Car hauling backhaul loads: how to find a return load and cut empty miles.

Backhaul, deadhead and empty miles

• Headhaul: the load that takes the truck out, usually the one you planned the trip around.
• Backhaul: the load that brings it back toward home, or toward the next area you want to work. Car haulers also call it a back load or a return load.
• Deadhead: driving with an empty trailer, to a pickup or back home. Deadhead miles and empty miles are the same thing. They burn fuel and hours, and nobody pays for them.

How much of the road runs empty? The American Transportation Research Institute's 2025 edition of "An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking", built on 2024 data from the carriers it surveyed, put empty miles at an average of 16.7 percent. Its 2026 edition, on 2025 data, says deadhead mileage remained elevated. Those figures cover trucking as a whole, not car haulers alone.

You are paid for loaded miles. Every empty mile has to be paid for by the loads on either side of it.

How to find a return load after you deliver cars

1. Search before you unload. Look at loads picking up near your drop a day or two ahead, while you are still loaded, so the next pickup date follows the delivery instead of a day of waiting.
2. Search around the drop, with a radius. Start with loads picking up within 50 miles of the delivery address. If nothing fits, widen to 100 or 150 miles and weigh the extra empty miles against the rate.
3. Point it the way you want to go. To head home, set the delivery end too: your home state, or a city or ZIP near your base with a radius. To keep working, leave the delivery end open and see everything leaving the area.
4. Look one leg ahead. A load into a city with plenty of freight can be worth more than one that goes straight home and leaves you hunting there. Judge the next two loads together, not the backhaul alone.
5. Fill the deck on the way. A trailer going home with open slots can take a car or two that picks up along the route. Search along the route, not only at the drop.
6. Ask the people you already haul for. Brokers, dealers and auctions in the drop area may have cars going back the other way, and a broker you delivered well for calls before posting. How to get car hauling contracts.
7. Save the lane. If nothing is posted yet, save the search and let the board tell you when a load lands on it.

Judge a backhaul by its net, not its rate

The closest load to your drop is not always the best one, and the biggest number is not either. Here are two return loads after a delivery in Denver, both 600 loaded miles to Kansas City, so the loaded leg costs the same and drops out of the comparison. Both pay on delivery, so there is no factoring line. The costs use the constants from our worked net-profit example: diesel at $4.75 a gallon, 9.5 mpg empty, 10% fuel overhead, and the driver on 28% of gross. That makes deadhead fuel $0.55 an empty mile.

Load B pays $200 more on the board and ends up $45 ahead, for 180 more empty miles and the hours it takes to drive them. Whether that is worth it is your call. The point is to decide on $45, not on $200. Run your own loads in the net-profit calculator, and find your floor with the cost per mile calculator.

Finding backhauls on the loadez board

loadez runs its own load board, separate from every other one, and brokers and shippers post on it free. Anyone can open it without an account; the broker's phone and email open after a free sign-up. These are the parts built for the trip back:

• Lane search. A lane has a pickup end and a delivery end. Each end can be any, a state, or a city or ZIP with a radius of 25, 50, 100, 150, 200 or 300 miles, 50 by default. Pickup near your drop and delivery near home finds loads along that route; pickup alone shows everything leaving the area. Every plan, Free included.
• Saved searches with alerts. Save a lane and choose how long to watch it: today only, 7 days or permanently. When new loads land on it, an alert in your loadez notification bell says how many and lists the first three with their price, at most once every 10 minutes per search. Up to 20 saved searches per person, on every plan.
• Net after deadhead. From Growth, every load on the board carries a score and an estimated net for the driver it fits best, and the deadhead in that net runs from where that truck actually is: the phone's last position, or a location the office sets. Until there is one, it is measured from the truck's base, the home city given when the driver was invited or the company's address on file, and the board marks it "from base". Deadhead starts as straight-line distance times 1.2 and is replaced with road miles for the matched driver.
• The AI backhaul card. On Pro, the live tracking map shows an AI backhaul card for each driver: the best next load on the board for that truck, with its score, rate, estimated net and the deadhead from where the truck last reported. Show on map pins the pickup; Claim for the driver sends the claim after you confirm it.
• Autopilot. On Pro, Autopilot checks new loads every minute against your floor rate, lanes, vehicle type, pickup window and minimum score, and sends the claim when one fits. Give it a lane from your usual drop back toward home, and a return load that fits can be claimed while the driver is still unloading. Anything over your ask-me limit waits for your OK.

Saved searches belong to the person, not to a carrier, so a dispatcher working for several carriers keeps one set of lanes across all of them. The load board for car hauling dispatchers.

Free covers the board, lane search and saved searches for one truck, forever. Net after deadhead comes with Growth, $49 per driver a month from 5 seats; the AI backhaul card and Autopilot with Pro, $59. A new company gets every feature for its first 30 days, with no card. Pricing.

Common questions

What is a backhaul load in car hauling?

A backhaul is the load a car hauler carries on the return leg after a delivery, so the trailer is not empty on the way home or to the next area. Car haulers also call it a back load or a return load.

What does deadhead mean in trucking?

Deadhead means driving with an empty trailer, to a pickup or back home. Deadhead miles are the same as empty miles: they cost fuel and hours, nobody pays for them, and the loads on either side have to cover them.

How do I find a return load after delivering cars?

Before you unload, search for loads picking up within 50 to 150 miles of your drop and, to head home, delivering near your base. Compare them by what they net after the empty miles to the pickup, not by the rate, and save the lane so new postings reach you.

Is there a free load board with backhaul loads for car haulers?

The loadez load board is free for one truck, forever. Brokers and shippers post car hauling loads on it free, and carriers can search a lane by pickup and delivery with a radius and save it with alerts. Anyone can browse it at tools.loadez.ai/owner/load-board; broker contacts open after a free sign-up.

Can I get alerts when a load posts on my lane?

On loadez, yes: save a lane search and choose today only, 7 days or permanent. New loads on that lane show up in your loadez notification bell with the count and the first three loads, on every plan including Free.

What percentage of truck miles are empty?

ATRI's 2025 edition of An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, on 2024 data, put empty miles at an average of 16.7 percent for the carriers it surveyed. Its 2026 edition, on 2025 data, says deadhead mileage remained elevated.