Truck purchases will continue to drop throughout 2009 due to overcapacity, and the first and second quarter will be incredibly difficult on fleets’ bottom lines, trucking industry analysts said today during an FTR Associates webinar.

“This recession, from a freight standpoint, started almost three years ago,” said Noel Perry, managing director of FTR Consulting.  “There is a free fall right now, but it is also the effect of cumulative stress on the industry…We have such low capacity, as low as we’ve had since the 1970s—nobody working in the industry right now has experienced these levels.”

While some carriers did not see the effects of the recession on their fourth-quarter earnings-- partially due to a cash boost thanks to diesel prices dropping so quickly--Perry said that the negative effects will show up in 2009 first-quarter earnings and even more so in the second quarter, with a disproportionate number of small- and medium-fleets continuing to go bankrupt. 

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