Trucking industry's hard times aren't hard enough?

Things are bad in the trucking industry, but they're not bad enough, an analyst said Monday.

Donald Broughton, an analyst with Avondale Partners, said 480 trucking companies went out of business in the first quarter. While that seems like a big number, Broughton said that many more truckers still need to fail to improve demand for the remaining players.

Those companies held a total of less than 1 percent of the country's total trucking capacity.

"This rate remains dramatically below the level established through third quarter of 2008, and roughly half what it was in the first quarter last year," Broughton said.

And even the remaining truckers are idling less of their fleets. Less than one-third the number of trucks were turned off in the first three months of the year than in the same period a year ago. Broughton believes that lower fuel prices saved many companies from going under.

"This is not a rate sufficient to offset the dramatic drop in demand that started in the fall of 2008, nor is it enough to offer any hope that the weakness in pricing will soon be over," he said.

Some trucking companies have been forced to slash their prices because there are still too many trucks going after too little freight.

Broughton estimates that more than 5 percent of trucks need to be plucked off the road before prices will stabilize, and trucking companies can see business get better.