Frieght shipping

I've been shipping pallets for about 4 years now. Started off driving them to the terminal. The guys there would use a forklift to remove them from my trailer. About 9 months ago I got some shop space and did some LTL shipping. I don't have a loading dock, but do have a forklift. With the LTL, the driver had a pallet jack and moved the pallets after I put them on the truck. Today, I did my 1st FTL and was surprised to learn that the drivers do not normally move the pallets once you put them on the back of the truck. Good thing I have a pallet jack at the shop. Turns out that because the driver helped out (I didn't have extra help) that there is an additional charge.

I'd like to know, from others that deal with freight on a regular basis, is this typical? If so, is it only typical with FTL or did I just get lucky with the LTL?



For anybody that has driven a tractor trailer, wouldn't you want to see how your trailer (weight wise and to ensure that things don't shift easily) was loaded?

I worked at a business who shipped freight every so often. The forklift was broken one time when a truck showed up to pick up a pallet. The driver had to use his lift gate to load the shipment. The lift gate service was an extra $70.

Here is my recent experience with this. About a month ago at my 9-5 job, we got a load of 6 pallets of our custom corrugated shipping boxes. The semi is owned and run by the box company. He never has a pallet jack. We don't have a dock but we do have a forklift and jacks so we need to lift a pallet jack in to the trailer so the guy can pull them to the rear deck. I do this every time they come, around every 3-4 months.

This last time when all was said and done, I sign the drop sheet and he pulls a new form out. Its a confirmation and authorization of equipment use for the driver to use our pallet jack. I ask, "Whats this S#!+ ?" He responded " Some bull s#!+ corporate needs us to do now."

So turns out if the driver has to use any equipment other that just driving the truck and opening the doors, he needs one of these forms filled out and i'm assuming gets paid more for doing it. Now I don't see the shipping bills, but I would expect we get that added to our bill.

I can tell you this is what happens on FTL loads driver will pull up and you do the loading unless your talking a flat bed shipment then the driver will strap load down and if you want it tarped it is a extra charge for the tarp.

Originally Posted by gorven

I can tell you this is what happens on FTL loads driver will pull up and you do the loading unless your talking a flat bed shipment then the driver will strap load down and if you want it tarped it is a extra charge for the tarp.

Thank you. Learned the hard way.

LTL will move pallets on the truck?

Yes commercial carrier like Central Transport will move the pallets to where they want them. If you have a FTL usually means that you have 26 pallets either single or double stacked and that will fill the truck and must be loaded pallets side by side so not much room for mistakes in loading