General information for carriers. This article is not legal, tax, accounting, or regulatory advice.
Empty miles are chosen when you accept the load, not when you notice the trailer is light at the fuel island. The board shows a loaded rate. Your fuel and your hours do not care that the miles were unpaid. If you cannot name where the truck will be empty and what freight usually leaves that area on that weekday, you have not priced the load. You have priced a one-way and hoped. Deadhead drops when the hope is replaced with a number you write down before you say yes.
Know what an empty mile costs you, in fuel and in time, before you debate a reload that is eighty miles off the destination. You do not need a perfect cost-per-mile study. You need a working figure you trust enough to turn down a load. If empty miles burn a dollar-plus in fuel and the hour you lose kills a better pickup, a nearby load at a softer rate can beat a prettier load across the state. Run that comparison in the same five minutes you spend staring at the board. The math is repetitive. That is why it works.
Shop the destination before you book the outbound, not after the wheels are committed. Look at a realistic radius from the receiver, a realistic appointment window, and the hours the driver will have left when the trailer is empty. A reload that picks up tomorrow morning is not a plan if you will empty tonight with a ten-hour break still ahead and the freight gone by dawn. Call on two or three options while you still can refuse the outbound. A broker who wants your truck today can wait ten minutes while you check the other end.
Use a radius you will actually drive. Fifty miles of deadhead into a stronger market can be cheaper than zero deadhead onto a load that sits you until Thursday. Two hundred miles to chase a rate you saw last month is how trucks get stranded. Write the radius down for the kind of week you are in. Tight weeks stay closer. Weeks with a home-time deadline can stretch if the stretch points toward home instead of away from it. The rule is not a slogan about less empty. The rule is empty miles that buy a better next loaded mile, on purpose.
Sometimes the empty mile is the correct buy. A short deadhead out of a market that does not reload your trailer type is cheaper than two days of sitting for a weak load that still leaves you in the wrong place. Price the sit. A day of fixed cost, lost home time, and a driver who burns a reset in a lot with no freight is not free just because the odometer did not move. Compare that day to the fuel and hours of a deliberate reposition. Write the choice in a note so next month you can see whether the reposition actually paid.
Track empty miles every week next to the reason. Reposition toward home, a failed pickup, a personal choice, or a load you booked without looking at the other end. The percentage matters less than the reason you can change. If most empty miles come from outbound-only booking, the fix is the ten-minute destination check, not a lecture about fuel. If they come from appointments you miss, the fix is the window, which is a different article and a different habit. A number with no reason is just a complaint.
Small fleets cut deadhead by giving the board a constraint before anyone scrolls. Trailer type, the latest empty time, the maximum empty miles for this week, and where the truck needs to be in two days. Without that box, every load looks like an opportunity and the empty miles sneak in one yes at a time. With the box, a dispatcher can decline faster and explain the decline in one sentence. The truck ends the week closer to the next load you actually want, which is the only kind of empty-mile reduction that shows up in the account.