barrel, you

(05:00):
know, drivers that you guys arebooking.
And the reality is like we don'twant rates to be low.
Like we're a margin, we ourearnings are margin-based too,
right?
So like if rates are normalizedand brought back up to a
standard level, like everybodyis everybody does better, right?
Um, so I'm curious in the in thecurrent state of things, like
suppressed rates, there's awhole all kinds of fraud now.

(05:20):
What is it, what is it like inthe perspective of the carrier
side of the equation where umyou know we're we're dealing
with all this all this crapthat's out there right now, and
and it's hard to even makemoney.
So what what's it like from thedriver's perspective or the a
carrier's perspective um overallin general?
I guess it's a broad question,but just kind of curious for you

(05:41):
to paint the picture for us.

SPEAKER_00 (05:43):
Yeah, well, you know, I used to be one of those
guys, one of those carriers umthat, you know, be like, man,
you know, the the brokers aretaking all the money, you know,
suppressed rates, all of that.
But I really had to sit back anddo some research and some
homework and things of thatnature and kind of change my
mindset because what we see andwhat we have going on right now

(06:06):
in the current climate andmarket uh economy is, you know,
we have to just be honest withourselves as drivers and as
brokers or people in theindustry.
The economy has has taken adownturn.
Um, shippers aren't making thatmuch commodities right now.
Uh, and with that being said,that's where your suppressed

(06:26):
rates come from.
You know, um I used to be theone that'd be like, oh man, no,
the brokers are keeping themoney, the shippers aren't
paying.
But then you have to really sitback and look at the economy.
No, the shippers aren't payingbecause they're not making much
anymore.
Americans are not buying much uhstuff anymore, many commodities
are being shipped out anymore.

(06:47):
So uh from that standpoint, Ihad to change my mind, number
one.
And then number two, you know,you see the influx of truckers
that have come into the industryfrom 2020 to now, you know.
Um, you have to change yourmindset as a carrier and as a
driver to say, hey, my truckerbuddy, my trucker friend, that

(07:07):
is my competition.
You know, um, yeah, we can dothings, you know, we can be
buddy buddy and things of thatnature, but at the end of the
day, this is a business.
Um, so you have to, you know,kind of weed out that
perspective and look at thingsfrom a different mindset, a
different perspective.
I gotcha.
I gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 (07:25):
Um, so uh one of the things that I'm I'm curious on,
or I guess I want to point out,is there's very likely a
difference in, and correct me ifI'm wrong here, but there's
there's very likely a differencein the amount of like data and
where we get our informationfrom on the brokerage side

(07:46):
versus your typical smallcarrier.
Um, you know, I'm thinking backto when you're talking about
suppressed rates, so and the thethe concept of quote unquote
like the brokers keeping all themoney, right?
So as brokers, and Ben, you andI have seen this for years and
years now, right?
Like we see rate data change ona daily level, we see it weekly,

(08:10):
seasonally, and then obviouslyin the big market cycles.
And, you know, a lot of brokers,we don't sit behind the wheel,
right?
We sit behind a keyboard and acomputer.
So we have access to see thenews articles and the rate data
and the analysis on all thatstuff, and what's you know, the
different factors that areimpacting it.
And like you, like youmentioned, um the demand to

(08:32):
ship, right?
Um, that's one side of theequation that that comes into
pricing is how many, how manytruckloads to just generalize
it, how many truckloads offreight need to be moved.
And then the other side is theis the supply, and that's how
many um available trucks arethere at any given point in
time.
And we saw supply massivelyincrease the post-COVID

(08:54):
shutdown, and we've seen um thedemand to ship cut back when you
know domestic manufacturing andshipping has just kind of the
the spigot got turned off.
So I'm curious if you think myanalysis is accurate that the
average trucker probably doesn'tspend as much time getting their

(09:15):
information on what's causingrates to do what they're doing,
um if they're spending as muchtime in the same sources as
brokers are.
Because my my guess would bethat if I'm just a if I'm an
owner and operator and it's justme and my truck, where am I
getting my information?
It's probably social media,maybe a news article and just
you know, water cooler talk at atruck stop.

(09:36):
Whereas um brokers spend a lotof time on a computer, you know,
reading news articles, seeingrate data, etc.
Do you think there's anyaccuracy to that, or do you
think um carriers are aregetting their information from
you know I guess the thecarriers that are are claiming
brokers are just stealing all ofour money, are they getting
their information from somewhereelse?

(09:56):
I mean, what what do you thinkthe disconnect is there?

SPEAKER_00 (09:59):
Well, for me, like I get my like if you go up and you
ask the average trucker, that'swhy I consider myself the
trucker's voice, the trucker'sadvocate, because I'm trying to
educate my community.
So for me, I I look at thingslike jury.
I get on Marine Time, I see whatcontainers are coming over, uh,
the price of the containers andthings of that nature from big

(10:20):
big box corporations.
Um, so I do things like that.
Um if you ask the averagetrucker carrier what not what
tender low rejection is, wheredo they get that from?
You know, where where do you seeyour data from?
They don't know.
You know, a lot of them theydon't know.

SPEAKER_02 (10:35):
And a lot of it is a lot of brokers don't as well, to
be to be fair.
No, but you're making a goodpoint, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (10:42):
Uh a lot of it is water cooler uh talk at a truck
stop.
You know, everything I I saidthis to a lot of people that
kind of get mad at some thingsthat I say online.
A lot of things that I say, alot of my rhetoric that I speak
uh from my YouTube channel andwhatnot are just things that
other truckers are saying attruck stops or just

(11:02):
conversations that are being hadat truck stops.
But I I've really learnedthroughout these uh last couple
years that you know what?
Some truckers, not all, sometruckers are a little bit
ignorant, as well as somebrokers.
So my whole thing is let me divedeep into the conversation.
Let me start doing my duediligence by going on these

(11:26):
websites, printing out thisdata.
I got stacks and stacks ofpaper, and I go out to the truck
stops and I hand them out to anytrucker that wants it because
the narrative is all carriersare dumb, all truckers are dumb,
and I hated that, and I justwanted to educate my people.

SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
And I I want to ask a question about that.
So do you think, from like adriver's point of view, right,
and talking to carriers, do youthink that it is a level playing
field of competition amongstjust the carrier side, right?
Do you think everybody'soperating, and I'll say
specifically, under hour ofservice guidelines, do you think

(12:04):
everybody that is competing forfreight, right, on the carrier
side is all driving the standardhour of services that should be
mandated through, like the ELDs,for example?
Like, what is the opinion ofdrivers on whether or not
everyone's following the rulesor not?
Because I've heard so manydifferent things where
legitimate carriers are like,look, it's the law.

(12:25):
Everybody's driving under thehour of service laws.
And then Nate and I areinterviewing and working with
folks like Danielle, we've hadon the show and researching and
finding like massive disparitieswhere carriers are violating
ELDs, driving 20 hours a day.
I mean, the Hope Trans accidentwas a really big example of
that.
A one guy on a team load for theUSPS that had driven like
20-some hours two days in a rowfell asleep.

(13:33):
So does that does from thecarrier side and just like the
conversations at truck stop, dothey believe it's a level
playing field where the guy'sdoing it the right way, right?
And you train CDL drivers,right?
Do you think you're alsocompeting against folks that
just are doing whatever theywant as long as they can get
away with it?

SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
Oh, of course.
Of course.
There are there is not a levelplaying field.
I mean, you can we can all seeright now with the the whole
conversation and the talk aboutnon-domicile and domicile CDLs,
which I'm I have a um I have alove-hate relationship with that
conversation.
But yeah, but even with thepeople that are non-domicile,
you still have mega carriers outhere that are running double

(14:15):
e-logs.
You know, I have I have a fewfriends that, you know, work for
these mega carriers, and they'llsit there and they'll tell me,
and not just tell me, they'llshow me whenever they're in town
and I get to see them, I'll cometo the truck and they'll show me
to where they can just make aphone call and say, hey, I'm at
hours, and they'll switch itover to like a ghost person or a
dummy person.

(14:36):
Um that way that they can, youknow, run more hours.
But I think the realconversation is, you know,
because the ELDs was implementedin 2016 under the Obama
administration, but did the ELDsreally help with help truckers,
or did it hurt truckers?
I think that's the realconversation.

SPEAKER_01 (14:54):
I think the status they hurt the whole industry,
including safety training on it.

SPEAKER_02 (14:59):
And it didn't absolutely to increase safety,
and it uh there's really not alot of um you know hard evidence
that can say that that actuallyhappened.
So I remember when when I workedwhen I worked for a trucking
company, like it was paper logs,right?
And like people, you know, youdraw that line and you up up,

(15:19):
right?
You do that whole thing, andlike it, it you dude, guys would
drive around with two sets oflogs.
Like it was that it was thatsimple.
But it I mean, if you can fakeit that easily with paper logs,
and then you just advancetechnology and you have ELDs,
you can hack an ELD.
Like it, and there's no, youknow, it's they're self um
self-certified, right?
There's not like a government orthird party mandated
organization that has to certifythese providers.

(15:41):
And we see like it's like everyweek there's another article of
a of an ELD provider that'sbeing um scrapped because
they're they're being used forfraud or whatnot.
So yeah, and I think Ben, youbrought up a good point.
Like it's within the drivingcommunity, and we see this with
brokers too, right?
Um, we become our own like worstenemy, right?

(16:03):
We we got our there's bad actorsin both both buckets there.
It's the same thing withdispatchers, right?
There's a lot, there's like beenbad rhetoric around independent
dispatchers where the good onescan really add good value to
small carriers and to brokers.
Um, but you got the bad onesthat get all the spotlight.

SPEAKER_00 (16:19):
So yeah, see, my my thing, I would just like to add
to that a little bit.
My thing is there's on thecarrier side, there's no
uniformity amongst the wholeindustry on the carrier side.
Like we're heavy regulated whenit comes to safety, but you
still have guys out there thatare legally able to run paper
logs because DLT said this youcan have they used to have these

(16:42):
things called glider kits,right?
Yeah, where I can go buy a truckwithout the motor.
But now, and even when ELDs wasimplemented, you could go and
buy a 2021 truck.
But if that motor is 2006 orbelow, I can still run paper.
With me.

(17:03):
99, yes, 99, and I think two2003, I'm sorry, 2003 and below,
and 99.
Uh, it first was 99, and then Ithink they upped it to 03.
But then as someone like, let'ssay me, for instance, if I'm run
doing an example, if I'm one-logs and then my my friend is
on paper, then of course he canmake more money and run run

(17:24):
longer than I can.
So that's not, you know, when wetalk about uniformity and
fairness, you know, that'sthat's not fair.

SPEAKER_02 (17:31):
Yeah.
Well, agreed.

SPEAKER_01 (17:33):
The the thing that I the thing that I found super
fascinating is like I wasunaware of how bad this was.
Like, we kind of knew, like youhad said and Nate said, like,
we'd hear from folks, hey, likethese logs are getting
manipulated talking to carriers.
And again, like I honestlyprobably have more friends and
colleagues on like the carrierside and driver side that I
still talk to that I've workedwith since the beginning of my

(17:54):
career, that I'll call every nowand then, tell me what's going
on.
And like they're saying like itwas more and more prevalent.
But when we got into this withlike Justin and Danielle and had
Gordon on the show and likereally looked at how prevalent
it was, just how often it washappening, a lot of things to me
started to click.
Because the other thing I hadseen in the past couple of years

(18:15):
that I've never seen since I'vebeen in the industry is I would
have brokers telling me they'rearguing with shippers over
transit times, saying, liketheir drivers, hey, I can book
this load for the rate thecustomer wants, but they're
gonna do 900 miles a day or 850.
And I'm like, like, where arethey driving from?
And my first question, I'm like,are they like driving, you know,

(18:36):
through like the Dakotas wherethere's like literally no
traffic, no cities?
Like, I'm like, okay, maybe ifyou're driving through the
desert, you could probably getthat kind of mileage once in a
while.
I'm like, but to do that everyload in areas like Atlanta,
where there's cities, wherethere's traffic.
I'm like, that's likemathematically and physically

(18:59):
impossible to keep doing ifyou're driving 11 hours a day.
And like they're arguing andthey're going, look, hey,
showing me the carriers, showingme the emails.
And I'm like, like, that can'tbe true.
And then it started happening somuch that I'm like, something
doesn't add up.
Like that doesn't add up.
And the rates also made no sensewhere shippers were sending back

(19:20):
lanes to us that I would review.
And this is a major foodshipper.
I was telling Dean this lastweek.
I did a bid for them like acouple months ago.
We're talking like 3,000 lanes,very well-known company.
And I quoted all of this freightlike below DAT average on the
lanes we were like a fit for.
So like none of our pricing waseven remotely high, if not below
where the market should be.

(19:41):
And this is like reeferperishable freight.
The feedback to us is we werejust like 25 to 35% too high on
every lane.
And I went back and looked at itand I'm like, even if you looked
at historic and predictiverates, I'm like, I'm still
almost like the lowest rangethat should happen for this.
And they're telling me everysingle one of these are like 30%

(20:02):
too high.
I'm like, who is submittingrates?
Because like Nate and I talkedto carriers, like, what does the
break even cost to run atrucking company?
And I'm like, these are lanes atlike$1.25 a mile across the
board.
And I'm like, how is this majorcompany shipping all this
freight for rates thatabsolutely make no sense?
Right.
And then you hear from thepeople we talked to going, oh

(20:22):
yeah, like I got guys that'llrun it for that, but it's got to
go 900 miles a day.
And then the last piece thatkind of fell into place was like
how prevalent ELD manipulationwas.
And you're like, okay, wait aminute.
Now this is starting to makesense.
Other carriers are driving waylonger than they should and
undercutting the legitimatecarriers because then all the
bankruptcies were coming fromthe legitimate carriers.

(20:44):
All the ones that had goodmaintenance, good training
programs, or doing things thecorrect way are getting pushed
out of business because theycan't operate at that low cost.
And then we're seeing all ofthese folks and the drivers and
like running without insurance,deferred maintenance, trucks
that shouldn't be on the road,not training their drivers more
than like two weeks before theyput them on the road.

(21:05):
And then they're manipulatingthe logs.
And you're like, okay, well,like this is not a level playing
field at all.
And this is really what iscausing rates to stay that low
because otherwise, in the 40years our industry existed, they
never stay that low for longerthan 12 months because enough
companies go out of businessthat freight stops moving and
shippers have to pay more,right?
Everyone always kind of looks atthe brokers in the middle, but

(21:27):
at the end of the day, there'sjust companies that need to pay
to move stuff and a vehicle thatis able and willing to move it
for that rate.
If nobody moves it, eventuallythey will pay more money.
But if someone else goes andmoves it for that cheap rate,
the shipper has no reason toever pay more money.
And like I know everyone looksat the intermediaries as like
taking profit out of the middle,but at the end of the day, like
we don't really control themarket.

(21:48):
We just help them find truckswilling to do the work for what
they're wanting to pay for.
And trucks just kept bookingloads.
And I'm just like watching thisgoing, like, this makes no sense
to me how trucks keep bookingloads at this volume on what
shouldn't be profitable, right?

SPEAKER_00 (22:02):
Now, I'm I'm glad that you said that because this
is why I wanted to have thisconversation and bring more
awareness to the forefrontbetween brokers and carriers.
Because with that point that youpointed out, we need to have a
conversation of predatorybrokers out there.
You know, like, come on, man,like we talk about the ELD and

(22:22):
the safety, but how many timeswill you have a, and this is
where I want to separate thegood freight brokers from the
bad freight brokers?
Because how many times would youhave a freight broker to say,
oh, wait a minute,mathematically, you're not gonna
be able to do that load in theright time if you're on the ELD.
They don't care about it beingon the ELD or not.
They just care, can you get thatload from point A to point B in

(22:42):
a timely manner?
They don't even really careabout safety.
And I'm saying them as far asthe shipper, the broker, and the
carrier, you know, because ifyou can't do that safely in a
good timely manner on the ELD,you're you're not gonna be able
to do it safely at all.
It's gonna be unsafe.
So then you're putting hardputting people at way, uh harm's
way.
You're not getting the carrier'snot getting rest and things of

(23:04):
that nature.
So, you know, when are we gonnahave the conversation of
predatory brokers, you know?
And then also, it's not your jobas a broker to know, you know,
what my um operating cost is.
But also, how about from on agood freight broker standpoint,
how about if a carrier issaying, oh man, I can take this

(23:25):
low for a dollar a mile or 95cents a mile.
Now, what I say might not makesense, but let's try to make it
make sense.
If you if you get a carrier thatsays that, it wouldn't that be
somewhat of a predatory broker?
Because I'm saying, oh wow, Iget this carrier, this, I get
this dumbass carrier to do thisfor cheap.
And this carrier, like thatright there would make the low

(23:49):
uh um the um the the ratesuppressed as well, too, because
you know good and well you'renot making money at 95 cents a
mile at a dollar a mile, youknow?
And there's a lot of predatory.

SPEAKER_01 (24:00):
Yes, sir.
Okay, so here's like I'll let'sgo through a scenario, right?
So let's say Nate's a broker,I'm a broker, right?
And a customer both gives us aload and says, Hey, we ran this
yesterday, this load for adollar mile.
Let's just use your example,right?
And they go, Hey, can you movethis for a dollar mile?
And Nate and I go, Well, that'sprobably too low.
We'll see if there's anycarriers.

(24:21):
Both Nate and I put a post on aload board and reach out to our
carriers and go, hey, we got aload moved from this customer.
It doesn't have to go today, butthey're looking to be at a
dollar mile.
And then literally 35 carriersemail both Nate and I and go,
I'll take that load for a dollarmile.
How one, Nate and I can't tellanything other than does the
carrier have insurance?
What is their safety rating, andare they willing to take it?

(24:43):
And then we can verify the VIN,but like we can't see logs.
We can't see whether or not thatcarrier wants to take that load
because, hey, they just need toreposition their truck to go get
a load from their customer andthey're gonna make some money
instead of driving there dead orempty.
And they're like, hey, man, likethis load works for me.
I gotta get to Memphis.
So like I'll take the buck amile, it fits in my schedule,
and I'll take that one today.

(25:04):
And then you hear that from like30 carriers from Nate and our
point of view, as a broker, thecustomer's saying they paid this
yesterday.
We can see it in their RFP.
A bunch of carriers are sayingthey're willing to do it.
I mean, are Nate and I supposedto go back to the customer and
go, like, well, we have 30people that all said they could.
The math doesn't seem to work,but they're willing and able to
do the work.
And the customer's going, Well,yeah, here's the load.

(25:26):
How, if you were in ourposition, would you discern from
literally dozens of carrierssaying they're willing to run
that rate for what should beless than profitable?

SPEAKER_00 (25:35):
Well, that goes back to what I was saying when I was
saying, like, if my truckerbuddy, you know, me and my
trucker buddy were not friendsin business, you know, that's
literally my competition.
Number one, he might havedifferent bills than I have, but
at the same token, we're bothcutting each other's throat.
That's number one.
So, you know, it has to be a wayto where we as carriers can
soften that blow.

(25:56):
Um, it doesn't always have to becutthroat.
And then number two, if you have30 carriers, and correct me if
I'm wrong, if you have 30carriers that are that are
saying this and saying, yeah, Itake it, I take it.
You know, how many do you vet onhighway that you look at their
CSA scores like, ooh, this isnot a good carrier.

SPEAKER_02 (26:15):
100%.
All of them.
Well, 100%.
Again, I'll I'll add in here,and I'm gonna oversimplify this.
Like you said, there's goodbrokers and there's bad brokers,
right?
Bad brokers likely are not usingsophisticated software and
vetting procedures that the goodbrokers are using.
And again, I'm wayovergeneralizing this, but uh
just for the sake ofconversation.

(26:37):
But I would like Ben and myselfhaving been doing this for a
while, and a lot of the largerreputable brokerages out there,
um, 100% of them are runningevery single carrier through a
system like Highway or MyCarrier Portal or CarrierSure
RMIS, whatever the case mightbe, because they're integrated
directly into the TMS to thepoint where the broker is not

(26:57):
physically able to send a rateconfirmation to a driver without
them going through thoseprocesses.
And there's there's rules set inplace.
Again, those are the goodbrokers, right?
You might have someone that justgot their authority last week,
isn't using any of these tools.
And yeah, there's nothing fromstopping them.
There's nothing stopping themfrom just being like, oh yeah,
I'll book you and I'll email youa confirmation, and they don't

(27:18):
do any research on them oranything whatsoever.
So there's nothing legallystopping them.
But in general, the brokeragesthat sustain and last for a long
time are using tools andtechnology.
Um, and it's not just to findout safety scores, it's it's
also to protect them from cargotheft and double brokering and
other forms of fraud.

(27:39):
But yeah, out of those, toanswer your question, out of
those 30, 100% of them are goingto be run through a vetting
platform if the broker isacting, you know, is in that
bucket of good broker versus badbroker.

SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
Yeah, and I would say this too.
I want to layer on one thing andyour other point, though, real
quick.
The other point we're talkingabout rates, right?
The thing that I think is alsoharder to do in the industry is
that from like a truckingcompany's point of view, like
I've run trucking companies andworked on the carrier side, is
that like you're not alwaysgoing to be profitable above
your average break-even forevery load, right?

(28:13):
Just like take a tanker load,for example, right?
They are literally driving emptyto their pickup.
So they're not getting paid atall, right?
From point A to B to just getloaded.
And then they're making most oftheir money on the backhaul,
right?
And the same thing is true inreefer, right?
Like a reefer driver, saythey're running watermelons
during watermelon season out ofFlorida.
They might make$4 a mile goingfrom Florida to whatever

(28:36):
Tennessee, but then they mighttake drive freight for a buck a
mile to get back into Florida toget four bucks a mile coming
back out, right?
Yeah.
Or drive empty because all themoney's in the front hall.
So like there's not an equalrelationship in loads saying
that like front haul andbackhaul rates are typically
different because when there'sdemand for trucks and produce is

(28:57):
just an easy example, and ratesget inflated.
So the carriers, like that's whyyou'll see the rate outbound of
Florida during produce season goto three bucks a mile and the
inbound rate go to 90 cents amile, because the carriers know
they're getting paid coming outand they got to get in and get
as much as they can, even ifthey can cover the fuel, because
they're still profitable, butyou're not gonna see the
profitability on a lane-by-lanebasis.

(29:17):
You're gonna see it on fronthall versus like backhaul.

SPEAKER_02 (29:21):
And to add to that, put it in the broker's

perspective (29:23):
if we have an annual contract with a shipper
directly and we guarantee a setrate for 12 months, there are
going to be times of the yearwhere we're having average
profitability.
There's gonna be times of theyear where we're losing a good
amount of money, and there mightbe times of the year where you
might have you might have a loadlike the pink cheetah or the TQL

(30:38):
example, right?
Where if you look at onespecific, if your sample size is
one load, right, which is Ithink a terrible sample size,
it's it might show 40% margin.
But what are the other what ifyou were to take a thousand
loads and analyze them, whatdoes it look like?
And I think that's where um Ikind of just want to get into
rate transparency, if you guysdon't mind, unless you have

(30:58):
anything else you want to talkabout on that part.

SPEAKER_00 (31:00):
But I think the my my last my last point on that,
not to cut you off, my lastpoint on that would be would it
be somewhat of the carrier'sdecision, the 30 carriers that
called you guys, would it besomewhat on their decision to
call the factoring company andcheck the broker's credit?

SPEAKER_02 (31:18):
So that's actually before we do transparency, I do
want to hit on this part, right?
I want to talk about howcarriers are vetting brokers
out.
Um, gotcha.
So could I mean so you're sayingyour question was should the
carrier be asking theirfactoring company about the
credit worthiness of the broker?
Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 (31:39):
Yeah, yeah.
The credit worthiness of thebroker in that example that you
guys just said you posted uh alow for example, posted a low
for a dollar a mile and you had30 carriers, you know, because
to me that's like all carriersare jumping on one thing, you
know, and saying, Oh, we cantake it, we can take it.
But also they're not checkingthe credit worthiness of a

(32:00):
broker as well.

SPEAKER_01 (32:01):
It happens in two ways usually.
From the carrier's point ofview, they're going to see the
credit score of the broker onDAT before they reach out.
So at least they can see theAnsonia report numbers on DAT or
truck stop.
Hey, this broker has credit andwhat their average day is to
pay.
The second step is if they go toget that load, when they get
onboarded with the broker, thatcarrier's factoring company,

(32:25):
that carrier is going to go intoRTS, for example, into their
website, put in the broker's MC,and RTS is going to say,
approved or not approved to workwith this broker.
So they can see it and thenthey'll verify it with their
factoring company's websitebefore they get onboarded with
the broker.
Then they're going to get theagreement with the broker to now
move forward to do business.

(32:46):
But the third step is the onethat I think is what causes the
most issues in fraud, which isRTS will verify that that broker
has credit.
But what carriers can also do toprevent fraud for themselves,
right?
Like just literally protectingthemselves from being involved
in any type of fraud is justlooking up the phone number for
that brokerage, calling the mainnumber and saying, hey, I got a

(33:09):
rate con.
I want to verify the load numberand then I'm working with you
guys.
Because if you call that mainnumber, they are going to tell
you, hey, that person on thatrate con, yes, works here.
And two, that is one of our loadnumbers.
That one small step wouldprobably prevent 90% of the
fraud on the carrier side, wherethey think they're working with

(33:31):
a legitimate broker like TQL oreven CH Robinson, but it's
really somebody in Azerbaijanthat just created a fake rate
con and a fake email, told thecarrier, the legitimate carrier,
hey, you're working with TQL andit's a completely different load
number.
That guy doesn't really workthere.
Then they run the load and findout 45 days later that they're
not getting paid.

(33:51):
So like that one phone call oflike call it a third step of
credit or verification is likethe one thing that every if I
was a driver or a carrier or adispatcher, like I would make
that phone call on almost everysingle load and just really
quickly going, hey, just want tomake sure this rate con is
legitimate, that you guys sentthis load over.
We're just starting to work withyour brokerage.

(34:12):
We don't really have arelationship with.
Because in every fraud that I'vebeen involved in after the fact,
where a carrier client calls usand goes, hey, this happened to
us, or a broker, as soon as Imake that phone call, I find out
immediately, like, that guydoesn't work there.
That rate con wasn't legitimate.
And now it's too late.
Now you got to work through allof these headaches to try to
figure out what happened.

(34:32):
But that is like the biggestpreventative measure every
driver and dispatcher, becauseif I'm driving a truck, the last
thing I want to do is go workfor three days and then not get
paid, and then have to waitthree months to call an attorney
to go get half of my money.
Like that one phone call isgoing to make sure at the very
least I know I'm working withthe company I think I'm working
with.

SPEAKER_00 (34:51):
Yes, sir.
How do you guys pick?
I have a question.
How do you guys pick a carrierthat you would think that oh,
I'm not gonna get freight, I'mnot gonna get uh uh cargo theft
on with dealing with thiscarrier right here.

SPEAKER_02 (35:04):
You're talking about like in general, what are our
vetting steps?

SPEAKER_00 (35:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (35:08):
So I'll I'll give you personally what we use at my
company.
I'll try to generalize itwithout being too wordy and
lengthy here, but um, we have aset of rules in our carrier
vetting platform.
We use highway.
So we've got a set of rules thatwe use, a lot of the basic
stuff.
Do they have an authority?
Um, do they have insurance?

(35:30):
Um you know, we you can set theage, like so we'd have we have a
benchmark, do they have a yearof authority?
And not to say we won't usesomeone if they're under a year,
but it's just it'll it'll flagif they're they're new.
And then we have CSA scores thatare set, and we're looking at
out of the five reportable CSAcategories, we look at um each

(35:51):
of them and how they benchmarkagainst the national average,
and we set a threshold.
In our case, it's if they um ifthey are oh if they are over the
national threshold in three ormore of the five categories,
it's gonna flag them and itit'll they'll fail our basic
rules.
Again, if we want to, we can domore analysis and override that.
But that we look at that.

(36:11):
Then we look at um, do they havereports against them for cargo
theft or stolen identity ordouble brokering or holding a
load hostage, right?
And that those are basicallylike community notes that
people, whether it's from umpicture like a freight guard,
right?
But those are internal to yourto your vetting platform,
whether it's highway or carriersure or whatever.

(36:32):
Um and then we we look at abunch of other subjective stuff.
Like, does this um does thiscarrier have a VIM number um on
a tractor that was inspectedrecently but is not listed on
their scheduled autos policy,which leads us to believe they
potentially are runninguninsured.

(36:54):
A portion of their fleet mightbe uninsured, which is a prime
example of how some carriersmight be trying to cut corners
and save on money is to hey,I'll insure you know, some of my
trucks, but not all of mytrucks, right?
Um so those are an example ofsome of the things we use on the
front end.
And then what we do is dependingon the load and the situation on
the customer, we're we'reprobably gonna have some sort of

(37:16):
tracking requirement.
Um, it could be an ELDconnection to highway or to
trucker tools.
If they're ELD exempt, it couldbe, hey, we're gonna use a
tracking tool and require orrequest pictures at the um, you
know, the the dispatchinglocation or at the pickup to
ensure that the right carrier atthe right, you know, with the

(37:40):
right truck and is in the rightplace at the right time.
And this is all done for tworeasons, right?
One, it's to protect us that wearen't hiring a bad actor or
carrier.
And number two, it's to protectthe carrier to make sure that
we, the person that we thinkwe're booking and are paying is
the person that is actuallygonna haul the load in that
we're going to pay and notsomebody else.

(38:01):
Um that's what we do.
It's a pretty lengthy thing.
It is for the most part, a lotof brokerages have this process
um automated now, right?
Where carriers that don't meetbasic criteria aren't going to
get through.
Whereas you'll have, you know,maybe a um someone uh a new

(38:21):
broker, or we'll put them in thebucket of bad broker that's not
following these processes, andthey might just book anybody and
not do any vetting because tothem they're just like, oh, the
rate looks good, let's bookthem, right?
And they because they don'tknow.
They don't know what they don'tknow.
They haven't been burned yet,they haven't um had a load
stolen yet, or you know, had abad experience um to force them
to make that decision to havethose processes.

(38:43):
But in a nutshell, it's a prettythorough process.
A lot of it is automated, but wedo we look at a lot of stuff and
a lot of data points.
Okay, let me ask you this.
Does pay that's my company?

SPEAKER_00 (38:53):
Okay, got you.
Does pay uh get involved?
Like um, like would you notsaying you personally, I'm just
giving an example, would you asa broker like uh lowball a
driver?
And then because that's what alot of things are being said
amongst our us carriers at truckstops and stuff like that.
A lot of carriers say, well, ifthe broker paid more, you know,

(39:15):
they would you ever heard thatold saying you get what you pay
for?
And a lot of carriers say if thebroker pays more.

SPEAKER_02 (39:21):
Right.
So here this brings up a reallygood point.
So when we look at the bucket ofgood brokers versus bad brokers,
right?
Good brokers are all aboutcarrier relationships.
And right, my first priority, ifI have a load for my customer,
I'm not gonna post it to a loadboard and book a carrier that
I've never talked to.
My my primary goal is let mefind a carrier that I've

(39:44):
partnered with in the past thatI have a good relationship with
that I know and I I like and Itrust, and I'm gonna reach out
to them and um, you know, I andI'm gonna go that route first,
right?
I know them, I have a goodrelationship and history with
them, and a fair rate is goingto give me peace of mind, right?
Yes.
Whereas bad broker, and again,bad might not be the the right

(40:07):
terminology there, but the notas the not as optimal brokers,
um, they're transactional,right?
They don't they don't valuelong-term partnerships with
carriers, and they're gonna justgo find the cheapest one, right?
Now, in in the in the case thatI gave you with all those um
vetting criteria that I wentfor, that I talked about

(40:28):
earlier, if I've met all ofthose, all of that criteria, and
this, you know, these let's sayI've got two carriers and they
both look ideal, but one's ahundred bucks cheaper because
they don't have to deadhead asfar.
Well, that's the one I'm gonnabook.
Most likely, I don't have anyreason to pay somebody extra
money for them to deadhead.
Because I the reality is they'reprobably not the best.

(40:49):
Well, they're not the best truckavailable for my load, and I'm
not the best load availablepotentially for them for their
truck.
They they might be able to finda load that they don't have to
deadhead as far for.
So um price obviously comes intoit.
It really does.
And that's just the reality ofthe business is if I because
again, I'm also competingagainst other brokers to secure

(41:10):
that shipment from the shipper.
So if I come in at$100 higher tothe shipper, well, then I don't
get the load and that driverdoesn't get the load, and then
we both lose.
Correct.
So that's just one example.
Hey, if I if I have the loadcontracted and I'm gonna get it
either way, and two carriers areidentical, but one just happens
to be offering to take it for alittle bit less for whatever

(41:32):
reason, maybe they don't have ashigh of a truck note, or they
don't have to head as far, ortheir insurance is a little bit
cheaper, well then they have theadvantage there.
And that's just the reality ofof economics and business.
Um, but yeah, I would take thethe less expensive or the
cheaper truck in that example.

SPEAKER_00 (41:51):
Well, a lot of a lot of the contract freight, you
know, that you guys have aren'ton the log board as well.
Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 (41:58):
Oh yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (42:00):
Yep.
Yeah, and and there are shippersthat have moved completely away
from contract freight just tobook loads in the spot market
because they know they'recheaper right now.
And again, it it always goesback to I think from here's the
thing I think that this reallyoriginates from is that like
when you're I think the pointsof view and information are

(42:20):
different for a broker than adriver and a dispatcher.
And here's what I mean.
So say like we post up a load,any load, right?
And you get 30, 40 trucks thatall look have the same safety
rating, the same insurance,right, the same maintenance, the
same crashing, the sameeverything we can see the FMCSA
actually provides.
From our point of view, likethey're all equivalent, right?

(42:43):
So then we are looking at whatare the carriers asking to do
this work for.
And when all of them are comingin at like just your example, a
dollar a mile, and then oneguy's like, well, I can't run
for a dollar a mile.
I need two dollars a mile.
And he's absolutely correct.
And I agree that he does needthat, but there's no way I can
get my customer to pay moremoney to just give one of them

(43:04):
more because their truck iseither more expensive or their
insurance or whatever thatreason is, especially when
there's 25 other equivalenttrucking companies that are

(44:30):
saying, I'll take this for thisnumber.
So it's not that the broker islike lowballing the people they
book, it's that they'regenerally sometimes just being
honest with the dispatcher,like, these are all the offers I
have.
Like, I'll use your truck, butlike I can't pay more just
because your company needs morethan all of the other ones that
are asking for it, right?
Which goes back to the levelplaying field.

(44:52):
The whole reason one needs moremoney is because they're doing
things legitimately, andprobably the other ones are just
lying and defrauding the FMCSA,whether it's safety, hours of
service, or insurance, which isa whole other conversation.
But like from our point of view,like no one's trying to lowball
anybody.
Like, we just want the best fittruck for that load with the
money the shipper has budgetedfor it, right?

SPEAKER_02 (45:13):
Yeah, we don't set the market.
I think there's a there's amisconception from some carriers
that they they think brokers aresetting the rates and lowballing
people when the reality is wedon't.
It it is supply and demand.
And when there is an oversupply,you hear it blows my mind when
you hear on the news likethere's a driver shortage, and
it's like a driver shortage,like there is literally an
oversupply of of capacity rightnow.

(45:35):
Um, and again, that's ageneralization because every
lane and or market is gonna havedifferences there.
But when you have an oversupplygiven the current demand to
ship, rates go down.
It's because if I'm a driver andI I can either I can either park
my truck and make zero dollarsor I can compete against all the
other trucks in my area for theavailable loads, and we're gonna

(45:58):
we're gonna undercut each otherso some of us get loaded, right?
And that's just the real it'sthe same thing.
The the same thing goes on onthe the broker side and shippers
do have that too, right?
When in the heyday of COVID,when rates were through the roof
because everyone was shippingstuff and there's not, there's a
there was an undersupply ofcapacity, um rates went through

(46:18):
the roof, right?
That that is supply and demand,and nobody is setting that
outside of the market itself andjust pure supply-demand
economics.

SPEAKER_00 (46:26):
Yeah, I've always said, and I've basically been
one of the only drivers outthere that have said this, but
you know, we need it it comes apoint to where we need to stop
blaming us as carriers, we needto stop blaming brokers, and we
need to start looking atshippers as well, because
shippers are the are theultimate ones that do pay out
the money.

SPEAKER_02 (46:47):
Um I mean I would challenge you on that too.
Um, oh yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 (46:54):
I was just gonna say, you know, with that being
said, brokers do bid on thelanes.
I think we had talked last weekabout you know why does TQ why
is TQL so popular?
Because they bid low on lanesand they kind of squeeze out the
profit margin for the carrier.
Am I am I wrong or well?

SPEAKER_02 (47:10):
I'll tell you, the the larger the the brokerage,
like a TQL or um CH Robinson,for example, right?
They have a very well-oiledmachine when it comes to a
procurement department, meaningeverything on how they can find
the best available truck that'sout there.
Okay.

(47:31):
So they have the amount of datathey have, the people that are
working in specialty roles,because their goal is I want to
find the best truck at the bestprice who has the least deadhead
and has the highest probabilityof getting this load delivered
successfully, right?
And if you have 4,000 brokers inyour company and 30 years of

(47:52):
historical uh proprietary data,you have an advantage to be able
to meet that goal versus someonethat just set up shop yesterday
who's relying solely on you knowload board data.
That's the argument that I wouldmake there.
And then on the shipper side,again, if you take the broker
out of the equation, it's youyou get the same result here.

(48:12):
The demand to ship is theshipper's freight outgoing, and
the supply to haul that freightis the amount of capacity of
motor carriers, right?
So if I'm a shipper and I have,let's say I have 10 loads going
out this week and there's 15trucks available, well, they're
those 15 trucks are gonna beundercutting each other to

(48:34):
secure their chance at haulingmy 10 loads.
If I have 10 loads available andthere's only five trucks
available, well, those fivetrucks know, based on that load
to truck ratio, that they'regonna be able to get a premium
because the shipper is gonnahave to book all of them and
they have to then prioritizewell, which one, what shipments

(48:55):
do I want to get sent out andwhich ones am I gonna have to
roll to next week?
So that supply-demand thing, Iwould argue, still maintains.
And I think the the the way thatrates um, I don't want I hate to
use the phrase go up because itsounds negative to the consumer
who has to ultimately pay for,but it's to normalize them
because they are suppressed andthey're they're below where they

(49:15):
should be right now.
And it's great for the shipperwho's saving money on costs, and
it's great for the consumerwho's not having to pay inflated
transportation prices, but it'sbad for the the brokers and
carriers and the dis everybodythat that puts the pieces
together that get that stuffshipped, it's bad for everyone
in our environment because we'reoperating at at compressed
margins.

(49:36):
And until um either supply ofcapacity comes down or demand of
shipping goes up, or they meetin the middle in that
supply-demand curve, uh, I I Idon't that that basically that's
what it's going to take, eitherone or the other, or both.
And most likely it's gonna beboth over a you know an extended

(49:58):
period of time.
Yes, sir.

unknown (49:59):
Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 (50:00):
That's my take on that.
Ben, I don't know if you haveanything to add in.
And my dog keeps coming in outof my office.
That's why I keep standing uphere.

SPEAKER_01 (50:06):
Is it like at the end of the day, even if you
eliminated all the brokers andit was just the shippers and the
carriers, would literally be inthe same position, right?
Because shippers are in thebusiness of selling whatever
they manufacture, right?
Whether it's basketballs,kayaks, cars, washing machines,
it doesn't matter.
They're in the business ofmaking money selling that thing.
Shipping is just an expense theyhave to pay that they don't want

(50:30):
to, but they need to to gettheir product to their
customers, right?
So their incentive is to pay theleast amount.
And on the carrier side, theirincentive is to get paid the
most amount.
So the open market is supposedto determine the right number of
each as there's more or lessgoods, more or less carriers,
right?
But in the example that hashappened was like rates went up
so high, right?

(50:50):
And the government got sofreaked out that they relaxed
all of the restrictions ondrivers and CDLs and said, we
need a whole bunch more of them.
And then the narrative of weneed more drivers, because they
fixed a short-term problem bycreating a longer-term problem,
meaning like, yeah, they fixedthe fact that things were
getting really expensive becausewe shipped too many things
really quickly and unexpectedly.

(51:11):
And then they increased thenumber of drivers just by
lowering the standards and theenforcements and the
regulations.
And there's just a mass influxthat kept getting bigger.
And then it just kept ratesdown.
Well, from the government'spoint of view, all they're
talking to all these companiesand all these lobbyists that are
like, this is great.
These are the lowest shippingcosts we've seen for this long
ever.
Keep it up, right?

(51:31):
And then we're in this industrythat everyone relies on, that no
one pays attention to, goinglike, something really wrong is
happening here.
What is happening here?
And then they just keep thatnarrative of like, oh, we're a
driver shortage.
We just got to keep letting inmore drivers and keep giving
more CDLs.
And it's like, well, the peoplethat have been in the industry
for 30 years are going out ofbusiness.
The guys that have been drivingtrucks for 30 years can't pay

(51:54):
their bills.
Like, this has never happened in40-some years.
Like, something is happening.
And then when you really kind oflook under the hood, it's like,
well, you were talking aboutverifying carriers.
Everybody relies on the FMCSA'sinformation or some version of
what they're regulating, likethe ELDs, and they did that
terribly.
They are dealing with safetyterribly.

(52:15):
One in four, one in five truckson the road isn't even at the
maintenance standards of theFMCSA.
They aren't inspecting thedrivers and carriers to make
sure the bad ones are evenkeeping their maintenance up to
be safe on the road, let aloneverifying CDLs to make sure
people have gone throughtraining with programs like
yours to know what they're doingto drive these vehicles.

(52:36):
And they just, pun intended,just didn't have their hands on
the wheel now for like six,seven years toward this problem
has gotten so bad that I thinkcarriers are frustrated, brokers
are, shippers are happy becausethey got cheap rates.
And then everybody just wants topoint fingers at each other
because, like, this is who wetalk to the most, right?
We talk to carriers, you guystalk to brokers, and we're both

(52:56):
just like, what the hell isgoing on?
Because even from our point ofview, like we're trying to bid
loads to be able to get goodcarriers we've known sometimes
for like decades.
Like Nate or I have known forlike 10 years, like, this is a
good company.
This lane should work for this,but the shipper is paying a
dollar ten a mile.
Like, how in the hell is thateconomically possible?
Like the math just doesn't math.
And then you see it everywhere,and you're like, something is

(53:19):
very wrong here that doesn'tmake any sense until you really
look under the hood and see,like, oh, it's not a level
playing field.
And a lot of these carriers thatare undercutting the legitimate
carriers are just able to dowhatever they want because
nobody was paying attention.
And now we're starting to seethese things come up because in
the news, people are gettingkilled.

(53:39):
And now all of a sudden they'relike, okay, like this is worth
us paying attention to becausenow the public is being involved
in this.
When everybody was saving money,no one in the government or in
the economy seemed to give ashit about our industry.
But now that they're starting tosee some of the bad things that
happen when you just literallylet anybody do whatever they
want, they're at least startingto address it, which hopefully

(54:00):
gets better over time.
But to me, this has been theunderlying issue the entire
time.

SPEAKER_02 (54:05):
So I want to I agree with that.
I do.
So I I wanna I know we we'vekind of rambled on here, and I
want I want to get to ratetransparency before we uh go too
too long here.
So Avante, I'll I will give youthe floor here to give me your
um give me your best argument asto why rate transparency rate

(54:27):
transparency should exist.
So as a as a broker, help meunderstand why we should be
opening our books to carriers.
Um, because my company has a hasa trucking company, uh a sister
company as well.
So on the trucking side, wedon't we're not advocating for
transparency, but a lot ofcarriers are.

(54:47):
So CF CFR 371.3C specifically,but give me give me your take on
it.
Why do why do you think that umcarriers should uh or brokers
should be required to to do exum display, or I guess what is
it, to disclose their theirshippers rates to the carriers?

SPEAKER_00 (55:08):
Yeah, uh well, number one, um it it says, you
know, F 49 CFR uh 371.3c is aregulation that is on the books.
It's been on the books, youknow, for a long time, number of
years.
Um, you know, we talked about itlast week, how one of your
guests was on um months prior,and you know, have written down

(55:31):
the whole situation of why it'son the books, you know.
Um but with it in regards withit being on the books, um you
know, some some brokers, mostlymost brokers have it in the
carrier agreement, the carrierpackage that you know we would
waive we would have to waive ourright to that if we agreed to do

(55:53):
business together, all your yourloads and whatnot.
Um, and you know, if we don't,then you know, at least several
paths right there, we don't dobusiness together.
Or if we do, you know, and thenum if we ask for it after, you
know, you guys blackball us perse and then put unjust freight

(56:14):
guards and things of thatnature.
The pri the perfect and primeexample, um for me, uh the
example of all examples, uh thegranddaddy of them all is the
Pink Cheetah one.
Um, you know, where the famous,old famous TQL, you know, had
went above and beyond and tookabove and beyond of what they
were supposed to do.

(56:34):
Um and now they're putting up ahuge fight, you know.
Um even the uh even the judgethat that ruled in favor of TQL
didn't rule in favor of TQLbecause they were happy for TQL.
You know, it was certain wordingthat the judge said, Oh, I don't
like that wording right there.
Um, and I just think it justbecomes the overall playing over

(56:56):
a good playing field, a fairnessper se.
Um, and it builds trust, itbuilds a relationship.
You know, we are heavy regulatedon the carrier side, you know,
every little thing that we dogets scrutinized.
But as far as the brokers, uhper se, you know, it's not
scrutinized.
You know, I've I've gone onrecord to say I want higher

(57:19):
surety bonds, you know, for youguys or whatnot, stuff like
that, because we all know aboutMAP21.
You know, MAP21 is basically itdid nothing for the industry.
It was a slap on the wrist.
It did nothing for brokering ordouble brokering, uh, per se.
Um, so you know, with that, itjust period did, but it in
actuality it didn't play out todo anything.

SPEAKER_02 (57:40):
Yeah, the intent behind it seemed like it was
supposed to be good.

SPEAKER_00 (57:43):
And then, you know, then you have some brokers.
I always say the bad brokers,you have the some bad brokers
out there that literally willtake advantage of a carrier per
se, like uh FTL, like uh uh fulltruckload.
You know, there's a broker,there's a few brokers out there.
I've talked to one of them thatum, you know, full truckload.

(58:05):
If a if I get if in yourcontract you say full truckload
and it's exclusive to four orfive pallets, and then I get
there and you added three morepallets because you got a full
truckload, but you don't want topay me for the extra weight for
that commodity, that's not fair.
But if you open up the books, Ican see oh, they the shipper

(58:25):
paid you how much for thesethree pilots for these extra
three pallets, blah, blah, blah.
So, you know, I'm just I'm justall about fairness.
I'm all about, you know,building relationships.

SPEAKER_02 (58:37):
And I think that uh broker transparency will help do
that across the So the exampleyou gave of the weight
difference, I agree with youthat if a broker contracts a
motor carrier at a certainweight or pallet count or
length, and then the carriergets loaded for something in

(58:58):
addition to that or above that,yeah, the broker should be
paying more.
I don't I don't here's my takeon uh broker transfer.

SPEAKER_00 (59:05):
That happened too, by the way, that's a real
example of the FTF.

SPEAKER_02 (59:09):
Yeah, I've I've seen that.
I mean, there there's there'sfreight that's loaded or that's
um booked in uh you know,hundredweight, right?
Like potatoes and onions, it'sper 50-pound bag or per hundred
pounds loaded.
Um and that solves the problemof the hey, we don't know how
much it's gonna weigh until itgets loaded issue.
But you're right, if it's like,hey, the the customer says this

(59:32):
is a uh 30-foot shipment and umI book you for 30 feet of your
trailer, and then you're gonnapartial you know a second load
on there and end up we load 40feet, and now you it screwed up
your other one.
Yeah, that's that's on thebroker.
Um, I think if the broker hiresa carrier for their full truck

(59:54):
dedicated um and it's morepallets than it was supposed to
be, um that doesn't bother me,but if the weight is different,
it does, because then you'retalking about fuel costs.
So if they tell you it's gonnabe 40,000 pounds, we want your
dedicated truck and um it's40,000 pounds and it still is

(01:00:15):
the whole truck, but it's morepallets, I don't see a
difference there.
But if it's if you're addingweight and cost to the carrier,
then absolutely.
So here's like your your carthat you're driving now, did you
buy it at a dealership?
Yes.
Okay.
Um, do you feel that we asconsumers should be able to
force the dealerships to tell ushow much they bought that car

(01:00:37):
for before they sell it to us?

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:40):
I I've I've heard this argument before based off
of uh everything else.
Uh so I get what you're you'resaying, but you know, for the
sake of argument, I will say uhwe don't do it, but I will say
yes, we should.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:52):
We should.
Okay.
Then I we just have a differenceof opinions then.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:55):
Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:56):
Our our our economy operates based off of supply and
demand and and um people arepeople will whenever someone
says, well, what's this worth,it's whatever someone's willing
to pay for it at any given pointin time.
That is kind of the the generalargument.
I think when you when you lookat um mandating people opening

(01:01:19):
their books across the board,that that is a different
philosophy of what our country'seconomics of how our country's
economics are set up in aquestion in a free market.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:30):
The question I would ask too, Wanted is if if
carriers want to see what costsgo into a load, right?
It's not just the revenue on theload, it's the cost that it
takes to get that load.
You would agree, right?
It's a business.
Like the load just didn't comeout of somewhere.
That brokerage had to paysomeone a sale a salary to make

(01:01:51):
phone calls, pay for technologyto verify carriers, be able to
train that person, keep thelights on in that business.
So like the revenue that gotpaid for that load doesn't
account for the costs.
In the same way, from thecarrier's point of view, right?
The revenue you got paid foryour load doesn't account for do
you have maintenance?
Are you paying legitimatesalaries to your drivers?

(01:02:12):
Do you have the right insurance?
Did you maintain the reefercorrectly?
Have you been doing regularmaintenance on your vehicle
right?
So, in the same sense that it'slike, I get that from the
carrier's point of view, theywant to see the dollar that came
in on that load, but it doesn'ttake into account any of the
expenses to get the load.
And then from the carrier'spoint of view, it's like, well,
okay, I would also love to beable to see the carriers I'm

(01:02:33):
working with.
I'd like to see your maintenancebooks.
I'd like to be able to see howlong you've trained your
drivers, what kind of CDLprogram they went through, how
individually they've been forsafety just with your company.
And I'd like to be able to seehow much you've borrowed as a
trucking company to be able torun your business.
Because a business is not justthe revenue, it's the revenue
minus the expenses.

(01:02:54):
So when we talk about a load,those are just the revenue
numbers.
That doesn't take into accountall the money that gets invested
to actually get the load.
And I'll give you like the lastpoint of view on this because
this is the thing I think isreally different from the
carrier side or the broker side.
And I've worked with largetrucking companies, and you
know, they'll say, I want to domore work.
With shippers directly.

(01:03:15):
And I'm like, well, you should.
Like, that is a good strategyand objective.
Then they go, Well, how do I dothat?
I'm like, well, hiringsalespeople is expensive.
You're going to need CRMs, phonelines.
And oh, by the way, like, evenreally good sales companies have
to hire about 10 salespeople tofind one that works out.
So nine of the people you'regoing to hire and train for six

(01:03:36):
months are going to bring in nomoney, are absolutely going to
end up getting fired in six toeight months, but you're going
to still have to pay for realestate, a computer, someone to
find them, hire them, pay theirinsurance, train them, all for
you to get one sales guy.
And then they're like, well, howlong is it going to take for I
for me to get more business formy trucking company?
I'm like, probably eight to 12months.

(01:03:57):
And you're going to have to pay10 people for six months, of
which one will be working withyou a year later and you'll
probably get one account.
And they go, Well, that mathsucks.
I can't afford to do that.
And I'm not going to invest thatamount of money to maybe get
some business in the future.
That's the gamble thatbrokerages spend to get the
freight in the beginning thattrucking companies can do, but

(01:04:18):
usually do not do because of therisk, right?
There's very different risk insales on the trucking side
versus the brokerage side.
And all that goes into like,okay, well, how much does it
cost to actually get the load inthe first place?
This is why brokerages tend toend up getting more shipper
business and then having to findlots of carriers, where most
carriers don't do it directlybecause like you've got to

(01:04:39):
invest a lot of money or a lotof time to actually make
thousands of phone calls todifferent shippers to follow up,
to convince them to give youloads, to negotiate the rates,
to make sure you get all thatbusiness and then line up all
your trucks, right?
So that's why you see most ofthe salespeople and all the risk
it takes to hire, train them, tofind the ones that actually work
out for your business, allthat's an expense.

(01:05:01):
There's a reason why lots oftrucking companies don't just
choose to do this because youwould have to invest tens of
thousands of dollars per monthfor the better part of a year to
get a couple accounts.
Maybe.
And maybe you don't even get anycouple accounts after you spent
$80,000,$90,000 that year,right?
So like that's the other pieceof like what are the expenses in
the business to do becausebusiness development or sales in

(01:05:23):
any business is like one of themost expensive things.
It takes a ton of time, a lot ofrejection, and it's really hard
to find people that can do thatjob well for a long period of
time.
That's why even when you look atany company, like all of their
money is spent in hiring,training, and firing salespeople
that really don't work out tofind one or two people that are
really good.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:40):
I'll add in here too.
The when you when you look at aum a carrier's perspective, you
know, your the the pay on a loadis that's your revenue.
That's what that's what yourstarting money is to work with
to then pay for all of yourother expenses and and hope turn

(01:06:03):
a profit, right?
In brokerage, that profit, thatis not actually what we take
home.
That is our revenue.
Some companies even just call ittheir revenue.
When in reality, the revenue iswhat the customer is paying, but
it's your gr it's your brokeragerevenue or it's your it's the
low gross profit.
That's your starting pointbefore you start to pay for all
your other expenses.

(01:06:24):
So um the the I did I lookedthis up this week.
The average net profitpercentage, uh, meaning after
all expenses paid, bottom of theincome statement, the amount of
profit that comes out of everydollar that goes through that
company for a brokerage and amotor carrier are almost
identical at about 5%.
Meaning that for every dollarthat uh again, you're gonna have

(01:06:47):
more profitable and you're gonnahave some that just can't manage
their expenses or can't get therevenues up.
But um on average, every dollarthat a that comes through a
broker's door, five cents willbe left as company earnings at
the end of the day.
That's that's your profit,right?
And so I know the whole like 15%or 44% on the pink cheetah um

(01:07:10):
example, that's the grossprofit.
That's essentially the startingrevenue to start paying expenses
on, like insurance and trainingand you know, IT and all the
other things that Ben mentioned.
And for every dollar that atrucking company gets paid,
again, this is a grosssimplification, five cents is
what's actually made on that.
So after paying for fuel andinsurance and maintenance, et

(01:07:32):
cetera.
So five about five percent,they're they're pretty even.
So um if a brokerage goes out ofbusiness, um, they did a bad job
at bringing their revenue in orthey're spending too much money
somewhere.
If a brokerage is way above that5%, well, they had they either
did a really good job atbringing keeping the revenues

(01:07:52):
high and their expenses low or amix of both.
And the same thing goes for acarrier.
Carriers that go out of businesslikely aren't bringing in enough
money to cover their expensesbecause they either either
overpaid for a truck or um theythey contracted with a shipper
for rates that that they didn'tunderstand weren't going to be
profitable for them, or theycould be getting screwed by a

(01:08:13):
broker.
I mean, they there, those areall possibilities, but expenses
are the are what we can controlfor as both brokers and
carriers.
Um, and I think there is thereis a lot of frivolous spending
that was kind of hidden fouryears ago, right?
Five years ago when rates werethree, four bucks a mile on
average, that people went, theyeither overpaid for stuff, they

(01:08:36):
bought crap they didn't need,they hired people that really
didn't need to be hired.
Um, and then as the marketshifted back, just based off
supply demand, they didn'tadjust, right?
And if you, you know, the theaverage broker is probably the
average broker today, um likethe the average individual
working in brokerage todayprobably wasn't in the industry

(01:08:58):
10 years ago, right?
So this a lot of people, this isall they know is is COVID and up
to now, right?
So they hadn't seen marketshifts in you know the early
2010s and in 27 and 2018 and in19.
Um and then, you know, obviouslywhat we've seen now, but this
stuff happens um over like overtime, right?

(01:09:20):
Like the the trucking companythat my the the that's sister
company to my brokerage, right?
Um, five years ago, we had 35trucks running down the road.
Today we have seven, right?
We've we identified that it isnot um to operate what the way
we are operating wasn't asprofitable.
So we downsized and scaled backto the business that made sense

(01:09:41):
for us for the company to stayprofitable.
And that's just a businessdecision.
Um, and the you know, the peoplethat were driving with us that
aren't with us anymore areeither owner operators doing
their own thing and or they'remaybe they're you know with a
different fleet or whatnot.
But we we knew that based onwhat what the market was doing
and what we had the ability tochange, we shifted our our

(01:10:04):
expenses and our operation tomaintain a profitable business.
Same thing with any brokerage,right?
Any brokerage today has had tofind ways to we have increased
costs on technology for vettingto prevent from fraud and theft
and things of that nature.
And we have to find ways to savemoney.
And that becomes, you know,leveraging some technology to

(01:10:26):
replace workforce, uh, havingto, you know, lean more in on
sales, et cetera.
Um, it's it's business at theend of the day.
And I kind of went down atangent there, but um the the
sample size of one load at 40something percent, I think is is
it's just not a sample, it's nota sample size, it's literally

(01:10:46):
one load.
And I gave the example earlierof a contracted lane um that
might have annual pricing, ormaybe it maybe I'll give you a
more realistic example.
Let's say we're on a mini bidfor a 30-day bid right now, and
I've agreed to pricing.
We all know what happens onFriday, Fallout Friday, right?
A carrier is gonna fall off morelikely on a Friday than they

(01:11:07):
will on a Tuesday or Monday.
Um so I might have, let's say Ihave$2,000 that the customer is
paying me, and I contracted a uha trucking company for let's say
$18.75, right?
That carrier falls off becausethey find a they found a higher
paying load, and now the nextavailable carrier is$2,500.
And I have to, I committed to mycustomer and I'm not gonna lose

(01:11:28):
that business.
So I lose$500 on that shipment.
That stuff is very, very normaland regular.
If I pulled up my my company'sboard right now, I'd be willing
to bet that 8 to 10% of all ofour loads that are booked right
now are are at a loss.
And that's just completely abusiness at scale.
So the same business of pickingone out of the bucket and you
open it up and it's 40%.
There's I bet there's some onour board that are at 40%.

(01:11:51):
Um but the average is probablycloser to like 12.
12 to 15.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:55):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that that happens to us,you know, when we we don't get
paid our tone news, ourdetention times, you know,
things like that, dealing withother uh brokers or whatnot.
You know, that's the same thing.
That's a bad road right there.
That's dirty.
But then, but then when you talkabout, you know, you know, like
uh TQL, you know, they hit for aone-time thing.

(01:12:17):
But you gotta think that'sthat's once every what hour or
so, how many lows they move.
They find, you know, uh they hita nice, we say quote unquote
lick.
They hit a nice lick, you know,for like uh once every hour.
So, you know, and then go backto which what uh Mr.
Benjamin was saying earlier.
Um I've always proposed, me andand some of my other trucker

(01:12:40):
friends have proposed, what doyou guys think about truckers
need to take a business coursebefore they become an owner
operator?
Because or independent owners.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:51):
We wrote one.
It's available for free throughDAT's website.
Yeah, they have DAT university.
We wrote a freight brokercourse, and we literally wrote a
course um exactly for this forowner operators and for drivers
to be able to calculate theirloads run, their expenses per
mile, their revenue per mile,their profitability.
So like you can access thatright now through DAT for free.

(01:13:13):
It took Nate and I like eightmonths to write that course out.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:16):
I love that.
I love that.
I love that because there's alot of truckers or there's a lot
of carriers out there that don'tknow proper business.
Like back to Mr.
Nate's point earlier when he waslike in COVID, there was a lot
of frivolous spending going on.
You know, if we would have if weas carriers would have saved
that money, invested it in salesor whatnot, found logistics

(01:13:40):
coordinators at these shippers,went and built relationships
with them, bought trailers.
We all know a lot of shipperslike trailer pools or whatnot.
We could have, we we could goout and get our own carry, I
mean our own um shippers orwhatnot, our own lanes and stuff
like that.
But the average trucker, andthis is where I speak up and I'm

(01:14:00):
fair, the average trucker outthere is lazy.
Here, I I would say this.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:04):
I would take a different point of view on this.
And here's here's where and why.
Like, um, Steven, who's ourproducer, they're heavily
involved in the asset side,family has for decades, right?
And the interesting thing isthat like we looked into some of
the trucking associations.
I can't remember what it whichone it was, but they're like
hundreds of carriers at themeeting Steven was at.
And he was telling us like 90%of them all have a brokerage

(01:14:28):
authority and just don't doanything with it.
Because there's nothingpreventing a trucking company
owner from also being a broker.
But what happens is is, and I'veworked with a lot of them where
they've reached out and said,hey, I want to get this
brokerage off the ground, right?
And it's the same conversation Isaid earlier.
I'm like, okay, here's theamount of money you're gonna
have to invest in order to getthis off the ground.
Or you're gonna have to findsomeone that does everything you

(01:14:51):
do all day, and you are justgonna have to hammer the phones
for the next four to six monthsuntil you can get some customers
in.
And it's probably gonna be ayear before that brokerage is
even close to breaking even.
So you can either allocate, youknow, a hundred to two hundred
grand to get this brokerage offthe ground quickly, or you can
spend a year and a half, findsomeone else that can take
everything off your plate, andyou got to hammer the phones

(01:15:13):
every day until you can buildthis out.
And what all of them decide islike, well, no, like I would
rather be on the trucking side,there's less risk.
There is less risk, right?
Like there's different riskprofiles to brokerage versus
carriers, and there's nothingever preventing carriers from
also being a broker.
It's that when they come to thatpoint of having to make that
decision of either investing asignificant amount of time and

(01:15:34):
effort or a significant amountof money into hiring other
people to do it, they go, itmakes more sense for me to just
buy a couple more trucks andkeep building this business.
So there's tons of dormant MCsowned by trucking companies,
like literally thousands of themthat just don't ever operate
because like this is what goesinto that business that is very
different than the truckingbusiness.
And I don't think it'smiseducation.

(01:15:56):
It's just that like they're verydifferent businesses.
How they make money, the riskprofile, how and when you lose
money, they're just not thesame.
They're both involved in movingthings, but they're just very
different risk profiles asbusinesses.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:11):
Yeah, I was gonna ask, what's the risk?
Because the risk to me justsounds like, oh, I gotta spend
time and a little bit of money.
I mean, 100 to 200, you know,back in the COVID days was
nothing, but I just gotta spendtime building relationships
versus jumping in a truck anddriving a truck when somebody
could cut me off and I'm more atrisk of having an accident and

(01:16:33):
losing my life.
I'm just talking about truckersbecause how many you guys go to
broker carrier summits andthings like that.
How many, how many carriers youguys see at the broker carrier
summits?
How many carriers do you guyssee at these conferences and
things like that?
You know, and I'm trying my bestto get carriers to come out to
these broker carrier summits andwhatnot.
But the like I said, the averagecarrier, oh no, I'm gonna go

(01:16:57):
home and spend time with thekids, I'm gonna go home and
spend time with the wife, or I'mgonna get on this road and and
run this load, or I'm gonna gotake a trip to Barbados or
something like that.
When we as carriers don't investback into ourselves.
This is me talking to thecarrier.

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:12):
Yeah, all pretty true.
I mean, and also everybody's Imean, people are different, and
it's not just a matter of likeintellect.
Some people just have differentpriorities and preferences.
Like, I remember asking my dadthis.
My dad worked in constructionhis whole life.
I was in business school at thetime, working in construction in
the summer, and I'm like, Dad,why in the hell are you not
running this business instead ofrunning the cruise on the job

(01:17:33):
sites?
My dad used to tell me, he'slike, I don't want that stress.
I don't want to worry about myjob when I'm not at my job.
I want to show up, do a job thatI enjoy, make a good living, and
go home and be with my family.
He's like, the guy who owns thebusiness, Rick, he's working 18
hours a day, sometimes sevendays a week for months, trying
to make sure we have enoughbusiness to keep us busy.
He's like, I don't want hislife, I want my life.

(01:17:55):
That's my preference, right?
And it's not always about likeintelligence.
It's just like, what choices doyou want to make and how much
risk or things do you want tospend your time on, right?
We all have a limited amount ofhours in the day, and some
people just choose to do thingsdifferently based on what's
important to them.
And that also changes over time.
Somebody that might take a lotof risk in their 20s doesn't
want to in their 30s, or viceversa, like that's what's unique

(01:18:18):
about you know all the differentpeople in the economy.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:20):
I will say this too, and then I want to wrap up on a
uh of a glimmering positivenote.
Um Okay.
Any so I'll say this firstthough, that any if you're a
carrier out there and um you'redisgruntled and upset and think
brokers are stealing your money,um there is nothing stopping you

(01:18:42):
from going right back to thatFMCSA website and paying$300 and
getting your brokerageauthority.
You can you can you can hop ontothe thief side if you'd like to,
if that's what you think ishappening.
Um but here here's I want to endon a on a positive here.
So uh we talked through a lot,right?

(01:19:02):
And I think back to my myexample of 2019 when I talked
about the animosity betweenbrokers and carriers, and I wish
we basically to sum it up likewhy can't we all just get along?
Um, Avante, what what speakingto the audience, you know,
brokers and carriers, what wouldyou say or advise um to put us a

(01:19:23):
step in the right direction ofof having a harmonious
relationship?
Because the reality is we needeach other.
Brokers need carriers.
We we brokers cannot servicetheir customers without the
carriers that are doing the thehard work of driving long hours
and being away from their familyand um small carriers that don't
have a sales team and directcustomer relationships heavily

(01:19:43):
rely on on brokers to to keepthem loaded and rolling.
So, what would you say to folksout there to um to take us a
step in the right direction?

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:53):
Yes, sir.
My thing that I could that Iwant to see happen in the future
is I want to see brokers andcarriers come together.
But the only way we're gonna beable to do that is if we take it
upon ourselves to put ourselvesin each other's shoes.
You know, the the uh carrier,stop pointing the finger, you

(01:20:14):
know, get you a goodrelationship with the broker and
start putting yourself in theirshoes and not only seeing things
from their standpoint of view,but also educating yourself as
well.
And from the broker'sstandpoint, stop pointing your
finger at the carrier, putyourself in their shoes, look at
their perspective, look at theirrisk, you know.

(01:20:34):
Um, because like you said,without each other, we don't
exist and and we need to cometogether and have a very good
kumbaya moment, moments, youknow, in the future, because you
guys need us just as much as weneed you.
And I think it's time for bothparties to stop pointing the
blame at each other and let'swork together and find a common

(01:20:57):
ground.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:58):
Agreed.
I always tell people like Italked about transactional
transactional brokers earlier.
Um, if you're a broker, I wouldhighly encourage you to take the
extra time when you're talkingto a carrier and find out what
their fleet looks like, where dothey prefer to drive?
What you know what does it takefor you to help find them a load
to get them back home so theycan get to their kids' soccer

(01:21:19):
game and um you know just worktogether and mutually go get
more business, right?
And and everybody helpseverybody out.

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:27):
So I got another one.
How about the freight brokerjump in the truck and take a
ride with the trucker one day?
A whole day and and sleep at atruck stop and take a shower at
a truck stop and eat at a truckstop.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:41):
Exactly.
And there's a reason, Avante,that I work on the brokerage
side now and no longer on thecarrier side.
I did not I did not enjoysitting in a truck.
Um I worked on a dock for anumber of for I worked in the
office, I worked on the dock,and I did ride-alongs too.
Um, I've done customer business.
I've done I've I've done a lotof the stuff on the carrier
side, and there is a reason thatI uh enjoy the brokerage side

(01:22:04):
more.
It's a preference.
I don't I like I like to be uhbehind a computer and not in the
truck or on the dock.
So but yes, I agreed.
I I think that's that's a hugething.
If you are a um even if like ifyou're a broker and you do it,
go visit your customer.
There's gonna be trucks there,right?
Talk to talk to some of the thedrivers that are there and get
their perspective.

(01:22:25):
Um I had I had one and I I won'ttell the whole story and waste
time here, but um there's a lotof frustration about like, you
know, drive drivers are likewhat you know, they're showing
up late and to the wrong placeand all this stuff.
And then the customer's dockingmoney, and the cut the drivers
get pissed off that they'regetting docked money.
And then we go to the locationand the customer has the most

(01:22:46):
confusing facility in the world.
And all we have to do is takesome pictures and make a little
like thing to to text out to thedriver, hey, here's what you're
gonna see.
Make sure I know it says this,but you want to turn left down
this um this driveway and theirfacility to get to the correct
location to check in, right?
So, yeah, I mean, I highlyencourage all that stuff.
Put yourself in everybody else'sshoes and and get a just get a

(01:23:09):
different perspective and aparadigm shift.
So um, CDL Shorty, AvanteJackson, we appreciate having
you on.
Where can folks find you andyour content online?

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:19):
Uh thank you.
Thank you once again, both ofyou guys, uh, Mr.
Nate and Mr.
Benjamin for having me on.
Um, people can find me onInstagram at AVJ8.
You can find me on YouTube atCDL Shorty.
Um, yeah, things of that nature.
Um and then one last thing Iwant to leave you with, guys, is

(01:23:39):
uh I know a lot of people aretalking about non-domicile and
domicile CDLs and crashes andthings of that nature.
But I want you guys to reallylook into and educate yourselves
on um underride crashes.
Underride crashes are startingto become a thing that nobody's
talking about.
You know, an underride crash iswhen a car goes up underneath a

(01:24:01):
tractor trailer and dies.
And it's been a lot ofAmerican-cause underride crashes
versus non-domicile and domicileCDLs, um, which NHTSA, OIDA, and
everybody else has helpedcovering it up.
Did you guys know that uh only14 states out of 51 only
recognize underride crashes?

(01:24:22):
So that is a statistic rightthere that's climbing up in the
ranks that nobody's talkingabout.
Um so when we talk about, youknow, we talk about safety and
things of that nature, that'sone thing that we need to talk
about because Wombash got sued,the trailer manufacturers, they
got sued over it.
Um NISA's helping cover it up.
Um uh uh um state troopers, youknow, on their accident report.

(01:24:47):
They don't even have a um theydon't even have a thing to say
this is an underwrite crash.
So in order to actually find outif a crash is an underride crash
or not, you have to really gointo the NISA database because
they don't have it marked asunderwrite crashes and that's
where interesting.

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:04):
All right.
Well, we appreciate it.
Thanks for joining us.
And uh Ben, any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 (01:25:10):
Whether you believe you can or believe you can't,
you're right.

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:14):
And until next time, go Bills.

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A Driver's Take on Brokers, Rate Transparency, & More (with CDL Shorty, Avante Jackson) | Episode 317

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}A Driver's Take on Brokers, Rate Transparency, & More (with CDL Shorty, Avante Jackson) | Episode 317