Trucking: Another Job Americans Wont Do?

Opening the border to Mexican trucks has a detrimental effect on the US trucking industry, but that effect is hard for someone not very familiar with the business to see. I'll try to explain how this happens by giving the reader enough background to see the connection:

There have been many changes in the way trucking companies do business in the past five years. Even major carriers have far fewer freight contracts; instead, most freight is brokered daily or even hourly. With increased competition due to deregulation and the ease of beginning business, there are more trucks available to haul what freight there is. The large carriers have expanded into freight brokering to keep their trucks loaded.

Add to the mix the increased price of fuel: a truck can easily run thru 150 gallon of diesel a day. At the pump price of $3.65 a gallon it's not unusual for a trucker to spend well over $500 a day just for fuel. When one considers the huge increase in trans-border freight it adds up to a whole lot of trucks and a whole lot of loaded trailers needing to move on our highways every day. The logistics of getting the freight information to the huge number of independents and carriers is mind-boggling but it explains the steady rise in freight brokerage. Most carriers, large and small, employ brokerage on-site in their offices to locate this freight and bid on it via the internet. In the beginning, they 'bought' this freight to load their own trucks. Increasingly, they buy the freight to re-sell it.