Hot Shot Trucking 101: Speed, Shipments, Trucks and Delivery Area

Decades ago in the oil fields of Texas, a breakdown or equipment failure could cause you to lose money every minute your oil rig was not in operation. Getting replacement parts using traditional shipping methods could take weeks, which was unacceptable to oil field owners, so a new method of trucking was devised. Oil field owners in Texas would call an independent contractor or owner of a small truck and hire them to deliver a single piece of equipment as quickly as possible. Thus was the method of hot shot trucking in Houston, TX born.

Today, the hot shot trucking method is still used by oil companies and other power and energy companies, but the use of hot shot trucking has expanded to almost all industries or areas of business. If you need a small load delivered quickly, hot shot trucking is the shipping method of choice. What qualifies as hot shot trucking can be broken down into four main characteristics:

• A need for speed: The number one characteristic of hot shot trucking is speed. Hot shot trucking shipments are rarely planned; they come out of an urgent necessity or last-minute orders. Hot shot trucking shipments are driven by the need for a sense of urgency and being able to deliver goods as quickly as possible.

• The type of shipment: Hot shot trucking shipments will always be an LTL (less than truckload) shipment. Hot shot trucking shipments are typically for a single customer and rarely require the full space available on the truck. The idea isn’t to save money by delivering as many goods as possible in one trip, but rather to meet an urgent need as quickly as possible.

• The type of truck: Because hot shot trucking shipments are smaller, the trucks making these types of deliveries are typically smaller as well. A typical hot shot truck will be a Class 3-5 truck with a ¾ – 1 ½ ton pickup or cab chassis rig. Again, a hot shot truck is not meant to carry full truck loads; it’s meant to deliver small shipments as quickly as possible.

• A local shipping area: Hot shot trucking services typically deliver within a local area and rarely cross state lines. They don’t have specific routes or shipping lanes, but they do only deliver to a particular regional or local area. It would be impossible to deliver outside of a local area and still meet the urgency requirements associated with hot shot trucking.

Hot shot trucking was designed to meet a very specific need for urgent deliveries and is still a useful tool to a variety of industries today. If you’re looking for affordable and reliable hot shot trucking services in the Houston area for your business, you’ll want to work with Pro Delivery LLC. We have been the number one service for hot shot trucking in Houston, TX since 1999. To learn more about our services and to schedule your delivery, give us a call today. We look forward to working with you!

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