The Freight Doctor

Something a little distressing has been brought to my attention recently. The appearance of a new charge on the freight bill:
The Freight Reweight Charge. When did this happen? In all my years in the freight buniness, I’ve never heard of a reweigh charge on a bill before. Evidently, this fee can range anywhere from $20-$50 depending on the freight carriers that have begun to implement this fee.
The reweigh fee on the freight bill has only recently been popping up with a few of the more bold freight carriers. I just can’t see how these freight carriers can justify this new fee. Generally when a freight reweigh is called for, it’s to correct the weight because the freight carrier believes that the shipment is heaveir than the customer stated. I haven’t ever heard of a trucking company calling for a reweigh because they felt that the shipment was estimated as being lighter than the customer stated. That said, when a reweigh is called for you can expect to be charged more on your freight bill even before paying any reweigh fee.
Now again, as I’ve said in the past, shame on the customer who ball parks the weight or dims of their shipment because of ignorance or trying to round down their shipment’s weight in the hopes of getting a better price. You’re not usualy going to get one over on these guys and you’re just asking for trouble down the line when a revised freight chage shows up in the mail, however, this isn’t grounds to double charge customers. Especially because this new re-weigh charge was never part of a freight bill until very recently.
I say to anyone who sees this new fee on their freight bill to contact their agent or broker immediately to dispute this new fee as the freight carrier will get their money from the reweigh itself. At very least demand a certified document that explains the freight reweigh for your approval.

Today I wanted to go over the “Limited Access” accessorial fee you may see on your freight quote. Limited Access ( or LTD Access for short ) refers to a location that is difficult for the truck driver to get to. Locations that fall under limited access would include: Amusement Parks, Construction Sites, Farms, Mines, Mini Storage, Places of Worship, Schools, Correctional Facilities and Military Bases.

Due to the inconvenience of getting freight in and out of these types of locations, which slows down the driver on their overall route, you will be charged a Limited Access accessorial fee on your freight quote. Depending on the freight broker or carrier you’re dealing with, you can expect to see a fee of anywhere from $50-$80. Again, as I say with any over priced accessorial charge,  if it’s any more than this, I would suggest at least attempting to negotiate this fee down.

As a continuing part on my series explaining accessorial charges, today I’ll go into Residential Pickup and Delivery Charges.

The reason for Residential Delivery and / or Pickup Charges for non commercial locations is due to the fact that there are a number of factors that impede a prompt delivery or pickup to the location. The reasons can vary from there being no loading docks or forklifts, the streets may be narrower and harder to negotiate in and out of for the truck driver and as general rule of thumb it’s simply just more difficult to pick up and drop off shipments in non commercial environments. Typically you can also expect a liftgate charge attached because there isn’t a loading dock for the driver to back into as discussed in my previous post.

You can expect fees for residential charges to range anywhere from about $50-$100 tacked onto your total freight quote or bill.

Having worked in the trucking industry for many years now I have seen just about everything the shipping and freight industry has to offer — the good and the bad.

Back in the day (as my grandkids say) all LTL (less than truckload) carrier rates were based on published tariffs and no discounts were applied. What the teamsters wanted to charge that year is what you paid - government regulation protected the carriers from competition and the teamsters union was able to control the industry through master agreements with all the major freight transport companies.

In 1979, that all changed thanks to Jimmy Carter and the Deregulation Bill, that protective shield of regulation was stripped away and a lot of the bigger carriers began dropping like flies. Ringsby, Truck Lines, Denver-Chicago, Leeway, ICX, Transcon, ONC, Delta Truck Lines and McLean were some of the bigger names that fell in post-deregulation America. With the frontiers now open, a lot of smaller, regionalcarriers began movie towards the West Coast and the North East and the compeition kicked in to high gear. Some companies began to offer insane discount levels of 45%-50%…now, they were also increasing their rates by similar levels.

This caused the development of FAK (freight all kinds) pricing. The term FAK means a mixture of different product types delivered in a combined load to a single or limited number of destinations. Instead of figuring out the classification and rate for each product, carriers determine an average rated which is applied to the entire shipment. This makes this easier for everyone involved and makes creating a bill of lading or freight bill much more simple. Interestingly enough, the development of FAK priving coincided with a decrease in the number of headaches I had every day.

As a product of the old school of freight shipping, I think the 1960s and 1970s were the best years to work in transportation because management and union employees were forced to work more ethically together…and, unfortunately, that’s not something you find very often in companies nowadays.

Ok, I think I’ve rambled on enough for today.

Freight Carriers will charge you for storing your shipment roughly 48 hours after they first attempt delivery.   If for some reason you are not available past that first 48 hours storage charage will begin to accrue. After the typical 48 grace period, you can see a fee of anywhere from $100-$130 depending on the freight carrier. The next day $130-$160. The day after that, anywhere from $200+ and so on.

However, there may be a perfecty understandable reason that you were unavailable. Possibly some sort of emergency. If you know that no one will be able to receive the shipment within the first 48 hours, the best thing for you to do is to get on the phone and call the local terminal where yourshipment is coming into. The idea is that you can speak to a real person there and you can negotiate to have the charges waived or at least reduced as long as you can give them a definite reasonable time for a postponed delivery.

Freight Carrier Trucking Companies, try to fill their trucks as efficently as possible to maximize the amount of loads for each trucks delivery route. This is accomplished by trying to fill as much space as possible within the truck’s trailer by stacking lighter items on top of heaver palletized items.

Shipping items of excessive length also known as Over Dimension Shipments presents a challenge when attempting to fill up dead space within the trailer as the the freight carrier would like. Due to the fact that the trucking company will need make up for having less loads because your shipment is of excessive length, the freight carrier will make up the difference by charging you an Over-Dimension Shipment Charge.

The length that falls into Over-Dimension Shipments varies from Trucking Company to Trucking Company, but it will usually reside anywhere from 12 feet to 14 feet in length.

So how much should you expect to be charged for an Over-Dimension Shipment? Look for your freight quote to have an additional charge of anywhere from about $75-$150 depending on the freight carrier and the type of commodity that you’re shipping. If you’re asked to pay any more than that, then it’s a good idea to negotiate this fee down to fall into a more reasonable price range as noted above.