Demand for flatbed trucks continued to climb ahead of schedule. Even California joined the party last week, with higher than normal activity for this time of year.

Reefer trends started to reverse course last week. It wasn't a big jump, but it was good news considering the steady string of declines we had been seeing.

Van load posts on DAT TruckersEdge continued to climb last week, enough to finally put pressure on van rates to rise. The national average van rate was up 4 cents, while 56 of the top 100 van lanes paid better. Thirty lanes paid less, but most of those drops were slight. The rest of the lanes held steady.

Flatbed freight has been strong, especially considering it's only February. Volumes have been climbing steadily for weeks, which is about a month ahead of schedule. The national average flatbed rate has been rising steadily, too, but a lot of individual lanes have been up-and-down recently, depending on weather.

A couple weeks ago we talked about how it looked like van rates had found the bottom, but we haven’t really seen things get any better yet. The national average van rate held at $1.62/mile last week after several weeks of steady decline, but volumes continued to improve on the top 100 van lanes. If van loads keep climbing, it'll put pressure on rates to go up soon.

Although carriers are hoping to increase workplace safety and productivity, it's not unheard of for a driver to try to cheat a drug test, which leaves trucking companies vulnerable to increased risk

Last week we talked about how it looked like van rates might be near the bottom. It’s looking that way for reefer rates now also, and the number of reefer loads available on DAT TruckersEdge has been relatively constant as of late.

Van freight has gotten steady in the past few weeks, but the lower number of available reefer loads has been a drag on van rates. When there isn’t enough reefer freight to go around, those trucks start competing for van freight, and the extra capacity has kept van rates from going up in a lot of places.

One of the executive orders that President Donald Trump issued early on in his presidency stated that for every new regulation added to the books, two existing regulations had to be taken off. There have been some questions as to how that order will apply to rules that have already been published but are not yet in effect.

February is here, so falling prices are to be expected. Still, rates haven’t dropped off as sharply as we’ve seen in the slow seasons of years past, at least not yet. Van rates were still higher last week than they were in February of 2016.