jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I was shocked to learn that seaports don't work 24/7. I assumed there would be a day shift and a night shift. Not so. They are just beginning to operate 24/7 to ease the bottleneck in the supply chain.

RiJoRi Loc: Sandy Ridge, NC

The cargo ships need their beauty rest, you know! 😜

--Rich

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Some of the east coast states and Gulf states are luring ships to sail there instead of the west coast. Most of the Eastern ports have always been 24/7. In fact the Gulf and Florida they often prefer to work at night because it is cooler in summer.

I saw a bit that said a few years ago it cost $3,000 each to ship those big containers. Now with the long delays (paying the crews to just sit off shore etc.) it is approaching $20,000 each.

The article said the price per container went down and so did the number of days they are in transit in spite of the longer trip from Asia around Africa or through the Panama Canal. Even a few ships waiting off CA went down and through the Panama Canal (many of them are too big to do that) and up to the Gulf coast or Florida.

Local news here says that the biggest bottle neck is moving the containers once they are unloaded due to lack of trucks. Even many of the containers that go on via train are shipped on a flatbed truck trailer on a flatbed railcar. They are starting to store unloaded containers in the neighborhoods around the ports while they wait for long haul trucks to move them on.

One source also said the trucks/drivers who are available can rack up the max allowed road time with no trouble. Once the drivers hit that max driving time the law requires them to take some down time.

Canisdirus

Unions... (cough).

aphelps Loc: Central Ohio

One news report stated that Calfornia as stringent rules on trucks that are more than 4 years old. So lots of older trucks are banned from the ports. Also, it reported that owner-operators (non-union) are also banned. If this is correct ot could be a major factor in the back-up problem.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

We were told by the President they would be open 24/7 to overcome the problems. The union told him...sorry.Don't think so.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

That lack of trucks BS is just that - BS. Traveling on I40 through Tennessee, I’m seeing as many, if not more, trucks as I saw pre-pandemic. Looking ahead on the highway from the top of a hill during peak travel hours, you can see at many times as many or more trucks as cars on the road ahead.

Stan

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

It seems that there really is a shortage of truck drivers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=shortage+of+truck+drivers&oq=shortage+of+truck+drivers&aqs=edge..69i57j0i512l7.5265j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

Robert, $3K is just the start of the charges that will be paid. The ships, even at anchor use fuel for generators to provide hotel services (electrics for lighting, cooking, bilge pumps, and they must use the local "honey barge" to empty the sanitary tanks, the crew must be paid, and on and on. . . Personally, I think that everyone is losing on the deal and in the end, the customer (us) will be paying MUCH more for the products, if we ever get them.
Big Sigh,
JimmyT Sends

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

It won't help much in CA since they don't allow trucks built before 2008 on their roads and this has created a huge shortage of trucks and truck drivers.

EdJ0307 Loc: out west someplace

Checking some of the claims made in this thread I found that vehicles in El Dorado, Riverside, Placer, San Diego, San Bernardino, and Sonoma counties of California are not required to have a smog check every two years. I lived in San Diego county from 1995 to 2005 and had to smog check my cars during that time. Does anyone know when that rule was implemented or was I ripped off all those years?

marine73 Loc: Modesto California

I have lived in Northern CA since May of 1988 and the vehicle smogging rules were if the vehicle was 20 plus years old no smog was required, If the vehicle was brand new no smog required for the first five years, after that every two years until you reach the 20 year mark if you own the vehicle that long then you go to no smog.

Depending on the age of your cars you probably fell into the category where your cars were more then five years old and under 20 years old. So no you were not ripped off in that sense. Big rigs didn't have to be smogged at that time. Since 2008 they have to meet certain requirements for emissions and if you notice you will not see a big rig older than 2008.

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

I heard on World News last night that the trucking industry is short 80,000 truckers.

If there’s not enough truckers to haul off the containers, what good is it to run the port 24/7?

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

The people who run this state have regulations and plans that show little knowledge of the real world. Based on what they want to happen and not on what is possible in a reasonable world.

The state has a time line to ban all gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035 and at this time you can't register diesels from 2005-2007 unless they meet new strict rules. Jan 1st 2023 it will be up to 2010 models. The owners have to replace them with newer vehicles or rebuild them to meet the new requirements. Many smaller companies have just gone out of business and larger ones are starting to avoid California and in some cases they have moved their business and their trucks out of the state.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

But in many cases they aren't in the ports moving the containers out - that is mainly a CA problem. The twin ports of LA & Long Beach handle 40% of all shipping on the west coast and are the biggest ports in the whole country and among the biggest in the world. But on efficiency they rate near the bottom. Of 351 Container ports in the world LA ranks 328 and Long Beach 333.

The five most efficient ports are #1-Yokohama, one in Arabia, 2 in China and 1 in Taiwan. The highest any US port ranked was Philadelphia at #83, 3 other East Coast Ports made the top 100.

EDIT, in going into sources I found that 40% of west coast shipping may not be quite correct, it is 40% of all US seaborne imports according to the New York Times.