Most carriers don’t realize how much empty miles are quietly killing their bottom line. You can have the best rates in the world, but if your truck runs 150 miles empty between loads, you’re bleeding profit—and most of the time, you don’t even notice it until it’s too late. Deadhead doesn’t show up on a check stub. It doesn’t pop up in factoring reports. But it’s one of the fastest ways to destroy margins and wear out equipment chasing freight that isn’t worth the move.
Too many owner-operators and small fleet owners accept deadheading as the cost of doing business. They say things like, “That’s just trucking,” or, “I had to bounce 200 miles to get a better paying load.” But here’s the hard truth—if you’re constantly running empty, it’s not a rate problem. It’s a planning problem. And if you’re not actively tracking, analyzing, and attacking your deadhead strategy, you’re burning fuel, time, and opportunity every week.
This article breaks down real-world tactics that actually work to reduce deadhead—whether you’re running one truck or managing a growing fleet. These aren’t theories. These are moves we coach on every week inside the Playbook.
Most carriers can tell you their rate per mile. Few can tell you their deadhead percentage. That’s a problem. If you don’t know how many of your total miles are unpaid, how can you measure if your planning is improving?
Let’s say you drove 2,500 total miles last week. If 600 of those were deadhead, that’s 24% of your miles making zero revenue. You wouldn’t give away 24% of your revenue—but that’s exactly what happens when you ignore this number.
Track it weekly. Use your ELD data or your TMS to separate loaded vs total miles. The goal is to keep deadheads under 15%. Under 10%? You’re running sharp. Over 20%? You’re leaking cash.
A $3.00/mile load sounds great—until you realize you ran 200 miles to get to it. That’s the trick the load board doesn’t show you. You might see a flashy rate, but if you had to burn half a tank of fuel just to get to the shipper, the math falls apart quickly.
You have to evaluate total revenue per all miles, not just loaded miles.
Here’s a basic example:
Load A: 200-mile deadhead + 800 loaded miles = 1,000 total miles
Rate: $3.00/mile on 800 = $2,400
All miles rate: $2.40/mile
Load B: 50-mile deadhead + 700 loaded miles = 750 total miles
Rate: $2.60/mile on 700 = $1,820
All miles rate: $2.43/mile
Load B actually pays better once you factor the deadhead—and your truck spends less time and fuel to do it. This is the level of math serious carriers are using every day to make smarter moves.
Most carriers think lane to lane. Smart carriers think from zone to zone. Instead of jumping from city to city chasing random freight, identify 3 to 5 origin zones where you consistently find strong outbound loads. Then build your weekly plan to get back into those zones—on purpose.
For example, if you run out of Atlanta, you know there’s usually decent freight coming back from:
That means if you see a Florida load that ends in Miami, you skip it—because you know getting back to Atlanta is a mess. But if it ends in Jacksonville, you take it and plan your reload right back into Atlanta. You’re not playing checkers anymore. You’re playing chess.
Short hauls don’t always look pretty on paper, but when used correctly, they’re one of the best tools to kill deadheads.
Let’s say you’re empty in Indianapolis, and the good loads are in Columbus. That’s 175 miles of deadhead. Now imagine you take a 90-mile short haul paying $500 that drops you halfway to Columbus. That $500 just turned your deadhead into profit. Then you reload in Columbus with the original long haul. You turned a zero-mile segment into revenue—and you protected your fuel spend along the way.
The key is to layer short hauls, not just bounce aimlessly waiting on the perfect rate.
The biggest reason small fleets suffer from deadhead is simple—they’re relying 100% on the spot market. When every load is one-and-done, you’re constantly chasing the next pickup. But when you develop relationships with brokers or shippers who give you regular freight, you gain consistency—and predictability.
Example: Let’s say you have a broker who always gives you loads from Charlotte to Louisville every Monday. That means your Sunday planning becomes intentional. You stop gambling with freight, and you start reverse-engineering your weekend to land near Charlotte by Monday morning.
That’s how you reduce deadhead before it even happens—by planning for freight you haven’t even been offered yet.
Inside the Playbook, we coach our carriers to set a hard deadhead limit. For many, it’s 100 miles. For some, it’s 75.
That means if a load requires more than that to get to the shipper, you either:
Negotiate more money to offset the deadhead
Find a short-haul filler load to cut the distance
Or pass on the load entirely
Without a rule, you’ll make decisions emotionally. With a rule, you stay consistent and protect your profit.
Deadhead is the silent killer in most trucking operations. You won’t see it on the invoice. You won’t hear a broker mention it. But it shows up in your fuel bill, your maintenance schedule, and your worn-out drivers.
The carriers who win aren’t just chasing the next big rate. They’re planning their weeks like dispatchers. They’re tracking their deadhead percentage like it’s a KPI. And they’re making decisions based on total miles—not loaded lies.
If you want to run profitably in this market, you’ve got to stop giving away empty miles like they don’t matter. Every mile counts. Every move costs. And every decision you make either builds margin—or burns it.
Smart trucking is intentional. Deadhead reduction isn’t a suggestion. It’s survival.
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