Est. journal — currently on Volume IV
Field notes on carrier vetting, load board arithmetic, condition reports, and the kind of paperwork that decides whether a claim gets paid. Written between pickups, edited between drop-offs. No affiliates, no gurus, no shipping quotes.
The bill of lading is not a formality. It is the evidentiary spine of every damage dispute, and yet most drivers — and a shocking number of brokers — treat the condition report like a signature box on a receipt. Here is the inspection protocol I teach new carriers, with a walkthrough of the eight photograph angles that actually matter at delivery.
The reflexive answer — "enclosed for anything expensive, open for everything else" — is leaving money on the table and, worse, occasionally putting the wrong car on the wrong deck. I walk through the four variables I actually weigh: vehicle ground clearance, route weather exposure, transit duration, and the shipper's insurance posture. One of them is almost always mispriced.
If you are quoting off last week's posted rate, you are quoting a ghost. Load board pricing is a lagging indicator of a market that moves on carrier availability, seasonal lane imbalance, and fuel. Here's the back-of-the-envelope I run before I commit a price to a customer, including the two corrections I make for snowbird season and the one I make for auction week.
Authority status and insurance certificates are table stakes. What actually tells you whether a carrier is going to pick up on time and deliver without drama is their operating history, their inspection record, and — the one almost nobody checks — the declarations page of their cargo policy. The exclusions are where the real surprises live.
A car that "rolls and steers" is not the same as a car that "loads." I've watched too many ten-car haulers try to push-load a seized-brake sedan onto the top deck with three guys and a prayer. If the shipper can't confirm three specific mechanical conditions, the right answer is a flatbed to the yard and a separate pickup. The economics work out, every time.