Freight Hauling

Freight hauling is what most truckers start their career doing. Many of them stay freight haulers. However, the term freight hauler is used loosely and covers many types of cargo.

You may haul anything from commodities to soda pop (that word irritates me for some reason) to office supplies.

Freight is simply cargo. Even cars, boats and oversized load are technically freight.

However when a person, especially a trucker uses the term freight hauler, he or she is referring to the type of freight that is not usually classified by any other more specific term.

For instance, we don't call a car hauler a freight hauler, we call him/her a car or auto hauler. We don't call a flat bedder a freight hauler even though they sometimes haul exactly the same thing as a freight hauler does using a dry van on their flat bed trailers.

The term freight hauler usually is in reference to a driver pulling a dry van or reefer.

Freight hauling can be LTL, partial loads, full loads, pad wrapped loads, temperature controlled loads.

Bottom line....don't get caught up in this term, it is mostly an umbrella term which includes many types of cargo.

If you need/want to know the type of freight, when conversing with the shipper or broker and they say "freight", ask them to be more specific.

Ask them what type of freight. Same goes for the broker, ask him/her what you will be hauling.

Remember: Depending on what the conversation is, there will be times that you need to know exactly what freight means. Since it is a term used loosely, you need to make sure you and the other person aren't making assumptions. What type of freight will you be hauling. It could be Hazmat or many other things.

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