Truck Driving Jobs

zzzzoooeee · Joined: 13 Jul 2006 Posts: 8 Location: pittsburgh, PA.

Hey guys I'm out of school and need some opinions,thanks.

Maximum Destruction · Joined: 29 Jul 2006 Posts: 219 Location: Southern IL

NERO · Joined: 22 May 2006 Posts: 10

Di you graduate from PIA west mifling?
I'm from pittsburgh too and I graduate few month ago in PIA. I tried to applied for watkins and shepard but ... the lady told me that they couldn't asept me because they only asept people with 40 hour behind the weel and I haved just 20 hours so I guees they have specifics schools to hire students.

I'm finishing my orientation with TMC and everything is good so far

Good place in des moines .good people. good equipment (truck with 13 speed transmition) and I ready to go.

sorry for my gramatic

nero

Skullitor · Joined: 18 Oct 2005 Posts: 928 Location: Your Sisters Room

U.S.Express is a good outfit.But they use Autoshifts not standard trannies.
A lot of people like the autoshifts,And more and more fleets are buying them.Keep away from Lease-Operators OR OWNER Operator until YOU KNOW THE BUSINESS WELL!
Good Luck.
Skull 8)

Crackaces · Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 1343

The first thing you have to determine is your desired equipment, salary, miles, home time and company culture.

Watkins Shepard:

A LTL Furniture and Carpet carrier that is a Medium Size company with a small company mind set. They do broker loads to get into position to haul furniture and carpet.

Positives:

They pay routed hub miles. You will get paid on any approved deviation but do not expect to be paid for the jaunt to grandma's house.

Orientation is a qualifying course for a newbie. No trainer just pass the 10 day course and they hand the keys to you.

Rarely hear from HQ.

Negatives:

First come first serve dispatch. I prefer having a Driver Manager. But since the rest of the company aligns I continue to work hard.

Not much traffic going to Phoenix so I am on the road 6 weeks a shot. OTR Drivers out of LA get home the most often. But one sign about Home time is the lack of a home-time QCOMM macro. Instead when you get routed home you just say you are unavailable. Dispatch is not measured on getting drivers home at all.

Maybe a Girlnammedshannon might comment on US Express.

uglymutt · Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject:

down side to watkins shepard is they slip seat the truck and you have to pull doubles all the time...... slip seat means your not the only driver, someone else drives the truck when you don't, so I would think twice or 3 times before going with them.... USX is a girly company, they pay the lowest in the industry and all the trucks are auto shift so girls can drive them..

GirlnamedShannon · Joined: 14 Feb 2004 Posts: 356

I wouldn't say that US Xpress is a girly company as less than ten percent of their over 7,000 drivers are female.

They do pay on a sliding scale but it's by no means the lowest pay in the industry. They have 98% no touch freight so you can make money driving, not lumping and most of their loads are drop and hook so again, you're on the road more than you're sitting in a dock or grocery warehouse waiting to be loaded or unloading your own truck.

USX offers great benefits and hometime and while it can be a pain in the ass at times when dealing with or working for a large company, the benefit is that everybody has a boss and there is a clear chain of command if a problem arises. They have good equipment that is well maintained and unlike many companies, it doesn't take an act of Congress to get your truck repaired if there is a problem. They don't expect you to run illegal or pressure you to outwork the hours of service.

USX isn't perfect by any means but it's a pretty fair company with good equipment, hometime, pay and benefits.

Crackaces · Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 1343

uglymutt wrote: down side to watkins shepard is they slip seat the truck and you have to pull doubles all the time...... slip seat means your not the only driver, someone else drives the truck when you don't, so I would think twice or 3 times before going with them.... USX is a girly company, they pay the lowest in the industry and all the trucks are auto shift so girls can drive them..

Uglymutt ...

You are confusing Watkins Motor Freight with Watkins Shepard Trucking . This is an easy mistake since you have never drove for either company.

Watkins Shepard does not slip seat the OTR fleet unless you take a leave of absence. The local fleet does exchange the daycabs but really there is no ownership there ...

Watkins Shepard does have a rocky mountain doubles fleet. This has 5 very experienced drivers that are paid a premium to haul paper from Canada to Washington and Montana. This a a Primo job that gets the driver home almost every other day.

I am thinking your comment on USX being a "Girly" fleet is referring to automatic transmissions. I would have to share a different opinion that shifting a manual transmission is more mainly than driving an automatic. My value system places higher definitions of what is "Manly" and what is "Girly." Like "spitting out" kids (a very painful task I understand -- much more painful and inconvenient than driving automatic transmissions) and raising them to be honest, intelligent, mature, and caring men is a "Girly" Job.

As a Watkins Shepard driver I have no problem with you commenting with your strong opinions having never drove for Watkins Shepard -- but you should expect a strong repsonse pointing out the ignorance of the statements when you expose yourself like that.

BigDawg · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 278

Well IMHO on USX they do not call them USELESS for nothing Nuff Said.

reindeermd · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 5 Location: California

Curious Crackaces...You seem to know alot...we are about to sign up for a school, and are terrified of ending up with a bad company...we are not expecting perfection, but just decent treatment. We were thinking about CRST, but between the message boards (everywhere, not just here) and even a recruiter at Knight Trans. we decided against it. Do you have any recommendations? Watkins Shepard was on our list to research, as well as Swift, England and Werner...PS...I would really like to find a company where we dont have to drive into New York...I will give up hometime and all my holidays, but I am worried about NYC...thank you in advance for your help! Ginny

fr8shaker · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 15 Location: OTR

BigDawg wrote: Well IMHO on USX they do not call them USELESS for nothing Nuff Said.

What exactly is the problem with US. True, their pay may not be the best in the industry, however, I have found a company that treats me fairly and
honestly. They give me what they tell me; they get me home when I want;
they give me enuf time to deliver my load in a timely fashion.

Yes, the trannies are auto, but if you work the tranny in mannual you can do with it as you need, but without clutching.

US is a good starter company.

FR8

reindeermd · Joined: 02 Sep 2006 Posts: 5 Location: California

Thank you for all the feedback...we ended up signing up at a private school, and we love it...we are taking our time, no rush...we are already in a truck learning skills. A couple of truck companies have come to recruit...Werner sounded really good, especially for teams...Ashley and Schneider are coming at the end of the month...any knowledge on those two? Thanks again.

Malaki86 · Joined: 28 Aug 2004 Posts: 1976 Location: West Virginia

USX is a good company, but it's by far from the lowest paid company in the industry. Also, it's not mostly drop and hook. When I was there, I had about 15% drop and hook, did 1 unload (which I chose to do to get the $ instead of a lumper), and had to sit at many a grocery warehouse dock.

If you think shifting gears vs driving an automatic truck makes you more of a driver, you're sadly mistaken. Sure, the truck shifts gears for you, but is it going to take that 120 degree right hand turn onto a 1 lane road for you in the middle of the night when it's raining? Nope. Is the truck going to take over the braking and steering while coming across Snoqualmie pass during a snowstorm? Nope.

The only thing it will do is shift gears. Hate to tell you this, my 16yr old daughter can shift gears.

That said, yeah, I'd recommend USX, but not to a newbie driver. The only reason I won't recommend a newbie to go to USX is that hey should get experience shifting gears, just in case they decide to go elsewhere.

flyncasafo · Joined: 20 Feb 2004 Posts: 22

Quote: USX is a girly company, they pay the lowest in the industry and all the trucks are auto shift so girls can drive them..

I like girls. :D Can I team with them at USX?

Tumbleweed · Joined: 14 Oct 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Bishopville, SC

There are a lot of good companies and finding one wont be a problem. However, be prepared to be out 2 weeks at a time. Some companies will get you to the house on the weekends, but, it almost always means less miles and a smaller check. As far as companies go, check out Heartland Express. They have OTR and regional lanes and the pay is about as good as it gets for company drivers. (.50cpm)

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