The Dead Zone

A lot of times in the “Auto Transport of the Day” we refer to the dead zone. We’ve tried to explain it in those posts but we get so many questions about it we figured we’d just put out a post solely to explain the dreaded dead zone.

Dead zones are areas where it is extremely hard to find a carrier to pick up or drop off your car at. Or an area where it is extremely expensive to get your car picked up from or dropped off at. Usually the easiest way to deal with a dead zone is to meet your driver at the nearest hot spot (the opposite of a dead zone). If that’s not a possibility then the next best option is to raise the price until carriers simply can’t say no to moving your car. Neither of these are very convenient but the dead zone is not about convenience.

When we say dead zone we are strictly speaking about dead zones in terms of auto transport. Certain cities are very popular and have a large population but for whatever reason they are an auto transport dead zone. The biggest and most notorious dead zone is in the midwest. This is the largest dead zone in the continental United States and it covers Montana, Wyoming, certain parts of Idaho, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and some of Minnesota. When someone refers to THE dead zone then this is the one they are talking about.

The only two other areas of note would be New England’s dead zone covering Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont and the southern dead zone covering Alabama, Mississippi, and parts of Louisiana. Every state has a dead zone somewhere, even Florida, the most popular state for auto transport, has a dead zone around Tallahassee and right down the middle under Orlando.

Just because your car is in a dead zone doesn’t mean you should lose hope. If you are flexible then your car will eventually get picked up. Carriers will wait for customers to pile up and once they feel they can be profitable running the route then they will go and pick up those cars. Just be realistic about price. If you are in a dead zone you will never get your vehicle moved for pennies, expect to pay the going rate and a little extra.