Bobtail

Bobtail describes the tractor alone. Deadhead describes a tractor pulling an empty trailer. Both are unpaid miles for the carrier, but they matter differently to a broker.

A carrier will bobtail to a shipper’s yard to pick up a preloaded trailer in a drop-and-hook operation, or bobtail home after dropping a trailer at a receiver. Because a bobtail tractor handles differently, insurers treat it as its own risk, and owner-operators leased to a carrier carry bobtail insurance (also called non-trucking liability) for the time they drive without a trailer and outside dispatch.

When a carrier quotes a rate, it is pricing the whole cycle: the bobtail or deadhead to reach the freight, the loaded miles, and the empty miles to the next load. A pickup that is 80 miles off the lane a carrier already runs is quoted higher for exactly that reason. Brokers who understand the cycle negotiate better than brokers who only see the loaded miles.