Every owner-operator knows the feeling: you drop a load, check the boards, and nothing real shows up. So you point the truck home and roll 200 miles empty. It feels like a small setback – until the numbers hit. Empty miles don’t just chip away at your week; they quietly erase hundreds of dollars at a time, turning fuel, wear, and wasted hours into a steady leak from your bottom line.
Why Empty Miles Hit Owner-Operators the Hardest
Empty miles affect every carrier, but owner-operators feel the impact more sharply than anyone. The average cost to operate a truck has increased, driven by rising equipment expenses, maintenance, repairs, insurance, and fuel. These costs continue mile after mile – loaded or empty – meaning every deadhead mile carries the full weight of operational expense without contributing any revenue.
This is why deadhead can’t be evaluated in isolation — it directly inflates your true operating baseline, as explained in The Real Cost Per Mile in Trucking – Why Profit Still Feels Out of Reach.
Fuel alone continues to be one of the largest and most unpredictable expenses. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, national diesel prices fluctuate week to week, often sitting above four dollars per gallon in many regions. Every empty mile burns that same fuel while producing no income to offset the cost.
Deadhead miles are the clearest sources of lost opportunity in trucking. When a truck moves without freight, the operator loses both time and potential revenue – two things that cannot be recovered. This becomes especially challenging for independents, who do not have the financial cushions or fleet-level resources that larger carriers use to absorb inefficiencies.
Owner-operators bear every operating cost personally, from fuel and tires to insurance and unexpected repairs. Each empty mile chips away at profitability because the driver continues to pay out-of-pocket while earning nothing in return.
This combination of rising expenses, volatile fuel prices, and unreliable freight availability makes deadhead one of the most financially draining parts of an owner-operator’s week.
Load Board Volatility and the Rise of Wasted Miles
Deadhead is often made worse by unreliable freight postings. DAT publicly acknowledges the prevalence of what drivers call “ghost loads”– entries that appear on the boards but never actually move. When a driver starts repositioning based on a load that vanishes or turns out to be inaccurate, the empty miles multiply long before they realize the posting wasn’t legitimate.
This wasted repositioning time is a growing contributor to deadhead, especially for drivers relying heavily on public boards rather than pre-planned, verified freight.
Empty Miles Are Rising – and the Financial Stakes Are Higher Than Ever
ATRI’s latest cost research makes one trend clear: operating costs are rising sharply, while freight rates remain volatile. As profitability tightens across the industry, inefficiencies like empty miles are becoming more damaging than ever before. Large carriers and small fleets alike are now analyzing their routing, freight patterns, and lane balance to reduce non-productive miles.
Many regions now experience imbalanced freight flow, where outbound volumes are significantly stronger than inbound. Drivers who deliver into these areas often face longer repositioning stretches with limited options – making deadhead an unavoidable part of the week unless supported by smarter planning or stronger broker relationships.
Overall, the fewer empty miles you run, the stronger your year-end profitability becomes.
Deadhead Is a Cost Structure Problem, Not a Routing Mistake
Most discussions about deadhead focus on tactics – better routes, better timing, better tools. But empty miles are rarely caused by navigation errors. They’re caused by acceptance decisions made earlier in the week.
Deadhead accumulates when freight is chosen without considering exit markets, reload probability, and lane balance. A load that pays well on paper can quietly create hundreds of unpaid miles if it delivers into a weak outbound area. Nothing went “wrong” in the moment – but the sequence failed.
This is why deadhead behaves like a multiplier, not a line item. One poorly positioned load doesn’t just add empty miles; it raises the effective cost of every paid mile that follows.
Operators who consistently control deadhead don’t rely on luck or last-minute refreshes. They work from predictable lanes, secure backhauls in advance, and evaluate loads based on where the truck will be after delivery – not just the rate on the confirmation.
Empty miles will always exist in trucking. But when they’re treated as random or unavoidable, they quietly take control of your cost structure.
Some owner-operators manage deadhead discipline on their own. Others work with dispatch partners whose role is to protect exit markets, plan freight sequencing, and prevent weak-position deliveries – not just keep the truck moving.
If you’re focused on reducing deadhead by enforcing smarter load decisions – not chasing every available mile – that’s the operational philosophy Logity Dispatch supports.
Deadhead Control Is an Operational Choice
Empty miles don’t disappear by accident. They’re reduced when load decisions are made with exit markets, reload probability, and lane balance in mind – before the truck ever rolls.
Some owner-operators try to manage this manually. Others work with a dispatch partner whose job isn’t to “find something” after delivery, but to prevent weak-position loads from being accepted in the first place.
Logity Dispatch works with owner-operators who want freight decisions aligned with their real cost structure – not just the highest visible rate. That means planning lanes, protecting backhauls, and reducing deadhead exposure before it shows up on the fuel receipt.
Learn how Logity Dispatch helps drivers reduce empty miles and stabilize weekly revenue.
