Backloads don't always pay
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WHEN a colleague asked members of the Transport Association about back loading, their reaction, by and large, was less than enthusiastic to this aspect.
Said Glyn gamuels, their new chairman who is managing director of Flowers Transport Ltd, Beningbrough, York: -With return loads, time is of the essence, and with back loads you are very much in the other person's hands. If you always had the quoted rate less 10 per cent you would be all right but rates are appallingly low; they haven't gone up for years".
Ken Beresford, of Beresford Transport Ltd, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs, said "There's so much waiting time you don't get paid for and so if you have got a good order my advice is don't bother with return loads. But with European journeys, of course, you must get a back load.
Another haulier from the North East, said "Don't print my name — if other firms know how well I am doing, they'll be after my business. But with back loads, the market is very depressed, partly because of the
current sttite ui 001 steel industry."
"There's no such thing as a return load," said another haulier. "Your return load is someone else's outward load". Another operator remarked. "Return loads are not worthwhile under 100 miles, so it's better to come back empty."
Frank Jolly, of Achworth Transport said that a return load can so easily mean that a lorry has to travel another 70 miles to, collect it and thus make it uneconomic.
A. Garn, who is vicechairman of the TA, added "In our business we look after TA members. If anyone wants a return load and is a member of the TA, he gets priority."
Barry Hercock, of Hercock Simpson, Haulage Ltd, said that since his firm is well situated, in Leicester, at the heart of the motorway system, it can get a lorry back to base from, say, London, Manchester or Liverpool in three hours, so it's not worth back loading.
If your base is in Boston your position is entirely different, he added. "Half your radius is then in the North Sea . .