Stevens Transport, I call BULLS**T

[Blind Driver]

I'm calling bulls**t :dung: on Steven's Transport.

We had recruiter in class today telling us how Steven's Transport was the best company to go work for .

He was telling us they have a driver getting 4500 miles a week :shock:.
4500 miles...whatever

Then he started pushing their Lease-Purchase program at us. A responsible company would not puch that program at a rookie driver with only 45 days behind him.
He then started to tell us that one of their drivers made $275,000 last year . Oh when will the bulls**t :dung: end?

I wonder what the school's staff will say when I tell them about the recruiter pushing the lease-purchase program at us? Which is a BIG no no where I am. That's why JB Hunt isn't allowed on the property 8)

This guy kept conterdicting himself every 5 minutes.

Anyone have any experience with this company. I was going to apply with them, but their recruiter scared me off 8)

[Rawlco]

He was telling us they have a driver getting 4500 miles a week .
4500 miles...whatever

Not technically impossible in the recruiters mind, because 70 hours at 65 miles per hour is 4550 miles. I highly doubt that you could get even close to that at Stevens. They run refers I think?

A fleece-purchase operator running team could take in $275,000 gross before expenses. Each driver might get to keep five grand after expenses, maybe. :shock:

The only way remotely possible to run 4500 miles a week as a solo driver would be 100% drop an hook with no more than 15 minutes in between loads and really long runs where you could keep your average speed up to 65 +

And even if you COULD do that, you could not do it consistently every week without being illegal. If you ran into your 70 one week, your 34 hour restart would just take a chunk out of the next week.

Im sure out of all the bottom-feeder companies out there, Steven's aint the worst one, and if I were forced to go with a company like that I think I would rather go with them instead of Werner, Swift, CRE, JB, etc.

But it aint the first time I've heard of a recruiter that come by and say some BS that actually backfires and makes the company look worse than it is.

Of all the crap we've heard out here about Steven's pretty much the worst of it was from people that werent happy about the way they handled their school / orientation, but if you got your CDL from somewhere else and dont need their indentured servant program, its probably not a totally bad deal.

[SemiCrazy]

4500 miles a week solo? I highly doubit it. Now, you may get that if you're a lease operator/trainer and don't mind running teams with some noob. Not to mention never going home unless you want to owe the company money.

Tyson is their biggest customer. Most of time you will be hauling Tyson product. Here's the thing, Tyson will hire students out of certain schools. If you qualify go to Tyson and make a lot more money starting off.

[BanditsCousin]

3500 a week is possible and doable if its drop and hook, 4500 is VERY easy to obtain...as a team. As far as the $275,000...hahahha, I'd laugh in his face. A team operation can run probably 220,000 miles driving hardcore and doing favors for the dispatcher. Keep in mind, they pay less than $1 a mile as well, but as long as drivers get a Kenworth they are happy :shock:

[Rawlco]

And even if you COULD do that, you could not do it consistently every week without being illegal. If you ran into your 70 one week, your 34 hour restart would just take a chunk out of the next week.

Sorry to disagree Banshee, but 70 working hours plus a 34 hour reset is doable every 6 days. If you come on duty at midnight monday after a 34 hour reset and you work on-duty/driving 14 hours and off duty 10 hours in every 24 hour period. 14 on Monday, 14 on Tuesday, 14 on Wednesday, 14 on Thursday, 14 on Friday for a total of 70 hours. Take the 34 hour reset from 2 pm Friday until 11:59 pm Saturday. This gives you the ability to work another 14 hours on Sunday. This gives you 66 driving hours and 18 on duty not driving hours per week every week in theory. If you want hometime thrown in there randomly it will throw off these numbers. This also depends on having the available miles and loads to make this work.

[scott4m]

Oh come on. Who in there right mind would even attempt to drive like that. It's suicide.

[Blind Driver]

The recruiter seemed like a used car salesman :evil:

I've written off Steven's completely now :wink:

Rawlco I hate to argue with you, as you are clearly much much more experienced in this than I am, and I whole-heartedly respect that, but even managing your schedule as you have suggested would require an average speed in excess of 68 miles an hour during that period of time in order to hit that 4500 miles. I will contend that if it is possible, it is not possible totally legal.

[9ball]

i got 4100 miles one week at PAM and as i recall i didn't think it was that hard.but you will need to take a restart into the next week if you're going to stay on the road.

[9ball]

If you ran into your 70 one week, your 34 hour restart would just take a chunk out of the next week.

.

nope.
i took two restarts working at pam and they worked out awesome. you just can't make it 48 or 50 hours you know...

[PackRatTDI]

I'm calling bulls**t :dung: on Steven's Transport.

We had recruiter in class today telling us how Steven's Transport was the best company to go work for .

He was telling us they have a driver getting 4500 miles a week :shock:.
4500 miles...whatever

Then he started pushing their Lease-Purchase program at us. A responsible company would not puch that program at a rookie driver with only 45 days behind him.
He then started to tell us that one of their drivers made $275,000 last year . Oh when will the bulls**t :dung: end?

I wonder what the school's staff will say when I tell them about the recruiter pushing the lease-purchase program at us? Which is a BIG no no where I am. That's why JB Hunt isn't allowed on the property 8)

This guy kept conterdicting himself every 5 minutes.

Anyone have any experience with this company. I was going to apply with them, but their recruiter scared me off 8)

I worked for them around 8 years ago. The lease purchase program was in it's infancy as was their owner operator division. I never talked to a recruiter, I was hired through the truck driving school they were affiliated with in Sunland Park, NM. I sent out applications to Werner and Stevens and Stevens got back to me first.

I went through the school in Feb 1998 and they paid for us to fly out from El Paso to Dallas (I hear they don't fly people anymore) and the rest is history. I had to quit in 2000 due to health reasons so I can't say that I'd still be driving for them today or not. I was satisfied back in 1998-2000. I don't know how much they've changed since then.

[Rawlco]

Rawlco I hate to argue with you, as you are clearly much much more experienced in this than I am, and I whole-heartedly respect that, but even managing your schedule as you have suggested would require an average speed in excess of 68 miles an hour during that period of time in order to hit that 4500 miles. I will contend that if it is possible, it is not possible totally legal.

You are exactly right with this. I was only pointing out in my previous post that you can log more than 70 hours in a week and forgot to calculate about the 4500 miles. Thank you for catching my mistake.

With a different method of logging that will totally screw with your circadian rythms and sleep cycles you can log 77 driving/drivable hours in a week. Please note that this is crazy as Scott4m pointed out, and I do not condone it, but I like to play with the math :wink:
Starting Monday at midnight log 11 hours driving or on duty. Follow this with 10 hours off duty, and then 11 more driving or on duty. This makes for all of your duty hours drivable in theory, except for pre-trips/fueling/drop and hook time. Continue this for 6 driving/duty periods seperated by 5 ten hour off-duty periods. At 8 pm Friday you will have logged 66 hours and you could drive during up to 64.75 of them. 34 hour reset from 8pm friday til 6 am Sunday, and then start another 11 hour duty/driving period. This gives a possible 77 duty hours for 7 days, with 75.5 of them drivable given optimum conditions. 75 hours at 60 miles per hour will get you 4500 miles being 100% legal with the hours of service. Some companies may not allow logging at 60 miles per hour, and it is extremely unlikely that the freight would ever work out properly to do this. I do not recommend this because making your body conform to a 21 hour day/cycle will increase your fatigue level.

I am not standing up for the recruiter in this matter. I just like to play with the hours of service rules and the loopholes in them. :wink:

[9ball]

i don't see what the problem is --

65 mph multiplied by 70 hours = 4550 miles.
70 hours is 10 hours a day for seven days so why can you not log 4500 miles in one week?
lets say you were in the southwest and texas all week. you could log 65 or 70mph.. :?:

[fireman932003]

9ball, you have tons of factors that come into play here. It is not as simple as 10 hrs a day 7 days a week. You have to take into account loading and unloading, traffic delays, breakdowns, customer delays and such. Once you put all those other factors into the equation, you will have a completely new ball game.

[thisisamazing]

I don't know much about Stevens myself... but i know a guy back in the old neighborhood that went with them. He's an Asian guy... but this is Houston, and ethnic stereotypes go out the window here. This is a big guy, maybe 6', with one hell of a Southern drawl, y'all...

I saw him when I went on my hometime, and he had me howling with talk of some of the stuff he did. Heck, he didn't need to tell me anything: we sat outside talking for maybe three or four hours, watching his truck idle in the parking lot across the street. He said he never, ever turned the thing off--not when he stopped to take a shower, not for meal breaks... not even when he'd go on hometime! He said he got messages constantly from the fuel department about his truck being on 100% percent of the time, and he said he averages about three miles a gallon. I have no idea what he has against Stevens--all I know is that they turned the nicest guy in SW Houston against them. It was frickin' hilarious to see this guy's revenge idling away in the HEB parking lot :-)

[knightwolf71477]

I think the best week I had while driving OTR is about 4200 miles in a week with the HOS that they changed over to a few years ago. And that was with a Pete that could turn triple digits, though I never ran it that fast. I think a more realistic mileage for a week in a 65 mph truck and a rookie driver would be about 3000 miles for the week and I think that would be pushing a rookie kind of hard, considering that they yet have to leard how to pace themselves. Also they are still trying to figure that industry out. I know when I first started driving I was as happy as a pig in poop when I got up to running 2500 mile regularly. Of course now I am doing 2000 miles a week and still making $1200 a week and home everynight.

[PackRatTDI]

I don't know much about Stevens myself... but i know a guy back in the old neighborhood that went with them. He's an Asian guy... but this is Houston, and ethnic stereotypes go out the window here. This is a big guy, maybe 6', with one hell of a Southern drawl, y'all...

I saw him when I went on my hometime, and he had me howling with talk of some of the stuff he did. Heck, he didn't need to tell me anything: we sat outside talking for maybe three or four hours, watching his truck idle in the parking lot across the street. He said he never, ever turned the thing off--not when he stopped to take a shower, not for meal breaks... not even when he'd go on hometime! He said he got messages constantly from the fuel department about his truck being on 100% percent of the time, and he said he averages about three miles a gallon. I have no idea what he has against Stevens--all I know is that they turned the nicest guy in SW Houston against them. It was frickin' hilarious to see this guy's revenge idling away in the HEB parking lot :-)

If it's so bad for him, why doesn't he quit?

[9ball]

9ball, you have tons of factors that come into play here. It is not as simple as 10 hrs a day 7 days a week. You have to take into account loading and unloading, traffic delays, breakdowns, customer delays and such. Once you put all those other factors into the equation, you will have a completely new ball game.

no i do understand- i am a truck driver. let's say you get long loads with good stops....4000 miles a week is not that hard if they give you the miles to run.

[Skywalker]

i don't see what the problem is --

65 mph multiplied by 70 hours = 4550 miles.
70 hours is 10 hours a day for seven days so why can you not log 4500 miles in one week?

Here's why: Every time you begin a new day....you are required by the FMCSR's to do a "pre-trip" inspection. All time doing said inspection must be logged on line 4. Even if you only show 15 minutes for the inspection ...you are using up 1 hour and 45 minures in a 7 day period.

Now, in the event that you have someone tell you that you don't have to show any time for pre-trip inspections..they are only half right, because if you don't show it, the only way its going to get by the DOT or a safety audit is if you show the time on the post-trip. Failing to do it on one or the other.....is gonna get you burned and cost you big $$ for a log violation and the fines will be assessed for EACH violation. So if you get nailed for 7 violations....you could be looking at $3500.00...or more, just to get out of the scalehouse. If the offense is determined to be "egregious"....a judge can assess a fine of $11,000.00 and suspend your CDL.

Then, every time that you fuel, get loaded, get unloaded, do a drop and hook you are also required to go on line 4 and show those times as well. If you run 3 loads a week, then you are expending another 1 hour and 30 minutes. So....at a minimum you will have used up 3 hours and 15 minutes. So now you are down to 66.75 hours of driving time. Then add in the fueling times.... at least 45 minutes a week...now you are down to 66 hours.

The further problem is that you will have to do a real "song and dance routine" to convince someone that you "averaged 65 mph" for the whole 66 hours....something nearly impossible. Plus you would have to start and stop exactly on the quarter, half or full hours. And you'd best have a truck set at 70 mph, and have a real serious and sincere demeanor about you.... the DOT Officers that you will encounter are not stupid, nor are they fools.

They also have computer programs that they can plug your stops into and those programs know the speed limits just like my programs....and if you have logged 65 across roads with lower speed limits....you just bought yourself a speeding ticket....even if it happened in a different state, because the Fed granted the states DOT's to do it.

Now what is important to remember is this: You are permitted 70 hours in an EIGHT day period..... once you have expended the 70 hours you are going to pick up a ZERO at midnite....so you will sit for 24 hours before you pick up any hours to run.

lets say you were in the southwest and texas all week. you could log 65 or 70mph.. :?:

Maybe, maybe not. If you read the paragraphs above, you would have part of the answer. Beyond that, lets say you are wandering around AZ, and your route shows you coming from the east through NM on I-40 then climbing up to Flagstaff....and right there...in the rest area just past Flagstaff on I-40, you get pulled in by DOT....he looks at your logbook, then looks at your bills...you've got 46,000 lbs of goodies in the box.... its quite possible you've got a serious problem on your hands trying to sell that "65mph" "average speed".....

Folks, other than that....I've logged 7981 miles in FIFTEEN days, and while its only 532 miles per day average....it wasn't easy, it was grueling and given the fact that it involved multiple loads, weird pickup times, weird delivery times, some waiting time.....it was actually "brutal". I called for a shutdown of at least a day....just to sleep and rest. I have quite a bit of stamina doing this....but even I know when to holler "Uncle". Stamina to do this requires alot of acclimation to the job, and being used to having your circadian rythyms all screwed up and being able to live with it. Also being able to sleep on demand...without regard to where or when. And on top of it all....keep your logbook straight.

Besides, maintaining a high average speed means being able to keep the left door closed for a lot of hours.....and its harder to do than you think.

Keep it right, keep it legal, and log it like you drive it!! In the end, if you screw up and have an accident...there is a very high likelihood you will get sued, and the lawyer suing you is going to get the last six months of your logs to examine...they will be "dissected" minute by minute, the fuel stops crosschecked and all the rest....and if his auditors find errors...the least of your worries willbe the LEO's....your big problem will be the judge and jury in a civil court that is going to nail you to the wall and take your income for the next 20 to 50 years to pay off a judgement caused by your foolishness or stupidity....and on top of that....kiss your CDL goodby.