Though freight has hit bottom for most transportation modes, recovery for the less-than-truckload market is likely still distant. In part, carriers who are still hanging on because banks and lenders don’t want to be burdened with the equipment are practically giving their business away. And in today’s economic climate, it’s hard to turn down a deal despite the risk of dealing with a company on life support. What may require the most acclimation after getting something for nearly nothing for so long, however, is paying more for shipping when the market does improve or is headed in that direction.

TORONTO — During the legwork for the 2009 U.S. Mastio & Co. LTL shipper survey author Kevin Huntsman was talking shop with a medium-sized U.S. carrier who shared a pricing tale that involved losing four accounts to a much larger, national carrier whose recent struggles have been well chronicled.

“The customers,” relays Huntsman, “told the carrier that ‘the price is so low that we don’t think we’ll ever see pricing like this again, and we have to take it.’”

And if, as it’s been speculated, the carrier goes under with the freight left on the shipping dock?

“We’ll deal with it when it happens,” the customers told him. “The price right now is just too cheap to say no to.”

You hear stories like that all the time in the LTL sphere, which has arguably rivaled flatbed as the trucking sector that has taken it the hardest on the chin during this freight downturn.

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