Unlike open or enclosed transportation, which you can basically pick between depending on your budget and what you’re shipping and your timetable, flatbed auto transportation is used only as a last resort for vehicles that cannot fit onto the back of a standard auto transport carrier. This includes anything that is too tall, heavy, wide or long to fit on a standard carrier, and there are several reasons why flatbed shipping is not an on-demand method of shipping, starting with how scarce they are. Flatbed shipping is a niche service – most vehicles will fit on an auto transport carrier just fine, but the problem is that some vehicles can’t, but the number of those vehicles that cannot fit on a standard truck being shipped are not nearly as robust as regular vehicles, so there is naturally less demand for flatbed transport.
Of course, when demand goes down, supply typically goes down, which means that there are fewer flatbed shippers on the road mainly because there are fewer vehicles being shipped that need them. This also makes flatbed shippers more expensive, as they have to haul heavier loads, and less of them at a time; this means that they need to increase how much they charge to transport a vehicle in order to keep their trucks fueled and maintained and operating at peak efficiency. Your auto transport representative will let you know whether or not flatbed shipping will be required for your vehicle, and they will adjust their quote accordingly if they need to.
