Trucking Deregulation

 

The DOT has been around since the mid-‘60s, but yes FMCSA was enacted on 1/1/2000, in response to The Motor Carrier Act 1980. This is what the aforementioned act did for trucking. This is Jimmy Carter talking upon signing of the Act 1/7 1980:

“This is historic legislation. It will remove 45 years of excessive and inflationary Government restrictions and red tape. It will have a powerful anti-inflationary effect, reducing consumer costs by as much as $8 billion each year. And by ending wasteful practices, it will conserve annually hundreds of millions of gallons of precious fuel. All the citizens of our Nation will benefit from this legislation. Consumers will benefit, because almost every product we purchase has been shipped by truck, and outmoded regulations have inflated the prices that each one of us must pay. The shippers who use trucking will benefit as new services and price options appear. Labor will benefit from increased job opportunities. And the trucking industry itself will benefit from greater flexibility and new opportunities for innovation.”

This is the reason for low rates, not brokers, or shippers, Brokers came about because of it, and shippers just compete within it. The very government act that gives most of you the authority to operate is the same one that drove rates down, welcome to supply-side economics. Carriers and drivers who blame brokers for lower rates, don’t understand supply-side/demand-side economics and need to educate themselves about business before they run one.

I have seen on this thread carriers, and drivers advocating the government to set a rate for freight. That was already tried, it was done that way for 45 years. I am not so sure we need to go back to the way it was. Rate arguments go back to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and the Grange Movement of the 1880s. First, it was barges, then it was trains, and later on to trucks and airlines, to where we are now with the fluctuating rates. It took 45 years to get to deregulation, now 40 years of deregulation, do we need to go back to the government either setting the rate or a better combination of the market and the government setting the rate or staying with the status quo, when it comes to rates? Or is there another equitable solution?