I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End

[livingston]

I’m A Twenty Year Truck Driver, I Will Tell You Why America’s “Shipping Crisis” Will Not End​

I have a simple question for every ‘expert’ who thinks they understand the root causes of the shipping crisis:

Why is there only one crane for every 50–100 trucks at every port in America?

No ‘expert’ will answer this question.

I’m a Class A truck driver with experience in nearly every aspect of freight. My experience in the trucking industry of 20 years tells me that nothing is going to change in the shipping industry.

Let’s start with understanding some things about ports. Outside of dedicated port trucking companies, most trucking companies won’t touch shipping containers. There is a reason for that.

Think of going to the port as going to WalMart on Black Friday, but imagine only ONE cashier for thousands of customers. Think about the lines. Except at a port, there are at least THREE lines to get a container in or out. The first line is the ‘in’ gate, where hundreds of trucks daily have to pass through 5–10 available gates. The second line is waiting to pick up your container. The third line is for waiting to get out. For each of these lines the wait time is a minimum of an hour, and I’ve waited up to 8 hours in the first line just to get into the port. Some ports are worse than others, but excessive wait times are not uncommon. It’s a rare day when a driver gets in and out in under two hours. By ‘rare day’, I mean maybe a handful of times a year. Ports don’t even begin to have enough workers to keep the ports fluid, and it doesn’t matter where you are, coastal or inland port, union or non-union port, it’s the same everywhere.

https://medium.com/@ryan79z28?source=post_page-----bbe0ebac6a91--------------------------------

 

[SomeSoldier]

Make it painful and maybe people will wake the fuck up.

 

[SomeSoldier]

He points out that foreign governments have interests in many U.S. ports. The government of Singapore owns most of a company that operates terminals in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Two Chinese companies, both with close ties to the Chinese government, manage terminals in New York, Long Beach, and other places. And the government of Venezuela owns all or part of marine terminal management at ports in Pennsylvania and Maine.

Most U.S. Port Terminals Are Foreign-Run

Critics of the Dubai Ports World deal have suggested that U.S. ports should be run by U.S. companies. But the vast majority of port terminals are leased and run by foreign companies and that's unlikely to change.

www.npr.org

 

[Jmac00]

Maybe time to "Nationalize" our ports and throw the foreigners out

 

[Blimey]

Nobody in the supply chain wants to pay to solve the problem.

If this is the case, and it does get appreciably worse, biden will have to step in with cash and start throwing it around to the weakest points in this chain.

I mentioned several weeks ago I was out of doritos in two wegmans. Thank GOD that has been resolved, but my wife got the last cream cheese the other day at wegmans and said it is the first time she noticed some things not showing up. Will be interesting to see what happens by Christmas. I'm sure ebay will be full of toys selling at 2-3x the cost.

 

[SomeSoldier]

Maybe time to "Nationalize" our ports and throw the foreigners out

Dont need to nationalize, just have a bill that says foreigners can't own US infrastructure. Its that easy.

 

[repete]

Maybe time to "Nationalize" our ports and throw the foreigners out

That idea does have some merit, but also pitfalls. I do believe they should be run by Americans.

 

[Saltwater60]

This actually comes as no surprise to me, sadly. This truly has to be planned. There is no other explanation at this point. It was months and months of backlogs and people had to have known this would not be feasible to catch up.

I would just direct my ships elsewhere and stop supplying the USA if I were a shipping container boat company.

 

[fnfalguy]

Let the mob take the ports back over again. I imagine it would get hashed out pretty quick.

 

[Acer-m14]

here is a goodie for you all .. from last night at work ..

i get a phone call from a trucking Company breakdown Dept .. .. trucker has a blown tire .. .. ok no problem .

send the work order over .. were computer linked with this company .. so all the info came from the trucking company ..

send my mechanic to XXOO State street in Brockport NY .. with 2 new tires ..

mechanic get there from a 1 hour drive from here .. no truck there .. calls the Driver .. where are you ??

Guess what .. the Fucking Truck is in Mechanicsburg PA .. 5 hour drive one way from here to there .. WTF LOL ..

 

[Acer-m14]

and to top that .. same company last week .. road call for blown drive tire to Batavia NY .. it was a steer tire .. LMAO ..

 

[Stuckinny]

I have been listening to blame from all sides in this mess. Everyone is pointing the finger away from themselves. Seems to me that if the transportation secretary was on-site with media, it would be obvious where the bottlenecks are. Long beach has a live webcam. Screen shot is below. No trucks in sight. Check it out for yourselves below.

https://www.wcmtoa.org/live/long-beach-container-terminal-live-onhold/

 

[BerettaGuy]

Don't worry, Brandon's people will fix it.
Part of the problem is we exports are down 40% below imports.
Empty containers are piling up. Full Containers being unloaded are not being loaded for export.
Lets shut down more businesses and fire more people all in the name of vote by mail.

Brandon is going to start fining the shipping companies every day over X that a Container is piled up.

 

[Stuckinny]

Just looked at the cams again, this looks more as I would expect.

 

[meketrefe]

Make it painful and maybe people will wake the fuck up.

I hear you. Historically we decide to change when we hit rock bottom.
People will try to pull up after they have already crashed.
The humans might be the intelligent species but we are the only species who trip twice, three times in the same stone.

 

[Acer-m14]

utho ..

 

[tgenec86]

I read an article written by a trucking organization that also is saying they're tired of "taking the blame" for the supply chain shortages. Multiple drivers - both independent owner/operators and trucking line drivers are saying that the Ports are an unmitigated disaster. They implemented new systems that have slowed container disposition to a crawl. Drivers that two years ago could haul 2-3 containers per day to local routes and rail drops are now waiting 4-6 hours for pickups, plus long waits to exit - resulting in one run per day. Shipping lines are dropping off a different ports due to congestion, and the lines they contracted to pick up their containers are being faced with 250-300 mile pick-up runs, forcing them to drop the contracts. The Ports are charging $1,000+ penalties for dropping chassis trailers off at the wrong locations - when the container runs are paying half that amount. One truck line company said that they have more business then they can handle - but they actually had to REDUCE their driver count because pick-up times have gone out so much, they were taking a huge loss in the hourly rate they have to pay their waiting drivers. This shit is by design, because if the Ports really wanted to increase throughput, they'd fix the allocation systems and get the cranes operating a peak efficiency. Even the Longshoreman are pissed, because the crane operators are saying they sometime sit idle for 60-90 minutes waiting for their assignments.

We're screwed. You can't tell me this isn't by design.