[Easttennceeten]

Having been in the trucking & shipping industry for 20 years now, I can tell you all that freight shipping is not what it was just a couple of years ago. With all of the laws that the federal government has put in place over the past five years, trucking companies have been forced to tighten everything up and make the most of every load they carry and rates reflect that. You can still get decent rates on shipments going to certain areas of the country if it is an area that there is a lot of freight moving back out of. For instance, right now several of the LTL carriers like Fastenal, Averitt, & Old Dominion are really looking for shipments going to the upper Mid-West because they have a lot of freight coming back out of there. So you can get discounted rates for that area. At the same time, you're going to pay out the nose for anything shipping to New England, Florida, and the Northwest because there is not as much freight moving back out of there so the freight carriers jack their rates up to maximize the profit they can make up front since there's no guarantee they will have freight to pull back from there. It all depends on the freight lane you are shipping to.