usa truck or stevens or flatbed

[crjohn]

hey guys, i was wondering if you guys could help me out. im supposed to start stevens on the 30th but as of recent i've been reading more bad things about them. i've started to look into usa truck but i cant much about them. are they a good company, whats the ave miles like and there home time like? do they have good eq? i've also been wanting to get into flat bed but can find too many companys out there that will hire out of cali. right now i live in ga but will be moving back to cali in a few months. tmc doesnt hire out of the west coast at all. but i need to make money and will pull anything. i am fresh out of cdl school as well. any help guys? thanks, john

[countryhorseman]

you are going to hear bad about everyone! I started my career with Stevens 5 years ago, and had a great experience with them. The training they give is worth it, and at the end of your first year, if you think (emphasize think) you can apply at other outfits, and will be at the top of the hiring list. Why, Stevens' overall safety record is one of the best in the nation

Yes, you will spend 3 - 4 weeks out before you get home - that is in the bold print when you sign on.
Yes, you will spend time at produce docks, that take forever to load,
Yes, you will spend time sitting at places like Walmart, HEB, and other mega warehouses that take forever to load/unload,
Yes, you may get a great fleet manager, or you could get a real jerk. If you have an FM that you just cannot get along with, sit down in Mesquite with your safety manager, calmly and professionally express your issues, and they will try to get you with a better one.
Yes, you will get to spend time in the communist state of California (i.e. Truck Driver Hell)

Don't be a whiner every time you get a load you just do not like, or they are sending you the opposite direction of the house 2 days out. Get on the qualcomm with your FM and ask what is up, and if a re-power heading back home is in the works.There is a professional way to handle everything.

My situation was different than most, in that I qualified for the Alliance Fleet straight out. Had a little more flexibility in getting home, and TOOK Home, more than twice that of the company drivers. I had a kick ass FM, had a great truck, and kept me pretty much in the areas I wanted to run.
I made money in the Alliance Fleet because I managed my truck, my loads and my hometime like my business depended on it, because it did.

My experience with Stevens was above average compared to most, but that is because I made it that way, with the help of some good people at the main terminal.

Why did I leave, needed a couple of months at home to take care of my wedding, complete the purchase of our property and building out home. My experience with Stevens landed me a good job in the home area, that allowed me to be home almost every night.

Good Luck with you decision - tell Karen in Alliance that Louis said Hello!

OH, as far as USA Truck - there is good, bad, and then there is BAD! Had 2 close friends working with them for about 3 months, and they were sitting over 50% of the time, and this was when the freight was moving. But then again, had another friend, that lived in one of their main freight lanes that was loaded constantly.

Flatbed, Love it, but, you will need to get a year or so under you belt, and then be prepared to work. Stay away from Maverick's Lease Program. TMC has great equipment, training, and if you live north of I-20 and East of I-35 you can make some money with them. Looks like they are hiring again, and they will hire straight out of qualified school.

[gazoo64]

Ya gotta start somewhere. There is no great driving job. Thats why they call it work. I would go dry freight any day over reefer. Pulled one at Gordon Trucking. They were good to work for, but they run a lot of 5 year old tractors. Check them out if you are coming west. Look em up online.

[GMAN]

I would suggest that you postpone your move to California and stay in Georgia until you gain at least a year or more solid driving experience. Most carriers hire out of Georgia. Not all of them hire from California. It will likely be easier to get home living in Georgia rather than California. Once you get at least a year or two experience it will be much easier to find a job in other regions. There are some carriers that are based in the west but most will require some driving experience. When you first start out you will be on the road for longer periods of time than you will after a few months of experience.

[TruckinHax0r]

I started working at USA Truck out of school a little over 7 months ago. I do not like the company and never have. Being so new in the business, I stuck around this long thinking that some of my unhappiness may have just been ignorance about the trucking industry and that some may have been just bad luck. At any rate, I will try to stick with facts here. My personal average is pretty well under 2000 miles per week. I know of a few drivers who average a little bit over 2000 per week, and several who average below that. I have had entire months where I averaged over 3000 and others where I barely got over 1000. In all fairness, the average between the drivers I have talked to here wold probably be roughly 2000 miles/week. You will not get paid for all of the miles you drive, and I'm not sure how they calculate them, but I would expect to get paid for something like 90% of the miles you drive. If you have to drive 150 miles to pick up an empty trailer and 150 miles back to pick up a load 10 miles away, you will probably get paid for the 10 miles there. You might be able to get them to add the other miles into a later check with enough pushing, but you might not. We all get a lot of short runs (under 200 miles) but that's probably not all that uncommon anywhere. It's not much of a big deal really, either, except when you get stuck for 5-6 hours at one of the shippers/consignees. They won't pay you anything for that lost time when that happens, either. I've had 3 different fleet managers. None of them were terrible. The one I have now is pretty nice. He tries to get me good loads and he gets me home within a day or two of when I request to be there. I've never talked to another driver here whose fleet manager does as well at getting them home "on time" as mine. Most of the guys I talk to get home within about a week of their requested date if they are lucky.

My main problem has been with the equipment. The first truck they gave me had electrical problems where the dashboard would malfunction and all the gauges would stop working and then warning lights would start flashing and alarms would go off all the time. I'd take it into a terminal for them to fix it and they would basically look at it and say "it isn't doing it now, so it must have fixed itself". I got the impression that they thought I was making it up. One day at one of their terminals it was doing it so much that I managed to share the experience with every mechanic on duty that day. They said they would take it to the dealership and then the next day, when it wasn't doing it, some other mechanic came over and pulled on a few wires and said it was fixed. Needless to say, it was not. Te next time I took it to a terminal they did pretty much the same thing but then they actually did take it to the dealership and gave me another truck. It ran great and I made some money with it, and then they made me switch trucks again because they said they had sold the one I was driving. I was given my current truck which has some kind of engine problem where it shuts down while I'm driving and also has an automatic transmission that has some kind of mechanical problems as well. It's been to the shop quite a few times and they work on it and it never gets fixed. The engine usually runs good for a few days after being in the shop. Nobody has even investigated the transmission problems, and they get worse every day. Somewhere in the ballpark of 3/4 drivers I've talked to here have a lot of problems with their trucks too. The mechanics at the terminals aren't really mechanics at all but more like grease monkeys. Trying to get a problem fixed is pretty useless. I guess basically the point here is that if you are lucky and get one of the trucks that has no problems you might be fine, but if you get one with problems, you might as well forget about getting it fixed unless it just needs some brakes or tires or something like that.

All in all, the miles are not very good, you won't get paid on all of them, they will probably try to force you to run illegal but they won't fire you or anything when you refuse, the equipment isn't very well maintained, and you probably won't get home when you want to get there. And after 7 months of experience I would say that this is probably pretty much what you could expect from an entry-level OTR mega-carrier, and they are probably far from being the worst. Now that I have over 6 months of experience it seems that I have a few more options. I'm looking for one that can get me into a good runnning truck and give me some miles to run. I haven't decided on one yet, but I have a few possibilities. Seems like the ones that require 6 months minimum are better than the ones that hire anyone, which makes sense...

One thing I can say is that there is really no future here, unless you want to be a trainer. As a trainer they will treat you better, get you into a better truck, pay you better, etc. I wouldn't say it's good pay or anything, but if you would enjoy training new drivers it would probably be enough to live on at least. The companies that hire people right out of school are pretty much good for getting some experience and not much of anything else, it seems.

Sorry for the long post. I don't know if it was much help, but I tried to provide you with the information you asked for without being too critical (my own experiences are not everyone's).

...and then I saw how long ago you posted this. Oh well, it's here for whoever is interested in the future now. Good luck to you anyway!

-hax